AFRICA - Day of Vocations: for the Comboni Missionaries "good witness is contagious"

Saturday, 24 April 2021 vocations   local churches   missionary institutes  

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - "Africa is a continent of hope as regards to vocations to the consecrated Comboni missionary life. It is a moment of blessing as it was for Europe after the Second World War", said Fr. Elias Essognimam Sindjalim, Secretary General for the formation of Comboni Missionaries (MCCJ), in an interview with Agenzia Fides.

Can you give us an overview of the situation of Comboni vocations?

This year we have thirty-seven novices who will make their first profession in May: 8.1% come from Asia, almost 19% from America and 72.9% are African.
Theology students and brothers in the final stage of basic formation are 147 in this formative year 2020-2021. 86.39% are African, 2.04% are Asian, 10.88% are American and 0.68% European. Of these 147 students, 10% are made up of non-priest religious, brothers. It is important to underline that we are an institute of priests and brothers who carry out complementary ministries in the mission. The Comboni circumscriptions (provinces and delegations) that register the highest numbers of candidates and young people in formation in Africa are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo-Ghana-Benin, Mozambique, Malawi-Zambia, Uganda. Lately the numbers have been growing in South Sudan and Kenya.

In what contexts do vocations flourish?

In the history of the institute, the first African vocations came almost exclusively from the parishes and social works of the Comboni missionaries. But things have changed, by now the young people who ask to become Comboni also come from non-Comboni parishes because of globalization, but above all as the result of the missionary animation service carried out through missionary magazines and the vocational promotion on which our institute has invested as well as by the social ministries.
Most of them come from living Churches, where they have the testimony of many consecrated persons (Comboni or non) and of lay people who encourage them to choose religious life. Some say that Africans enter religious life because of poverty. I think that the real humus for vocations is the liveliness and vitality of the African local Churches, in which young people find a space for the growth of their faith. Even if this motivation for flight from poverty may exist in some candidates, it is purified in the long Comboni formative process.

What drives a young African to become a Comboni priest and missionary today?

The first cause is undoubtedly the life of faith that they live in families and local Churches, with their vitality and vivacity, as I said before. Where there is a life of faith, the Spirit is at work, and only a young person who is immersed in this life of faith can listen to the voice of God who calls him to set out on a vocational journey. The second reason is the testimony of life and mission of so many missionaries who are engaged in Africa. Many young people tell us “I want to be a missionary”, even without knowing everything regarding what it means to be a Comboni missionary. Good testimony is contagious. The third point is the social impact of missionary charitable works. In many African countries it is the social ministry of the Church (in schools, hospitals, centers for human promotion, justice, peace and integrity of creation, etc.) that saves the lives of so many people every day in a concrete way.

What challenges arise in this situation of abundance of vocations?

If vocations are a blessing, they are also a responsibility. The fact that in the face of the large numbers of candidates one has to deal with the responsibility for the quality of formation and for living the commitments of religious life throughout one's life. For this reason there are many challenges, as an example I cite the four most important. The first challenge is to discern vocations well, to accompany them and to train them to live the commitments of religious life throughout their lives. Over the past ten years, the institute has invested a lot in personnel and financial means to prepare formators and vocational promoters. The 2009 Chapter made the choice of the educational model of integration (integrating all the energies and dimensions of the person's life around the vital center which is Christ) as a model to follow in the accompaniment and formation of our candidates. For this reason, in recent years, formators and vocational promoters have been formed in this model, making use mainly of the school for formators of the Gregorian University, of the Salesian University and also of the schools for formators of alumni of the Institute of Psychology of the Gregorian university which are found in different continents. Some have also organized continental formation assemblies to carry out ongoing formation with formators and promoters and discuss together the problems of formation trying to contextualize it. The second challenge is the economic aspect, because it is necessary to adapt the formation structures to the growing numbers, invest in quality studies and have the necessary financial means to support the candidates and formators in the houses of formation. For the moment this challenge is being addressed thanks to the solidarity of the circumpscriptions of Europe and the USA and Canada. But there are also self-sustaining initiatives that are growing in the big cities where we work. The third challenge is that of interculturality, which has always been the most important challenge of our Institute because since its foundation it has been called to give witness to the Church's catholicity by forming international and intercultural communities in mission. This challenge is faced by structuring formation in Novitiates, Scholasticates and Formation Centers for Brothers with internationality. The formation projects are conceived with the aim of helping candidates to move from multiculturalism to interculturality, from a national or continental to a Catholic mentality, which embraces the fact that in Jesus Christ we are all brothers. The fourth challenge is to form for mission today. Living in a "liquid" society, one can fall into the temptation to think that mission is everywhere and forget the specifics of the Comboni mission which is the mission ad gentes, ad vitam, ad pauperes. Young people can find it hard to live what the Comboni Missionaries call the difficult mission, the mission of the periphery. For this reason, preparation for the mission is always on the horizon of the entire formation process. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 24/4/2021)


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