Comboni Machinery?

A month ago, I came back from my holidays, and here I am, moving up and down in the mission. While I was moving in many different places in the Philippines and the United Kingdom, I developed the admiration for nature, for people and friendships, for so many other things, which were truly pleasurable.

Now in the mission, I am ruminating, like a cow, constantly chewing the grass even in its resting mood. As I have said, I was constantly struggling in my first two weeks, though it was winter, I was struggling of the heat during the day and coldness in the night, I had fever and flu always. I just described it as “psychological fever.”

I am back to myself! I engaged myself into works a commitments. Last week (August 9th-14th) was really tiring. The Youth Rally 2011 drained my energy, taking care of almost 200 young people, organizing programs etc. But it has a reward, my inner joy and satisfaction. I promised to myself that I would never get angry even when things would go wrong. My silence really helped me, to stay calm and serene.

I love our simple prayers, very spontaneous. With little bit of creativity on our adoration time, we managed to stay in real silence, challenging them to pray. I love the end of our prayer rally. We sat down all together in the hall. I asked them to spread their “chitenjis”, a traditional piece of cloth (2meters), which they normally used to cover themselves. In the centre, I laid a big cloth; put a big crucifix, red stole (martyrdom), Comboni scarf, chalice and paten, Bible and many pictures of realities in the world. I also lit a lot of candles. We had our prayer together sitting around. Then there was complete silence!

We put our right hand on the shoulder to the person at the right, then to the left. Then we raised our hands to pray for each other. Another complete silence! Then I presented to them the reality - many of them are results of broken families, fathers left them for another woman, or mothers for another husband. Many of them grew in the hands of very old, sickly and vulnerable grandparents. We prayed for each one of them, especially for members who died because of other illnesses as HIV AIDs or TB etc.

Since we are celebrating the Year of the Family- Year of the Youth, all our themes are for these. I looked deeply of their facial expressions during their prayers just candidly with the light of the candles. I felt such a pity, touched by their family backgrounds and difficulties in life because of poverty.

We had a great celebration the following day, Sunday, as we celebrated a day for Mary. We have a life-size statue of Mary; we had procession and rosary, then the Mass. There was rejoicing and dancing! The most awaited one was the awarding of prizes for the sports competitions, Bible drills, Preaching, Poems, Bible Quiz, traditional dances and many more. The trophies were the season’s delights, which they have never experienced in their lives. The winners kissed the trophies as if they won the World Cup! We then shared food on the table (as we prepared as youth), pork, chicken, vegetables and beans, maize porridge, traditional maize drink. I bought some drinks and juices. It was really fun. I enjoyed a lot. I had a great time with the young people. I made me feel young again, hahahahaha!

As people were going home, I was drove to bring some to the villages. Suddenly, I felt this inner emptiness, for reasons that I couldn’t explain. My heart was really bleeding, because behind my joy and smiles was sadness. I was on the road ‘till 9:30PM, busy for the whole week and even at nights, no proper rest and timetable for eating. Probably, I was just so exhausted physically and mentally, and I still have many things to do, unaccomplished! I went straight to bed when I arrived.

Now I am very ok, 15th of August. Very early morning, I started working on the financial report of the parish ready for the meeting tomorrow. Then I had my students who are doing piece works and of course, my garden. I am very happy with all these movements anyway.

Life in the mission is like this, at times could become really demanding. But I always see to it that I won’t fall into “activism”, becoming a Comboni Machinery instead of being a Comboni Missionary.

I am making you bored maybe with my scattered thoughts, so I will end here for the moment. Talk to you soon in my next article. Keep me always in your prayers as I do for you.