Category: Frontline

I look out of the window and I see Jamil. He is a very lively small boy with extremely black eyes and hair, always well dressed. He arrives almost always first at the Comboni Sisters’ nursery school here, at Bethany. The window of my room looks on the area used as nursery for the children of the Palestinian village of Al Azaryia, at the foot of one of the many hills that rise along the way from Jerusalem to Jericho. We live right on the hilltop of this village that was once called Bethany by the Christians. Today, it is inhabited mostly by Muslims.   In the Gospel’s account, Bethany reminds us of the two sisters Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus, Jesus’ close friend. Here, Jesus saw the love and the tears shed for Lazarus by his two sisters, friends and relatives. And Jesus also cried (John 11:33-44). And thus, He brought Lazarus back to life… a sweet prelude of what would happen to Jesus Himself on the day of His resurrection. Let us imagine Lazarus’ feelings after he came back to life four days after his death. And goodness knows how he lived his life after realizing that he had come back to it because of his great friend, Jesus! Bethany is also Simon the leper’s village who, precisely in order to thank Jesus for his healing from leprosy, had invited Him with His disciples to have supper in his house. Here, a woman came into the room and poured unto Jesus’ head an alabaster vase full of expensive and fragrant nard oil. All the disciples were shocked by this “wastage” but Jesus reproached them saying that the poor would always be with them, but not He, Jesus. And that this anonymous woman’s gesture would remain forever in memory of her. She was doing nothing but anticipate the tradition of anointing with oil the bodies of the deceased for their burial. And Jesus was referring to His own death…(Matthew 26:6-13). In short, this little village of Bethany was the place of a great friendship of many people with Jesus. Many people were accustomed to seeing Jesus passing through the narrow village streets, because every time Jesus came to Jerusalem, he would pass by His friends to greet them. Bethany is very close to Jerusalem and even closer to the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives where Jesus lived the last moments of His agony and loneliness, before being arrested (Matthew 26:36-46). They are very important places for us, Christians, because they have written the history of Jerusalem, the Holy Land, Christianity and the entire world.   In the shadow of the wall Today, Bethany, once the friendship village, is called Al Azaryia and belongs to the Palestinian Autonomous Territory i.e. the area under the administration of a Palestinian government that is not, however, recognized as a sovereign state within the State of Israel. It’s a long story that I will perhaps tell you another time, but

I met the Comboni Missionaries in 1984. At that time, the Comboni magazines made us dream of a new way of being missionaries. Their brave denunciations, their unmistakable standpoints stirred our desire to work together to build a really new and more brotherly society, where spirituality doesn’t turn into an esthetic and anesthetic instrument at the service of the prevailing culture, but a communion with the Risen Christ, present in the people who are crucified by social injustices. My encounter with the experience of the Latin American and especially the Brazilian Church, through the GIM (Gioventú Impegno Missionario: Committed Missionary Youth) of Venegono was also another fundamental fact. To learn of an Episcopal Conference capable of putting the poor and the last ones at the center of evangelization stimulated us to discover new forms of service and action. For instance, the Conference uses fraternity campaigns that yearly propose a social theme to deepen and, at the same time, facilitate the synthesis between faith and life. This opens a way for a political participation of the Church in the service to the marginalized. These “seeds,” cultivated over several years of my theological and psychiatric formation, have today become fruits in the Bom Jardim (Good Garden) Communitarian Mental Health Movement (MSMCBJ). The Comboni Missionaries started their work at Fortaleza, the fifth major Brazilian city, with the formation of a group of Basic Ecclesial Communities (CEBs). The Bom Jardim Pastoral Area, an alternative proposal to the traditional parish model, has been a workshop of experiences that have stimulated the community leaders to take their responsibility as evangelization protagonists.   The burden of poverty and depression The activities of MSMCBJ started by welcoming and listening to people troubled by psychic and existential problems. The aim was to transform suffering into growth and wisdom of life. Mental health of people is one of the problems that, at present, worries the World Health Organization (WHO). Depression is considered the fourth most debilitating illness in the world and it is foreseen to become the second by 2030. The exponential growth of the use of psychotropic medicines, especially against anxiety, is another worrying factor. The economic, ecological and value crises produce a substratum that favors the development of several mental disturbances. The absence of adequate structures for accepting and treating such afflicted persons magnifies the size of the problem. Many people who have mental health disturbances may easily become prey to certain religious institutions and sects that promise spiritual healing against the devils who are thought to be responsible for the said diseases. How can we face the challenge of this new category of excluded people? How can we conjugate the psychiatric and psychological knowledge with the dimension of a spirituality that liberates and doesn’t close in by the fear of being possessed by a malign spirit? How can we stimulate the community to take an active part within the context of the public policies and convince the authorities of the urgency of the problem that requires adequate

Yesterday on one of my regular walks along the paths and byways around the place where I live here in Luanda – they call it “Mwitubwi” – ‘marshland’ in the local lingo – for the first time, this Advent season, I heard some children sing a Christmas carol somewhere in the distance. The words were in the local language but the tune was familiar. Yes, I know now, it is true, Christmas is near! And this morning, there she was again. Mama Josephine had quietly crept onto our veranda clutching little Sophie in her arms. About three months ago she came to see me for the first time. She had found this little baby on a rubbish heap near the market in Luanda, she told me, and her heart had melted at the sight. A note from the local social worker served as proof of the veracity of what she said. And could I assist her with a few shillings to buy some milk? I tried to persuade her to entrust the baby to a local orphanage, but she was adamant she would like to raise this fragile little dollop of humanity herself – with a little assistance. And so she calls in every few weeks. Sophie is prospering, by the looks of it, and she beams a radiant smile at me when I come closer. Maybe it is a little too easy to make comparisons with the Christmas infant, but for me the distance between this little foundling and the child in the crib in Bethlehem is not so big. “Emmanuel” – an experience of heaven on earth – after all signifies that you can find traces of God in every human experience, most of all when words fail. Francis of Assisi, who ‘invented’ and popularized the Christmas crib more than 800 years ago wanted to show, above all, where true happiness lies – not in having a lot of things, but in feeling loved by the Lord, in making oneself a gift for others, in loving. That happiness I wish all of you, this Christmas!   African tradition For most people here in Kenya, Christmas is first and foremost a family celebration. Spouses, who at times are away for months for reasons of work, in the capital Nairobi or elsewhere, come home. Children who have flown from the nest, away at school or have left home for some other reason, flutter back to the parental homestead. On Christmas Day everyone gathers around the common table for a festive meal. For many people in Luanda, this will consist of a little more than a celebratory chicken with some rice and beans and “ugali.” One of our students here told me that the special treat for Christmas at his home is a dish of vegetables called “dek” (in his language). It should be special for it takes a whole week to prepare it properly! Here in Kenya, around this time, you also see the odd Santa Claus and plastic Christmas

When, in May 1996, the shocking news of the murder at Tibhirine, Algeria, of a community of seven Trappist monks hit the headlines, the subsequent publication of the moving ‘Testament’ of Christian de Chergé, the prior of that community, opened a window on the singular originality of this community’s involvement with its Muslim neighbors. The exact circumstances of their death – allegedly at the hands of Islamic extremists – are only gradually coming to light now as hitherto classified information is being opened to the public. It seems increasingly likely that the seven monks were killed, riddled with bullets, from the air in a helicopter assault on Islamic insurgents carried out by the Algerian army, and subsequently beheaded. A film exploring their life and tragic death is scheduled to be released later this year. The creative approach to the Islamo-Christian dialogue of this small monastic community, lost in a sea of Islam, is proving a source of inspiration to many. Their witness is seen as a sign of the Spirit for the benefit of the universal Church at the beginning of the 21st century. It’s the innovative thinking and unique itinerary of Christian de Chergé which laid the foundation and provided the ongoing inspiration for this approach. Christian de Chergé saw the monastery’s basic calling in Algeria’s overwhelmingly Muslim environment to be ‘a praying community among a praying people’ (“priants parmi d’autres priants”).  The place of Islam in the totality of God’s mysterious plan of salvation was the single most important question defining his life as a contemplative monk in the ‘land of Islam.’ In his “Testament,” he writes movingly: “My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: ‘Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!’ But these must know that my searing curiosity will then be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: Immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with Him His children of Islam as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playing with the differences.”   A Muslim’s Gift The astonishing fact is that Christian de Chergé received his vocation to become a monk in Algeria from a Muslim! It all began around 1960 when, a seminarian at the time, he served six months in Algeria as an administrative officer of the French army. The country was deeply embroiled in a bruising struggle to free itself from French colonial rule. A chance encounter with Mohammed, a simple and devout Muslim and father of six children, blossomed into a profound friendship. The young seminarian allowed himself to be transformed by the frequent exchanges with his Muslim counterpart. “Our dialogue arose from a peaceable and trusting friendship which had God as its ultimate horizon. He knew I was a seminarian, and