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Not long ago, relations between Church and State in Mexico were tense. One of the laws was the absolute prohibition on clergy to wear ecclesiastical clothes and to perform religious functions outside the church. On Ash Wednesday, I was invited by the parish priest of a poor and densely populated district of the capital to administer ashes in one of the various chapels of the parish.
Fr. Jorge arrived at Waterval Mission, Mpumalanga, in South Africa at a mature age. In his first years on the mission, he made a great effort to learn the Northern Sotho language of Sepedi, and he reached a certain level of proficiency, which allowed him to celebrate Mass and even preach in Sepedi. Quite often, when the faithful started to interact in fast conversations, he would easily get lost.
Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope St. John XXIII, was born in Italy in 1881 and ordained a priest in 1904 at 23.
St. Daniel Comboni knew how to laugh. The missionary wrote of his own character in these terms: “God has given me a cheerful nature, and such that I am always rejoicing and feeling happy and perhaps there are very few people in the world happier than I.”
One day, three police officers came to Comboni College to ask a favor from Fr. De Bertolis, our superior.
Fr. Jorge was very fond of visiting Kruger and sightseeing while filming with his video camera. The mission where he was stationed, Waterval, is situated 30 km away from one of the entrances to the National Park.
Bro. Otto and Bro. Stang were busy building in Spelinyane. One Sunday, they decided to visit the Game Reserve on foot.
The parish of Yanahuanca in the mountains of central Peru had several communities. The missionary had to go to one of them to celebrate the feast of its patron saint. He took with him a Monfortian Sister and a young girl.
After greeting the confrères, Fr. Guido and Fr. Alois boarded the car, left the mission of Lira in Uganda, and headed towards Karamoja. Suddenly, four Karimojong warriors armed with rifles sprang up from who-knows-where and ordered them to stop. They forced the missionaries to get out of the car and hand over their belongings. “Now you can go,” ordered the one who looked like their boss. Fr. Guido tried to start the car’s engine but, perhaps sharing the traveler’s fright, it refused to start.
In Rome, at the Comboni House of St. Pancrazio north of Vatican City, Fr. Giorgetti, a missionary veteran from Sudan, who is a composer and music lover, always occupied the same place at dinner time. After saying the grace and resting his walking stick on the chair, he spread the linen serviette on his chest ready to do honour to everything available on the table. He never lacked appetite with his big size and sweet tooth. His memories of mission, the music programmes which he followed on his inseparable small radio with the help of an earphone, were the sparks that usually started the conversation. When for one reason or another, he wouldn’t come down for lunch or dinner, one had the impression that a dining room furniture had disappeared suddenly.
