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Category: Missionary Vocation

Missionary Vocation

The Circle of Light

Death penalty is one of the greatest moral issues, yet most people rarely think about it. Sr. Helen Prejean was the spiritual adviser of a convict in the death row at Angola Prison in USA. After witnessing his execution in 1984, she wrote a book about the experience titled: Dead Man Walking. The resonance was enormous around the world and the book became a major movie. Since 1984, Sister Helen has accompanied six men to their deaths. She has been instrumental in sparking national dialogue on the death penalty in the USA and helping to shape the Catholic Church’s newly vigorous opposition to state executions. Sr. Prejean now travels around the world giving talks about her ministry.

Fr. lorenzo carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

The Angelic Painter

Born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1387, the Dominican friar Giovanni da Fiesole remains widely known as Fra Angelico (Angelic Brother), because, only some years after his death in Rome, in 1455, Italians called him Blessed: He was known by the mystic beauty of his paintings, but also by his piety and good deeds. Purity of form and space characterize his art; purity of soul, his life. After so many centuries, he remains one of the most loved holy painters. In 1982, he was beatified by John Paul II. As if that was not enough, in 1984 the Pope declared him patron of Catholic artists.

Manuel Giraldes | Journalist

Missionary Vocation

Mission Accomplished

Bishop Caesar Mazzolari (1937-2011) was born in Italy but completed his studies in USA. For almost twenty years as a young priest, he served the destitute blacks in the States. Having reached Africa, the place of his dreams, he was given the most dangerous area, South Sudan, as the theater of his efforts. He grew into the paternity of a bishop during more than twenty years of caring and daring. Soft-spoken and meek but with an iron will, he knew how to mobilize people, both in the Sudan
and abroad, for the welfare and dignity of the poor. He saw the dream of the independence of his people come true. And then he died. He had accomplished his mission.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

Mystic Fire

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a Jesuit priest and a scientist who labored hard to reconcile the language
of science and the language of religion. A mystic, afire with a vision of the Divine at the heart of matter, he wrote: “There is a communion with God, and a communion with the earth, and a communion with God through the earth. I want to teach people to see God everywhere, to see Him in all that is most hidden, and most ultimate in the world.” Systematically opposed during his whole life, he responded by a heroic silence and obedience. His prophetic vision is still source of inspiration for both scientists and theologians.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

A Model of Dialogue

Decades before the interfaith studies, Raimon Panikkar set the Catholic world astir by insisting that Christianity could learn from the Eastern religions. The diminutive Catholic priest and scholar, son of an Indian Hindu father and a Spanish Catholic mother, who died last year, on August 26 at 93, did much to prepare the Church for the globalization of Christianity. Some thought of him as dangerously radical. But to his students and many admirers, Panikkar was a prophet whose teachings helped Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the non-Western world.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

Noah’s Ark

Fr. Guanella’s Mother House, dedicated to Divine Providence, was referred to as Noah’s Ark because it gathered every kind of suffering humanity. All found a simple but dignified welcome by one who saw in them the face of Christ. The name “Aloysius Guanella” is synonymous with love for human beings marked by any form of suffering. This is the man who was proclaimed a saint last October 25. Even nowadays, his ‘sons and daughters’ of the religious congregations he founded offer a loving family atmosphere to the handicapped in many countries of the world, including the Philippines.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

At the Feet of Jesus

For the tiny flock of Pakistan’s Catholics, Shahbaz Bhatti (1968-2011) is “the martyr.”
He was killed last March 2 by Islamic terrorists because he was “Christian, an infidel and a blasphemer.” He was the Minister for Religious Minorities. In his Spiritual Testament, he wrote: “Until the last breath, I will continue to serve Jesus and this poor, suffering humanity.” In the last twenty years in Pakistan, more than one thousand persons have been unjustly punished using the law against blasphemy. The way to religious freedom is still long and painful.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

Young at Heart

This is the story of a missionary proclaimed Blessed on June 26. He spent most of his life (65 years) in the jungle of Myanmar and there he is buried. He planted the Church where Christianity had never come before. The Episcopal Conference proclaimed him “The Patriarch of Burma.” An ordinary, exemplary saint who put into practice the Sermon on the Mount in utter simplicity. As a confrère said: “He died at 91 without ever being old.” Blessed Clement kept the enthusiasm of the early days of his mission until the end.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary

Missionary Vocation

Bridgehead to the Heart of Darkness

Poverty is Africa’s most serious sickness: 10 million children die every year because of easily curable diseases and 500,000 women still die in giving birth. Sixty years ago, inspired by their Christian faith, a group of health workers from the local Church of Padua, Italy, entered into this essentially unjust and immoral situation, bringing healing and hope. Since then 1,200 doctors, 250 nurses and other medical personnel have reached the heart of Africa. The CUAMM-Doctors with Africa is a unique, exemplary realization that honors the creativity and voluntary commitment of people of goodwill.

Fr. Lorenzo Carraro | Comboni Missionary