Comboni Community Life (4)

5. Communication and Sharing: Thriving communities are places where time is given to listening and to personal sharing... this is not to be seen as taking precious time away from work! It is always a challenge to find balance in our life ~ but our sharing and listening should never be seen as something secondary. Verification and programing as a community is more than just sharing out of commitments.

It is possible to come together without really meeting one another, without knowing each other. Part of the mission is having a plan and vision, of renewing and revising... We meet and discuss what has been done, what can be done but community is more ~ we also speak of who we are.  It takes attention and effort to share our spiritual goods ~ much easier is sharing marginal problems and topics, what is vital and central is harder but the community is a place where there too are freely shared. To communicate means to give ourselves over. It is a revelation of self, it is the will to walk together.

6. Together for Mission: Our documents state, "St. Comboni was the first to want mission to be carried out by a cenacle of apostles where diverse persons would be brought together for the one common project." In his own words, "To shine together, to reveal together." This was his thinking, to be missionaries that witness the Gospel by living it together was his ultimate goal.

To be together does not mean just to make up a group, but to be "brothers with one heart." It means to live with one heart, to love the same love: the Mission. The cenacle, therefore, is not a group that is always and necessarily physically together, but an apostolic family that loves the mission with the same heart and the same passion. To be together in St. Comboni's mind, means also and above all to dwell in the heart of Christ. It is from the Heart of Jesus that every missionary draws the strength to persevere and be faithful.