Source of Prayer in Saint Comboni

A closer union with God commits us to an attitude of attention to reality ~ it also commits us to involve ourselves in history ~ and missionary commitment is born from missionary prayer. For the Comboni Missionaries, contemplation of the pierced Heart of Christ is a challenge to our missionary action towards human liberation. We express our solidarity first in prayer, it was the first means St. Comboni used as he networked across Europe with contemplative communities which accompanied and supported his work: "In France, in Belgium, in Germany, in Italy, I have more than 200 religious communities praying to our Good God".

We gain insight into this through the writings of St. Comboni ~ when he and his companions were making their way up the Nile in 1858, to a mission in present day Sudan, their ship ran aground on a sandbar around  midnight. All efforts to free the ship proved futile and they had to wait for morning. This small group, in the heart of Africa, full of hopes and fears celebrated the Eucharist at dawn. St. Comboni later wrote, "In the morning we celebrated the Mass. Oh how sweet it was, in that difficult circumstance, to hold in our hands the Master of the rivers and the Lord of all the peoples of the earth, and to pray to him for ourselves, for our needs, for those who are in danger with us, for us, for the whole world!"

The missionary is often faced with difficult circumstances and in places that the world attaches little or no consequences. Yet, like St. Comboni, our prayer is a call to open our hearts and our lives to the "whole world"  ~ individually and together, to be of some service to the mission.