St Daniel Comboni

October 10, 2014

St Daniel Comboni (1831 – 1881)

Daniel Comboni: the son of poor gardeners who became the first Catholic Bishop of Central Africa, and one of the greatest missionaries in the Church's history. It is a fact. When God decides to take a hand and select a generous and open-hearted individual, things happen: great, new things.

Daniel Comboni was born at Limone sul Garda (Brescia - Italy) on 15th, March 1831, into a family of cultivators employed by one of the rich local proprietors. Luigi and Domenica, the parents, were very attached to Daniel: he was the fourth of eight children, but the only survivor: all the others died young, six of them in their infancy. Due to poverty Daniel attended school in Verona, in the Institute founded by Father Nicola Mazza. During the years spent in Verona, Daniel discovered his calling to the priesthood; after the completion of his studies of Philosophy and Theology, he was entranced by the mission of Central Africa, drawn by the descriptions of the missionaries who returned from there to the Mazza Institute. Comboni was ordained in 1854, and three years later left for Africa, along with five other missionaries of the Mazza Institute and with the blessing of his mother Domenica, who told him: “Go, Daniel, and may the Lord bless you”.

After a journey of four months Comboni reached Khartoum, capital of the Sudan. He helped suppress the slave trade in the region. He worked on several dialects. He spoke six European languages, Arabic, and several central African dialects.

From the mission he wrote to his parents: “We will have to labour hard, to sweat, to die: but the thought that one sweats and dies for love of Jesus Christ and the salvation of the most abandoned souls in the world, is far too sweet for us to desist from this great enterprise”.

  

Our Lady of the Rosary

October 7, 2014

The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

“The greatest method of praying is to pray the Rosary.” - Saint Francis de Sales

On October 7, the Roman Catholic Church celebrates the yearly feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Known for several centuries by the alternate title of “Our Lady of Victory,” the feast day takes place in honor of a 16th century naval victory which secured Europe against Turkish invasion. Pope St. Pius V attributed the victory to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was invoked on the day of the battle through a campaign to pray the Rosary throughout Europe.

St Francis of Assisi

October 4, 2014

St Francis of Assisi

On October 4, Roman Catholics celebrate the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the Italian deacon who brought renewal to the Church through his decision to follow Jesus' words as literally as possible.

In a January 2010 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI recalled this “giant of holiness” as a “great saint and a joyful man,” who taught the Church that “the secret of true happiness” is “to become saints, close to God.”

He is a saint loved by all men and women; that is why people of different religions honor him and meet at his birth place, Assisi, to pray together for peace.

 Peace Prayer of St Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Moringa Nutrition and Income Generating Project

In Somalia, Caritas through a local NGO teaches widows how to grow moringa, a very nutritious plant. The women farmers learn about harvesting, cleaning, drying, grinding and packing moringa leaves.  After harvest, the women will sell moringa leaf powder and use the profits to feed their families.

One human family, food for all

In order to respond to the campaign “One Human Family, Food for All” we in Caritas Somalia decided to accompany the awareness campaign with some practical actions in the fields of development and relief. In answer to the campaign we financed the following project “Moringa Nutrition and Income Generating Project”  in Lower Shabelle Region.

Moringa Nutrition and Income Generating Project is about the introduction of the worldwide acknowledged tree – Moringa, as a source of nutritional value for the poor. The project commenced on April  2014 and it is a pilot project. A Moringa farm will be cultivated and Moringa leaves will be processed and used as a nutritional supplement.

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus

October 1

St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873 - 1895)

Thérèse, like so many saints, sought to serve others, to do something outside herself, to forget herself in the acts of love. She is one of the great examples of the gospel paradox that “we gain our life by losing it”, and that the seed that falls to the ground must die in order to live (John 12:24).

On October 1, Catholics honor the life of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus.  St. Thérèse was born January 2, 1873 in Alençon, France to pious parents Louis and Zélie.

On Christmas Day 1886 St. Thérèse had a profound experience of intimate union with God, which she described as a “complete conversion.”  During a pilgrimage to Rome, in 1887, she obtained permission from Pope Leo XIII to enter the Carmelite Monastery at the young age of 15. On entering, she devoted herself to living a life of holiness, doing all things with love and childlike trust in God.

Thérèse offered herself as a sacrificial victim to the merciful Love of God on June 9, 1895. Saint Thérèse was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope John Paul II in 1997 - 100 years after her death at the age of 24. She is only the third woman to be so proclaimed, after Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Teresa of Avila.

St. Thérèse wrote once, 'You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them."

Food for “displaced hungry children”

In order to meet the needs of the people in need, in Somalia, Caritas Somalia organized this project. The project was carried out by a local NGO between July and August. The aim was to intervene in those displaced camps in Mogadishu which were/are not helped by other organizations. Through this project we helped families from different ethnic groups, who live in displaced camps, with essential and basic food items distributed in packages. These groups were mainly consisting of women with children, old and sick people (affected by tuberculosis, malaria and typhoid) who have been hosted in the camps after leaving their places of origin. As already done in the past, community leaders and camp supervisors were involved in the identification of the beneficiaries of the project. The total number of beneficiaries was 1,800. Parts of the funds came from the Church in Spain (OPM).

Saint Vincent de Paul

September 27, 2014 

Saint Vincent de Paul (1581 – 1660)

Patron Saint of Charities

On Sept. 27 the Catholic Church remembers Saint Vincent de Paul, the French, 17th century priest known as the patron of Catholic charities for his apostolic work among the poor and marginalized.                           

Although Vincent had initially begun his priesthood with the intention of securing a life of leisure for himself, he underwent a change of heart after hearing the confession of a dying peasant. Moved with compassion for the poor, he began undertaking missions and founding institutions to help them both materially and spiritually. Pope Leo XIII made him the patron of all charitable societies.

During a September 2010 Angelus address, Pope Benedict XVI noted that St. Vincent “keenly perceived the strong contrast between the richest and the poorest of people,” and was “encouraged by the love of Christ” to “organize permanent forms of service” to provide for those in need.

The Church is for all God's children, rich and poor, peasants and scholars, the sophisticated and the simple. But obviously the greatest concern of the Church must be for those who need the most help—those made helpless by sickness, poverty, ignorance or cruelty.