"Do not be turned away"
Daniel Comboni was born in Limone on Lake Garda (Brescia) on 15 March 1831. After the family and parish education of his first years, he entered Fr. Mazza's Institute in Verona at the age of twelve where his missionary vocation for Africa appeared clear and strong. In fact, he set out for Africa (1857) with a Mazzian missionary expedition.
After a very difficult sea passage, the missionaries crossed the desert and then set out for the South, following the course of the Nile. Finally they founded a mission station on the banks of the Nile, about 1,000 miles to the South of Khartoum. They called the station, Holy Cross.
Within a very short period the missionaries began to succumb to the terrible conditions. On March 25, 1858, the Superior, Father Oliboni, lay dying. His last words rang out like a challenge and a prophecy: "I am dying and I am content because God wills it so; do not lose heart because of this. Do not be turned away from your purpose. Go on with the work you have begun, and if it should happen that only one of you be left, let him not give up or lose confidence. God wills the conversion of Africa, of this I die assured. Swear to me that you will not turn back."
At the foot of the death-bed Father Daniel Comboni took an oath: " I will never give up; Africa or death." Shortly after the death of their Superior, the surviving missionaries were ordered to return to Europe in order to recuperate their health.
"Until his death"
Throughout his life he maintained a strong affection for Limone, visiting it after each expedition to Africa.
But when the Mazza Institute decided to withdraw from the mission, Daniel Comboni felt he needed to set up his own missionary institutes; the Missionary Institute for Africa (1867) and the Comboni Missionary Sisters (1872). Nominated Pro-Vicar by the Holy See (1872) and then Vicar Apostolic (1877) of Central Africa, he led that vast and difficult mission with firmness and love until his death, which occurred in Khartoum, at the age of fifty, on 10 October 1881.
His widespread reputation for holiness, which continued after his death, led to the decision to open the informative process in Verona and Khartoum for the introduction of the Cause of beatification and canonization (1927). From that time onwards the procedures went fairly slowly for various reasons, which are not worth mentioning here. Certainly Comboni's Cause was very laborious and complex and the recognition of his holiness of a Servant of God relates to the heroic practice of the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, and of the cardinal virtues which were obviously of an apostolic missionary nature, as can be seen from the examples, which are worth mentioning.
As far as the heroic practice of his faith is concerned, we could give many testimonies; but the following suffices. From a famous text it appears that Comboni looked at Africa "in the pure light of faith", seeing in Africans brothers to be loved and brought to a new life in Christ. In a letter written a few weeks before his death, he wished to summarize the meaning of his life as an apostle: "Our Work is based on faith. It is a language that is little understood even among the good on this earth, but the Saints understood it, whom we alone must imitate.
"Though weakened in body"
With regard to the virtue of hope, it can be said that throughout Comboni's life, because of the continuous grave difficulties, he hoped against every hope, preserving at all costs his difficult vocation. The spiritual strength that sustained this hope was the word of the Vicar of Christ, who having understood the value of that missionary vocation, said to him (October 1864) "Labora sicut bonus miles Christi pro Africa". From that moment onwards - Comboni later commented - "hope for the final outcome of my great and sublime task never left me for one instant."
His love for his neighbour, in reality the Africans, is the complement that summarizes all the other virtues in Comboni. As a testimony of his great love for God, what Massaja wrote to him would suffice: "You know that I love you not for your love fine figure, but for your great heart and for the love of God that burns within you".
On his part Comboni wrote a few months before his death: "When one truly loves Christ, then hardships, sufferings and martyrdom are sweet". As far as his love for Africans is concerned, those words of his are significant: "The first love of my youth was for unhappy Africa".
For the sake of brevity, we will skip the individual cardinal virtues, to take only one testimony on the virtue of fortitude.
When he was in Africa and his illness was already undermining his health, Msgr. Comboni wrote to the Card. Prefect of Propaganda; "Though weakened in body, through the grace of the Heart of Jesus, my spirit is sound and vigorous; and I am determined, as I have been for 30 years (since 1849), to suffer everything and give my a life thousand times for the redemption of Central Africa or "Negritude".
This fortitude, which seems to be linked to the other virtues, is not simply the expression of an extraordinary character, but it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. It is the heroic virtue of a person who used his whole life for the redemption of Africa, faithful to his motto "Africa or Death".
He had some prophetic intuitions of enduring value because they are marked by the seal of God. And the African Synod understood the actuality of those intuitions, which are still valid for today's Africa. There are at least two Combonian documents, which, read again today in the light of the signs of the times, confirm what was said above.
"The Plan"
Daniel Comboni was the first, in missionary history, to lay down the guidelines for an organic plan for the evangelisation of Africa; it is the Plan for the regeneration of Africa, understood through an inspiration from heaven, while (15 September) he was absorbed in deep prayer at St. Peter's tomb in the Vatican Basilica. The hinge on which the theme of the plan is articulated is the idea of "saving Africa", of "regenerating Africa through Africa itself". Here it is not only a question of promoting the indigenous clergy. It is a question of putting Africans in a position to build the Church of Africa, a Church with an African face, with their own energies and talents.
Inculturation is implied in this perspective, even though this term was not used at the time. The task of missionaries was to prepare Africans (clergy, religious, laity) to become evangelisers of themselves, of their own people, as soon as possible.
Thus Comboni anticipated by more than a century the famous cry that Paul VI, in his trip to Uganda (1969), addressed to all Christians of Africa; "You Africans must be missionaries to yourselves". In his plan Comboni went further; already at that time he envisaged an Africa "with flourishing Christian societies"; not only this, but also an Africa with its own "able and enlightened Heads of Christianity". The African Synod, with African Cardinals and bishops, is the concrete fulfillment of this prophetic perspective.
In harmony with the plan there is another document that Comboni presented to the First Vatican Council (1870); the postulatum pro Nigris Africae Centralis, accompanied by the letter to the councillor Fathers.
The "Brown pearl"
Thus the problem of the evangelisation of Africa became a conciliar proposal. In other words, Comboni managed to convince the conciliar fathers of the cause for the universal Church, and therefore worthy of being discussed in an ecumenical council. And at the same time he expressed the conviction that one day Africa, conquered to Christ, as the "brown pearl", would reflect its own light over the whole church.
Even though it is expected that this will take a long time, the African Synod is already in some way confirming that reflection of light because of the universal echo it has had, also in the form of spiritual fruit.
Article published in: " New People", March-April, 1996