10 October 2024 - Daniel Comboni - Thursday of the 27th week in Ordinary Time - Galatians 3:1-5

We have been hearing passages from Paul’s letter to the Galatians at the daily masses these past several days. We can all get impatient, frustrated, and upset about things, but St Paul seems to have been in a really bad mood in the way he begins today’s passage: “O stupid Galatians!” St Paul is upset at the way the Galatians have been forsaking their faith. They are still relying on their human works and human efforts rather than placing their trust in God. There are some times when we Catholics in the South can be accused by our brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Christian denominations, claiming that we rely on our good works and our own efforts in order to achieve our salvation in our faith. Yet, that is definitely a false perception of what we believe. Our good works are to be a fruit of our faith and a fruit of our life of discipleship, from the salvation we receive through Christ as a freely given gift. 

I worked as a lay missionary with the Comboni missionaries for three years, so I am very familiar with the saint of the day, Daniel Comboni. 

He was born into a poor family of farmers in Italy in 1831. He is the only one of 8 children of his parents who made it to adulthood. He was ordained a priest in 1854. He always dreamed of being a missionary to Africa. He became the first bishop of the Sudan in Africa. He died at the young age of 50 from all of the hardships he went through as a missionary, but his love for God lives on in all priests, brothers, and nuns of the Comboni missionaries who work all over the world. I remember some of the Comboni priests telling me how in 1964 all of the Comboni missionaries were expelled from the south of Sudan when an anti-Christian government took power in the country.  Thousands of missionaries returned to Rome, many of whom had been in the Sudan most of their adult lives serving the Lord.  Daniel Comboni and so many of the Comboni Missionaries willingly gave up their lives for their love of their faith and in service to the calling they received from God. As I thought of the way St Paul called the Galatians to put their trust in God, Daniel Comboni and the Comboni missionaries are great examples for us.