Daniel Comboni was born in 1831 in Italy to a poor family of farm laborers. He was one of 8 children, but the only child to survive early childhood. His parents sent him to study at an institute in Verona, Italy run by Father Nicola Mazza, training boys to serve in religious service in the Church. After his ordination to the prieshood in 1954, he was sent to Africa. On his journey to the Sudan, which took four months, all of his other missionary companions died from tropical diseases. He had a heart for the missions and a call to evangelize the people of Africa with Christ’s Good News. In 1867 and 1872, his work led him to found to institutes for men and women which formed missionaries for Africa. Originally called the Verona Fathers and Sisters, they are now called the Comboni Missionaries and the Comboni Missionary Sisters. Due to his many years of hard missionary work, he died in 1881 at the age of 50. Today, the two orders he founded serve as missionaries all over the world. I served as a consecrated Comboni Lay Missionary in Ecuador for three years, working alongside Comboni priests, brothers, and sisters. I am very humbled and honored to have been working in the tradition of Daniel Comboni in his missionary spirit.
In the Gospel today, those who are envious and jealous of Jesus and the accomplishments of his ministry accuse him of being aligned with the forces of darkness. I had heard from some of the Comboni missionaries that some of those jealous of Daniel Comboni and his missionary work made false accusations of him too, which took a toll on his health and probably contributed to him dying at a young age. No matter what obstacles we face in our ministry and on our journey of faith, we should persevere and continue to follow God’s call for us. We unite our prayers with the prayers of St Daniel Comboni today
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