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. This Catholic institute trained boys to service in the Church. After his ordination to the prieshood in 1854, he was sent to Africa. On his journey to the Sudan, which took four months, his 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. That spirit has stayed with me in my service as a priest in the Diocese of Jackson.
I think of the great faith of St Daniel Comboni and the other missionaries who went to faraway lands to bring the Gospel to the world, knowing that they would encounter many struggles and obstacles. We hear St Paul address the theme of faith with the Galatians in our first reading today. St Paul asserts that faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is to replace the law of the Old Testament as the source of salvation. This faith is to unite all believers as children of God, breaking down our human divisions. St Paul calls us to clothe ourselves with Christ, to allow Christ’s grace to cover us, to allow Christ to transform our very identity so that may live in union with him each day on our journey of faith.
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