Mission and the Cross

In reading through the letters of St. Comboni, one is immediately struck by his insistence that the cross is a grace of Providence for the good of and the faithfulness to Mission. He has assimilated this in his own life, through a strong vision of faith, he transformed into "crosses sent by Providence" any kind of tribulation, suffering or hardship associated with mission. This spirituality of the cross helped him carry on with his mission work.

Seven days before his death, he wrote: "My God! Always crosses! All these crosses weigh terribly on my heart; but they also increase its strength and determination to fight the battles of the Lord. All the Catholic missions that have yielded good fruits have grown in this way... have prospered in this way and have become stronger and developed in this way, in the midst of death, adversity and beneath the shadow of the tree of the cross..."

From our Rule of Life #4: St. Comboni lived out his call under the sign of the Cross, through suffering, obstacles and misunderstandings, convinced that "the works of God at born and grow at the foot of the Calvary". The missionary places the crucified, risen and living Lord at the center of his life, for he believes that the power of Christ is revealed in the weakness of the Apostle: "That is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions and agonies I go through for Christ's sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong". (from our Rule of Life #4).