By Kathleen M. Carroll
The Lenten season of reflection, repentance, and renewal, offers us a meaningful opportunity to deepen our faith and engage in acts of charity. As you journey through this sacred time, I invite you to remember our Comboni Missionaries and those they serve. For many of the poorest and most abandoned in our world, every day is a time of fasting and abstinence. They learn to rely completely on God because they cannot rely on anyone else.
Here are some practical and spiritual ways to stand in solidarity with the poor and those who dedicate their lives to spreading the message of love, hope, and faith.
Financial Contributions
Providing financial support is one of the most tangible ways to aid our missionaries. Consider allocating a portion of your Lenten almsgiving to support missionary work. Your generosity can help our missionaries meet their basic needs and help them expand their ministry. Our schools, hospitals, dispensaries, and feeding stations are a lifeline for those living at the margins. Our parishes and outstations are beacons of light and hope.
Sponsorship Programs
You might want to sponsor a medical student in an underserved area, a teacher in a remote village, or a feeding program in a refugee camp. If your heart is drawn to a special kind of ministry, chances are good that our missionaries are already in a position to make the most of your gift. You might have a personal connection with a specific missionary and opt to provide a regular donation; you might choose to direct your gift to a particular country or region; or you might simply offer what you can to help wherever it is needed most.
Volunteer Opportunities
If you live close to one of our mission centers, you might think about sharing your time and talent through volunteering. We often hold community events or engage in one-time efforts to help those closer to home. Contact your nearest mission center to enquire.
Prayer
Your prayers are a powerful means of support for our missionaries as they face the spiritual and physical challenges of their work. Please consider adding our missionaries and those they serve to your prayer intentions during Lent and throughout the year. Missionary work is hard work and our priests, brothers, and sisters need the support of our whole Church.
Small Groups
If you already belong to a small, faith-sharing group, help keep mission work top-of-mind. You might take the opportunity to discuss missionary stories, pray for those working in the field, and explore ways to further contribute to the missionary cause.
Fasting
A time-honored Lenten discipline, fasting is a spiritual practice that yields benefits all year long. It is a form of self-denial and solidarity with those in need. Consider fasting from a particular comfort or luxury and redirect the resources saved toward supporting missionary efforts. You might abstain from a daily coffee, the occasional evening out, or a streaming service, and redirect those funds to missionary causes.
Armchair Missionaries
Pope Francis said that a missionary is “anyone who lives as in instrument of God’s will where they are. Missionaries are those who do everything so that, through their witness, their prayer, their intercession, Jesus might pass by.”
By virtue of our baptism, we are all missionaries. We don’t have to trek to forgotten and to spread the Gospel, but during this Lent (and beyond) I hope you’ll remember in a special way those who do. Your spiritual and practical support of the Comboni Missionaries is a meaningful expression of faith in action. This Lent, let us unite in solidarity with those who bring the message of Christ to distant corners of the world, recognizing that all our efforts are needed for the flourishing of God’s kingdom.
