Pierre Muamba T., cicm
Missionary in DR Congo
A Spiritual Experience
Looking back at our Congregation from its origins, I realized that we are missionaries and pilgrims proclaiming Hope. Stepping out from the office to commit ourselves to the service of human beings, created in the image of God for the sake of their given dignity, could only be the result of profound discernment in the light of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. It is a spiritual experience that inspires a praxis.
We Receive One Another from God: the God of Life in Jesus Christ.
We receive one another from God and are a gift of the Holy Spirit to the world. "It was not you who chose me; it was I who chose you, appointed you and sent you..." (Jn 15:16ff) Since our founder, each of us has welcomed the mission as his destiny and has begun to fulfill himself by accomplishing this mission of being pilgrims proclaiming the Father's Love for the little ones with whom Jesus, the Father's Pilgrim, identifies himself. "We are sent to the nations to proclaim the Good News where our missionary presence is most needed, especially where the Gospel is not known or lived." (Const. Art.2) This is what makes us Pilgrims of Hope.
From Different Corners of the World
Like a people on a journey, since our origins and under the guidance of the Spirit of the Father, with Theophile Verbist and his companions, we welcome one another as a "mutual gift." We discover "hope in one another" for this great pilgrimage of Hope for the Kingdom in the universal brotherhood we want to sow along the way. "We leave our country to proclaim salvation as the great gift of God that frees us from all oppression and division. Following Jesus, we preferentially address the poor, the privileged recipients of the Kingdom of God. As religious missionaries of different races and cultures, we live and work together as brothers. "One heart and one soul," we bear witness to the universal brotherhood in Christ desired by the Father." (Const. Art. 2)
In View of Giving Hope
Leaving, departing, and marching together on the road of Hope means rediscovering the strength of solidarity and diversity for the cause of the human person, the image of God, and specifically the oppressed and impoverished people. To set out, leave, and walk, one must be animated by Hope, which is the basis of all organization and all mobilization to work with the least among us to conquer freedom.
Called to Walk Together Towards the Other
The awareness of being on a journey together, with the ambiguities of our responses and our concessions, demands conversion to see the Master in our fellow man, like Peter, at the crowing of the cock on the evening of the denial. (Jn 18:25-27; Mt 26:71-75; Mk 14:69-72; Lk 22:58-62). We must be able to confess our denials, our slowing down of the march, our distractions, and our refusal to welcome and even forgive ourselves. Indeed, it is not easy to see a fellow brother who falls for reasons of weakness or a poorly managed relationship and is judged by his "brother" to be "corrupt, impure, unbearable, unapproachable!" We fall into this trial without seeing the beam in our own eye! (Lk 6:42) The awareness of being on a journey then reveals our blindness to us. It is by opening ourselves to the one who forgives us, without waiting to be asked for forgiveness, that we know how to start walking again in trust - abandonment to the Lord who gives us the audacity to dare again and again, convinced that the Kingdom is yet to be built. Here we join our little Doctor of the Church, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, who knew, like a little bird in search of its shining star, falling into distraction and in search of little earthworms, confesses, at the appearance of her Star (Jesus) her distractions in order to resume her flight. (Ms B. 68-70)
Listening to the Inner Host, Allowing to Share a Few Secrets
Remain in Hope. When I had to agree to go elsewhere, to change my mission, from a sabbatical in Barcelona to a rural mission in Kasayi in Cilomba, one of those friends who did not judge our life in the light of faith challenged me: "But Pedro, what are you going to do in that village, it's not possible!" And a confrere who is no longer with us today in the missionary venture reprimanded me, saying, "You don't have to accept everything!" I realized that it is difficult to go out, walk, and respond to the command (Mk 16:15) without being present to oneself, to live from within, and to discover new depths of life in a journey of Hope! I understood that I had to insert myself into the dynamic of presence with great courage and inner freedom, listening attentively to God walking by my side. (Ps 127; 131) For the one who calls, who sends, is the one who invites us to walk. He is with us on the way, he goes before us in the mission, and he has a message to be faithfully transmitted: the Hope of the Kingdom to the whole world, with a preference for the least and the last in history. After a silence, I replied that Jesus had gone before me for centuries and that I was going to meet my brothers and sisters. (Galatians 3:26-28)
Hope Refuses Discouragement. Today, I am the Director of Radio Maria Kananga station. A mission ad gentes, because it goes beyond the limits of dioceses and countries. I found a Radio station that was almost dying, with a resigned team and a debt-ridden structure. In the milieu, I sensed resistance and even open refusal by certain secular priests to accept me without knowing me and to welcome the Radio into their parishes because of their past with those who managed the Radio before me. God loves us; it is the work of Mother Mary in her Immaculate Heart, and she will not let it down. Faith in Divine Providence, love of the Blessed Virgin Mary, love of the mission: these are what sustain and underpin our Hope with our new team. The fig tree must be allowed to grow. (Lk 13:8-9) Hope makes us grow. With perseverance, tenacity, and humility, change is emerging. We must let things grow and have the patience of the sower. Now we are happy; this is the law of progress in Hope.
Having the Courage to Self-decenter
"We leave...", we go out, we leave, we walk together in Hope, 'we participate in the same collective commitment' (Const. Art 3). Leaving becomes a call to a "deeper departure": leaving behind our ambiguities and our concessions. It is a call to self-decentering, to stop seeing ourselves as the center of history, a call to move from the edges to the depths. It is the “Duc in altum” (Lk 5:1-11). In fact, I realized once again that God has never varied or changed in his relationship with humanity on the way; it is we who vary in our relationship with Him.
The Need to have a Personal Experience of Jesus Christ
Walking in Hope and remaining happy on this journey requires that I have a certain practical and empathetic knowledge of Jesus Christ. It is a knowledge that is never complete and an always incomplete result of a personal, dialogical, and loving encounter with a personal, relational, transcendent, and communicative God. In this experience, I can live the experience of Abraham, Moses, and Mary with the eyes of faith, in the inner gaze. It is being able to experience the contemplation of the Other in the Eucharist, in the Blessed Sacrament, in the Word, in the mysteries of the Rosary, and at the same time in the poor, in social asymmetries, in the least in history, which he transcends.
Living in a Permanent Presence
There is a presence that permanently makes possible (Lk 1:37), precedes and accompanies the exodus of humanity, of the Church, of every person of faith, despite the unforeseen events and risks along the way. It is an encounter that changes and disrupts not only the pilgrim's initial vision of himself, of the realities of the world, of the events of history and of his own life but also of his way of being in everyday life and of relating to everything. This encounter is the beginning of a never-ending apprenticeship in living, feeling, and deciding to be a convert. Has God passed through your life? This is the condition for joining the March of Hope and in Hope. Here is a permanently open and ever-new horizon of an interminable journey: the mystery of God is deeper and more unfathomable, and his thoughts are beyond penetration. (Is 55:6ff)
To Walk in Hope is to Refuse to Seek the Living among the Dead.
A colleague who has experienced the power of Hope tells me the following: "For several years, I held a senior position. From one day to the next, I found myself at the bottom of the ladder, forced to flee the gaze of others. During those years of moral and psychological suffering, when I was considered a leper, I kept my faith; I never lost Hope of seeing a new day dawn. In fact, when, because of the vicissitudes of life and the difficulties on the path of the mission, one seems to experience a thrill when meeting the gaze of others, even sensing one's death, by living in Hope, there is a tomorrow for those who love God. A tomorrow that sings and cries out is a better tomorrow for one's brothers and sisters, the Church, and oneself. The material notion of time corrects, washes, and regenerates. When we live in Hope, we have the conviction that one day, we will reach the end of the tunnel and come out humble and victorious with the One who lives in us and is stronger than us: Jesus Christ. It's like Mandela, who came out of prison as a president! We must believe in tomorrow with God at the service of our brothers and sisters, without shutting ourselves off or imprisoning ourselves in our past, but learning from the past to live the present joyfully, healing wounds and looking forward to the future with Hope. So we must stop looking at ourselves more than Jesus incarnate in the little ones, risen and victorious. The continuation of the pilgrimage with Jesus becomes the joyful possibility of the impossible."
The Urgency of Missionary Communities of Hope
We need these communities of missionaries and pilgrims of Hope who know how to celebrate their Hope because they have the experience of the Risen One and sing and perform the songs of the final celebration of triumph along the way. Its members learn to accept one another as sinners called to constant conversion, who leave the ego behind, overcome the deadlock of false solidarities built on human calculations, and desire the impetus that leads to true solidarity. The Spirit guides the journey of growth and hope that only the Risen One can give. We need communities, seeds of Hope for humanity in the final stages of history, committed to building a more just and fraternal world that renounces any manipulative and selfish pace that denigrates the human person, who is the image of God.
With the Mother of the Way, the Mother of the Incarnate Word
CICM, we are sons of Mary. However, she is not automatically given to us! It is when we discover the place of the Mother of the Incarnate Word, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the "Way," Mother of the "Bread of Life," that we are able to turn to her so that she may initiate us and teach us to become true disciples and pilgrims of Hope. She carried him in her womb, nourished and brought him into the world, and remained his companion on the mission and his disciple. She believed, and her joy became action to change the course of history.
Mother of the "Bread of Life," pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. (Const. Art. 16)
