Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
SMA
Genoa (Agenzia Fides) - "Among the lovers of the first apostolic experience, I love remembering Father Pier Luigi Maccalli, my confrere and friend of the Society of African Missions" – writes Father Bruno Semplicio, SMA missionary in Genoa, to Agenzia Fides.
On the occasion of the anniversary of that September 18 2018 in which Father Maccalli was kidnapped from the mission of Bomoanga, Niger, Fr. Semplicio gave testimony of the initiatives shared with his confrere. "Many times - he says - we discussed the need to develop a spirituality and therefore a genuinely apostolic action. This highlighted therefore the desire for a 'company of the apostles', with reference to a thought expressed several times by our Founder, Mgr. Melchiorre de Brésillac. That is, of a group of missionaries who devoted themselves particularly to the study of the teaching of the first apostles and tried to follow their example".
"I recognize that Father Gigi was often an incentive to continue this type of matter. We talked about persecutions, not only the violent ones but also the subtle ones that arise in our Christian communities when trying to return to the time when it all began - the missionary specifies. When the disciples of Jesus were called the 'followers of the way'. A different way from that followed by other believers for the simple fact that Jesus is different from the others. He himself is the 'way'."
In the note sent to Fides, Father Bruno says that "after the blessing of the new church of Bomoanga in Niger, dedicated to the Holy Spirit, Father Gigi had described, in a letter, the various symbols that adorned it and that were to help the faith of Christians and concluded: 'The church is done, but more remains to be done'. Then he spoke of positive comments to the new church also by non-Christians who considered it truly beautiful. And he added that 'beauty is by its very nature diffusive, it does not need advertising. And our God is Beauty, the Good, the Good that speaks to the heart of every man in different forms and ways ... Thus faith has a force of attraction and the Crucified One has drawn the world to himself from the height of the cross.
Of course, - concludes Fr. Semplicio - Father Gigi did not imagine how his mission would continue! But it is the same story of the apostles of yesterday and today that continues in many deserts in the world". (BS/AP) (Agenzia Fides, 17/6/2020)
