Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
SMA
Calavi (Agenzia Fides) - “It is time to leave, it is mission time. I take you with me on this experience in Egypt, where I will continue my formation and pastoral service in the mission in Cairo”, writes Anselmo Fabiano, on his departure from the mission in Calavi (Benin), where he spent a year participating in an international vocational promotion program, to now face what he calls “a new missionary reality”.
“Leaving for Benin was an experience of faith and life that changed and enriched me greatly, just as the soil in which the seed was sown grows and bears fruit”, says Anselmo. “Like the sower who returns full of joy with his sheaves, so I too return from Calavi with the fruits of this year, full of gratitude to God who has always guided and accompanied my steps.”
“Africa has taught me so much through the brothers and sisters I met there,” he continues, “the value of welcome and hospitality, simple but always made with the heart, the great wisdom of African proverbs, an inexhaustible source of wealth, the value of time and relationships.” “Malaria was also a great lesson for my life, which made me confront my weakness,” he stresses, “it changed me, made me less fearful, more cautious and grateful for the great gift of health.” “The fraternity in diversity that I experienced in Calavi with 40 other seminarians,” Anselmo continues, “made me feel that it is really possible to overcome all barriers and discover that we are all brothers. The diversity is a great richness and extraordinarily beautiful, just like the many cheerful colors of the typical fabric of sub-Saharan Africa." "The most beautiful fruit of these months in Benin was my 'yes' to becoming a missionary and joining the great family of African missionaries (see Fides 3/7/2024)", he concludes.
"Now my 'first mission' has arrived in Egypt, in Cairo, where we have to start serving and confront a completely new reality of missionary life - adds Anselmo with emotion. There will also be an opportunity to become part of a small, minority church, open to interreligious, missionary dialogue."
The first members of the Society of African Missionaries to land in Benin in 1861 were the Italian Francesco Borghero and the Spaniard Francisco Fernandez. In the years that followed, numerous religious followed in the footsteps of the two pioneers. "I would like to remember Father Francis Aupiais, who made the culture, art and, more generally, the values of sub-Saharan Africa, which was largely unknown at the time, known in Europe," says Father Giovanni Benetti, who has been in Benin for two years as a formator at the Brésillac Spirituality Centre in Calavi, and reports that, thanks to Father Aupiais's intuition, the capital, Porto Novo, has celebrated the Epiphany every year since 1922 as a sign of the inculturation of the Gospel and as an opportunity for encounter and dialogue between believers of all religions.
"I cannot, however, hide the fact that the proclamation of the Gospel on the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea has resulted in great loss of life. From Dahomey, the Gospel reached the other countries of West Africa, but at a high cost: it is estimated that the Society of African Missionaries and the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles (NSA) lost about 400 members over several decades in these areas decimated by malaria and yellow fever." (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 11/9/2024)
