New congregations in the land of Africa
We propose an article published in Popoli e Missione, which opens a column on women’s religious congregations born in Africa
The Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2024 presents Africa as “the continent with the largest increase in women religious,” rising between 2021 and 2022 from 81,832 to 83,190.
There are indeed many indigenous women’s congregations, a sign of a changing evangelization that has borne fruit; the outcome of prophetic visions such as that of Pope Paul VI in 1969: “you Africans are now your own missionaries.”
Where the challenge and fatigue consists of walking alone, and re-inventing yourself every day to meet different needs, “the power of the Gospel never fails,” says from Burundi Sister Hyacinthe Manariyo, of the “Sisters bene Mariya,” known through spazio +spadoni.
“We spread works of mercy in the wake of the Pope’s invitation to go to the peripheries,” she continues, stressing that ”all the new Congregations, although with different charisms, are oriented to serve Christ in the suffering brother.”
Sister Leah George Makumbuli is a member of the African Benedictine Sisters of Our Lady, established in Ndanda in 1946 by Bishop Joachim Amman. “There are 234 of us, engaged in Tanzania and Mozambique in various apostolates.”
They, too, joined the “Hic Sum” project of Space + Broadswords, starting a small social enterprise that has made many women self-sufficient
Africans. “We have a lot to do; above all, we never let a child go without giving them something to eat.”
This is a summary of the life and vocation of women religious in Africa: combining spirituality and merciful witness with the ability to become mothers and sisters, as well as entrepreneurs for themselves and their villages.
spazio + spadoni: “alongside our sisters, promoters of works of mercy”
Based in Lucca, at the Convent of San Cerbone, space + spadoni. But, thanks to its generative paths, it extends to many peripheries of the world, especially in Africa, in those areas where religious sisters have very little help.
Mainly through the “HIC SUM” project, involving missionary congregations, it promotes and accompanies virtuous processes of reciprocity and autonomy.
The mission that sustains the movement is summarized in the booklet “OPERA M,” which founder Luigi Spadoni explains as the “need to re-evolve and adapt to the challenges of the modern world the works of mercy” of which the sisters are tireless promoters.
(Popoli e Missione 10/2024 , p. 37)
Fonte
- Popoli e Missione
Immagine
- Sisters Bene Mariya – Burundi