{"id":11532,"date":"2026-06-10T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/?p=11532"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:37:11","slug":"mission-diary-the-marginalized-as-new-spiritual-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/10\/mission-diary-the-marginalized-as-new-spiritual-teachers\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Diary. The marginalized as new spiritual teachers"},"content":{"rendered":"

It began as an ordinary evening of sharing food and conversation with friends on the street. However, quietly standing among them was a woman whose presence would offer a powerful testimony of friendship. This is the story of an encounter between Comboni missionaries and homeless people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shortly after we began our regular evening outreach to people living on the street \u2013 sharing food and chatting with them \u2013 we agreed as a community that we would refer to them as \u2018our friends,\u2019 a simple, general term yet with various implications.<\/p>\n

First, we wanted to avoid any expression that could be associated with their living conditions and try to come to their level. Secondly, our intention was, and is, to try to establish a kind of relationship that may bring us closer to each other.<\/p>\n

One evening, as we were talking with three men, who like calling each other \u2018brothers\u2019 and have settled together on a fixed place on the pavement, we met a certain woman. She was in her early forties, formally dressed, nice-looking, and wearing a work tag around her neck. She approached us quietly as we were having our conversation and, with a gentle smile, thanked us for what we were doing.<\/p>\n

It was immediately clear to us, due to her informal way of greeting them, that she knew those men and was familiar with them. One of them was quick in telling us, \u201cShe is our friend!\u201d During those few minutes we remained there, she remained standing near us, silent, and listening to our conversation.<\/p>\n

However, what struck us most was the fact that when we passed by, on our way back home after about half an hour, we found her still there, among those men, sitting on the pavement. When she saw us, she waved at us with the same gentle smile. As we were conversing along the way, we realized that there was something remarkable about that lady. One of the two novices who were with me added that one evening he had seen her at the same place as he was going back home, but he did not know anything about her.<\/p>\n

All these impressions made the encounter with her quite intriguing. On one of the following evenings, as we reached the same spot, I decided to satisfy my curiosity. I invited one of the three men to move away a bit from the others and asked him in private about that woman. This is what emerged in our conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, Janet, she is our friend; she works in a company in Caloocan and is married with four children.\u201d \u201cHow did you come to know her?\u201d The face of Danny suddenly turned serious, and he continued, \u201cShe is a Muslim from Mindanao, married to a Christian, but the man is a drunkard and drug addict. He frequently becomes violent and beats her. She lives just a few hundred meters from here, along that road to the left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he took a deep breath and said, \u201cOne day, late in the evening, when she alighted from the bus on the other side, she crossed the road and came to us. She looked sad and distressed, and with tears in her eyes, she began to narrate some of her painful experiences with her husband. At the end, as she felt some relief, she asked us, \u2018Can I stay with you tonight?\u2019 This is how we welcomed her!\u201d As Danny noticed a reaction on my face, he candidly responded, \u201cWe slept separately!\u201d<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I was caught by and became amazed at the whole story. He then informed me that she stops regularly to greet them; now and then, she also brings some food and occasionally sleeps at their place. He then added, \u201cWhen she goes to Dubai to work for some months as a domestic helper, she makes video calls to greet us, and we chat a bit! When she is away, we really miss her so much!\u201d I could only comment on it, \u201cShe has indeed become your friend! Now I understand what you said the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n

To confirm what I had just expressed, he then reported a significant incident. \u201cOne evening, as she was here with us, the husband arrived with one of the children. When he found us together, he began to shout angrily at all of us. Steve stood his ground and moved forward to confront him and said, \u2018Instead of shouting like a madman, ask yourself why your wife does not want to go home and prefers to stay with us! Shame on you!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

We thought that by using the word \u2018friends\u2019 to refer to people living on the street, it would motivate us to \u2018come down\u2019 to their level; however, what we did not expect was that through a testimony like this one, we are the ones who are \u2018taken up\u2019 to their level! In here is exemplified the deep truth of the words of Pope Leo XIV who invites us to see, \u201cthe marginalized as new spiritual teachers.\u201d (Dilexi Te, 63). (Pierpaolo Monella) \u2013 (The slums of Manila city, 123rf)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It began as an ordinary evening of sharing food and conversation with friends on the street. However, quietly standing among them was a woman whose presence would offer a powerful testimony of friendship. This is the story of an encounter between Comboni missionaries and homeless people. Shortly after we began our regular evening outreach to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}