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 Trusting Heart
It is a letter
written by St Daniel to the Lateran Canon Regular of the Order of
Saint Augustine, Johannes Chrysostomus Mitterrutzner, of the abbey
of Novacella, near Brixen in the South Tyrol.
A figure of prime importance in
the study of Central Africa and the history of the missions in
Africa and a great friend of Don Nicola Mazza, founder of the
Missionary Institute where St Daniel had trained, he wrote and
published dictionaries of African languages, and translated the
whole of Luke’s Gospel into the Dinka language of the South Sudan.
Difficult mission
Of the letters Comboni sent to
Mitterrutzner about thirty have survived. This unpublished recent
discovery, the original manuscript of which is in the abbey of
Novacella, is dated 1875. That was the year when St Daniel, after
receiving the appointment as Provicar Apostolic of Central Africa
and the task entrusted to his Missionary Institute by Pius IX,
performed the solemn act of consecration of the vicariate to our
Lord of the Sacred Heart in the mission post at El-Obeid.
In this long letter, from which
we print an excerpt, St Daniel confides to his friend that he has
learned of his future nomination as first bishop of Central Africa
(a nomination that came into effect two later years) and tells of
the vicissitudes he has found himself facing in that difficult
mission.
Writing from the heart
St Daniel writes:
After setting up the mission in the Cordofan, on 17 November
1873, I left with Father Stanislao for Khartoum. On the 25 in the
middle of a forest full of trees and stones I was thrown to the
ground, and literally broke my arm and the bones of my hand. I
stopped, I was suffering unspeakably, and in atrocious pain I
mounted the camel, that caused me spasms with every step. Having
reached the Nile the steamboat of Ismail Pash, the governor
general, came to pick me up and take me to the mission. I spent 82
days between bed and arm tied to my neck: but since I had made a
novena to Saint Joseph, my steward, for this trip, to make him
happy, not having made him happy by breaking my arm, I condemned my
steward Saint Joseph (the true father of Africa) to pay me within a
year as many thousand francs as days I would be forced to carry my
arm slung from my neck without being able to say Mass. Having been
82 days, I sent an order for 82,000 francs to the bank of my steward
in heaven, and I demanded payment. The poor fellow paid before the
due date, and I became convinced that even in heaven Saint Joseph is
the king of gentlemen. The moral is that I was able to build the
nuns’ house and after well maintaining the two houses in the
Cordofan and the two in Khartoum with all the personnel, I don’t
have either in the vicariate, or in Khartoum, even a penny’s debt
with anybody.
After the departure of Father
Stanislao, though often sick, especially in the Karif [desert wind,
ed.] I have supported by myself the burden of the administration, of
the buildings, of relations with the Government. On the 8 of
December excellent Don Pasquale Fiore superior of the mission in
Khartoum and parish priest, having read in solemnibus the Gospel in
Arab and intoned the Creed, spurted blood, came down from the altar,
and I led him to his room. In three days he vomited more than 8
liters of blood: on the11th I gave him Holy Communion and the Holy
Oil. For 20 days he was in deep waters, but then the Novenas, the
Queen of Africa, Saint Joseph and the continual care of the nuns
from Marseilles, led him to convalescence, and I hope that in three
or four months he will be better than before: he is taking great
strides toward recovery. He is 35 years old. He was parish priest in
Corato and canon and had 32,000 souls under him. He is a treasure of
a parish priest. In the midst of that incident you can imagine my
desolation. ...
As
greater comfort to my frailty then came the letter from Propaganda,
in which the Most Eminent Prefect Cardinal Franchi, after ordering
me in the name of the Sacred Congregation to open of course the
mission to the Nuba, after giving me instructions on slavery and
other things, closed the letter with these words, that were manna to
my frailty: «For the rest I have the pleasure of informing you that
my Most Eminent colleagues praised the industry with which you have
begun the arduous enterprise of evangelizing those peoples; and they
encourage you go on with it without being dismayed at the obstacles
you will encounter, counting on the requisite help that certainly
will not lack...». In secret I then tell you that the Sacred
Congregation of Propaganda has generally agreed to the idea of
naming me Vicar Apostolic with character of bishop; but will refer
it to the Holy Father only after the setting up of the new mission
to Gebel Nuba. I am altogether unworthy of it, but am inclined to
accept, when the aforesaid mission is well on its way and that of
Khartoum and of Cordofan quite robust. ... From the bed where I lie
I’ll I send this scrap of letter. If I’m well, I hope to write you
with the next mail.
Daniele Comboni
Provic. Apost.
Copyright©2003,
2004 World Mission
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