Mass is the greatest prayer that ever existed and therefore for a Missionary, it is the source of his mission. These words were repeated in many occasions by Blessed Joseph Allamano. The second day 21st February 2018 began by fetching from the source, that is, from the graces received from the Holy Mass, just after the Lauds. It was presided over by Fr. Somon Libongi, imc who is working in the Parish of Pawaga that is at the periphery of town, one of the Ad-Gentes parishes. In his teaching, he urged the missionaries to be able to discover the signs of the presence of God among us. He gave an example of his presence “in the sign of his mercy through the sacrament of reconciliation”. He also asked the missionaries to study also the signs of time in the presence of the needy, etc.
The first session of this day was dedicated in the reports from various groups. The first presentation was from Fr. Hipoliti Marandu, who gave an exposition on “Ongoing formation”. He underlined on the key points as: Formation of missionaries to various needs, prayer life, spiritual life, professional help to problems and preparation of our elderly. He also touched the aspect of community programation that has to be followed in order to harmonize our life and our mission work. Our charism must be lived by us and instilled to those with whom we work. Missionary zeal and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary must dominate our spirituality.
There followed the report from Ikonda hospital, that many of those who work there are volunteers from abroad. The hospital is on the process of preparing for its auto-sufficiency in the future. The hospital gives unique help and consolation to others as per our charism. This has made all the Consolata Missionaries proud. Other contributions showed that there is need to prepare for somebody else who may understand and take over to direct the hospital in future.
It is 99 years since the arrival of the Consolata Missionaries here in Tanzania. Next hear, we will totalize 100 years. With this in mind, there are preparations underway to perfect the celebration and make it successful. The commission of the Jubilee therefore gave their report and reflection and insisted that there are various sub-commissions that have been created to propel the whole preparation. These commissions seemingly are on with the preparation with a total of 15 members. The committee feels the need to expand the commissions to the cooperation the others from the diocese and other religious congregations.
Mgongo is one of the charitable institutions in the region of Tanzania. Recently the region has given this institution a second eye, to try to make it self-sufficient in its operation. There are many challenges that they have gone through, beginning from the conflicts of land between the neighbors and the institution, the fire outbreak in ‘Faraja House’ that burnt down the dormitories and the other belongings, just to mention a few. It has several subsections: Orphanage, the VETA school, the Dispensary and other auto-sufficient activities like animal farming and crop farming. He observed that the institution is not yet .
