How a dream became reality
One day, I saw Cardinal Lavigerie in a dream giving a lecture. I wondered what could be the meaning of my dream. Well, this is how the dream was born in me to have an open day to make our Congregation better known and to respond to the call to open ourselves to the different forms of belonging. This stayed with me for a long time before I told my sisters in community. One day during the community meeting, I shared it. So, we started to organize by writing an announcement that was read in all the masses at the cathedral in Ouagadougou. When the day came, “our sister the rain” visited us to the point that those who came to the first three Masses quickly returned home without coming to our house. I then felt that it was up to me to go to them, to look for…
In memory of Cardinal Lavigerie
November 26, anniversary of the death of Cardinal Charles Lavigerie (1825-1892), Archbishop of Algiers and Carthage, Primate of Africa, founder of the Society of Missionaries of Africa which includes priests and brothers (“White Fathers”), and the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa (“White Sisters”). On November 26, 1892, Cardinal Lavigerie died in his episcopal residence of Saint-Eugène, in Algiers. He was 67 years old. Around his deathbed were gathered the representatives of all his works in Africa: among others, Bishop Livinhac and Father Michel of Jerusalem, Father Delattre and Abbé Bombard representing Carthage and Tunis, Mother Salomé, Superior of the Missionaries Sisters of our Lady of Africa, Fr. Buffet, superior of the Jesuits of Algiers, in addition to his secretary and his doctor. This death, immediately known in France, then throughout the world, took on the proportions of a national and universal mourning. Pope Leo XIII,…
150 years in the Netherlands
150 years in the Netherlands
Word of Lavigerie : God is light for humanity
1 – God is light for humanity (1856-1857) Extract from a course given by Lavigerie at the Sorbonne during the academic year 1856-1857. “Doubtless, humility is the first and most essential of our virtues. We cannot by ourselves acquire any right to the celestial gifts, but we can nevertheless work with this help from God which never fails to render us less unworthy. If then there are among you some who do not believe yet feel the desire for a faith which you lack, rather than seeking to get hurt instead seek to place your soul in a higher and more serene region. God is light, and it is not in darkness that we must seek. The great men of the early days of the Church have shown us by their example a different path. They teach us that in order to prepare ourselves…
Word of an elder, word of Lavigerie…F. Richard Kuuia Baawobr
From Richard Kuuia Baawobr, M.Afr. Superior General (2010-2016) An African proverb says you can do without the cane of an elder, but you cannot ignore his word. In the book of Sirac the author advises his readers in similar terms when he says to them: “Do not depart from the tales of the elders, for they have learned them from their fathers. It is with them that you will learn to understand, and to have a ready answer when needed.” In the African tradition, the word of an elder, especially the father or mother of a family, always tells us the way of life, which is good for true fulfillment or what could possibly harm him temporarily or forever. That is why in the African tradition we pay attention to what the elders say. One learns the proverbs and one tries to put…
Saint Martin of Tours and Lavigerie’s dream
It was 150 years ago, on 11 November 1866 that the future founder of missionary institutes, Lavigerie, had a prophetic dream at the tomb of St Martin in Tours. Early in 1866, the archbishop of Tours, Mgr Guibert had asked the bishops of France to contribute to the reconstruction of the basilica dedicated to St. Martin. Mgr Lavigerie, then Bishop of Nancy, was not satisfied to simply answer the request with a few lines; he devoted a whole pastoral letter to the apostle of the Gauls. “I had begun,” he writes, “to study for myself the life of this admirable bishop, seeking therein some examples of intrepid faith, patience, charity, which my weakness needs. But as I studied this great figure in the ancient monuments of his history and ours, I felt the desire to place before your eyes the perfect image of a pastor, monk and…
What did Lavigerie want when he founded the congregation in 1869?
Apostles! That is to say women having hearts burning with “a strong and ardent love” for JESUS CHRIST and belonging totally to Him. He destined these apostles for AFRICA. To proclaim the Good News of Christ to the African peoples: “Tell them that this Jesus, whose cross you show them, died on it to bring all the freedoms to the world, freedom of souls against the yoke of evil, freedom of conscience against the yoke of the persecutors, freedom of the body against the yoke of slavery.” (June 3, 1879) To achieve this goal and to prepare women-apostles dedicated to the apostolate among the women, religious life was for him the indispensable basis. Following Christ has always been the foundation of consecrated life. His understanding of religious life passed through several important phases: As a historian–professor of Church history at the Sorbonne–he was first impressed by the work…