In a slum of Tananarivo, with the Little Sisters of the Gospel, poor neighbors of the Lay People Fraternity, in simplicity, we celebrated a Thanksgiving to "Him who creates the Saints" (Br. Charles) for the grace of having met Br. Charles in our lives. We shared it in communion with all of you!

Actually, it has already been a month since I took the “Pilgrim’s stick” (Jean Marie Pasquier) to visit brothers in Kenya, Rwanda, D.R. of the Congo, South Africa and Madagascar. Unfortunately, the last August visit planed by the International Team did not happen.

It was my first contact with Africa: this Continent, which occupied 1/5 of the Earth surface, origin of Humanity? Where 34 countries live below poverty (with salaries less than US30-40, life expectancy of 45 to 50 years, 50% of illiterates...). It represents only 2% of the world trade, 70% of VIH in the world...I hope the meeting, next January in India, of the World Racial Forum will contribute to create a world wide conscience that “an another world is possible”.

I stepped in through “the door of the poor” (Gustavo Gutierrez), having the privilege of being welcomed by brothers and sisters in slums, bidonvilles, townships, small villages of fishermen and peasants, missionary centers, priest meeting and brother Bishops. Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Jesus and the Gospel... traveling through wonderful landscape (we need a good column!), with hundred of poor people walking barefoot, charged like animals...Nevertheless, they are people who sing and dance their faith, as I have never seen in my life! (At Nairobi, in Kigari a slum with 700,000 inhabitants, suddenly a “choir rehearsed”; in Congo, a Eucharist Celebration; in Kavare, they sing and dance as newly re-born in the Risen Christ; in a “township” in Johannesburg a funeral where the assistants are “de-figured” when they sing and dance “Here I am Lord” (not a tear!). Really, the poor and the humble are our best evangelizers!

There is a young Church in Africa! (Rwanda is preparing to celebrate its 1^st century...!), little by little she liberates herself of a powerful and European image. (The words of Pope Gregory on founding the “Propaganda Fidei” have not always been followed: “Convert them to the Gospel not to our Culture”) In some Churches, they pass from a “Massive Church”, to a “Church of Communities” (Beware! of not “reproducing” the Basis Christian Communities in Latin America; but “re-inventing them in Africa”, Denis Sekamana said).

I admire the explosion of vocations to the Ministry, to religious life, as well as the active presence of so many young people. There are, as I spoke with Fraternity brothers, big steps to walk from a “Church serving the Poor” (wonderful work!) to a “Church of the Poor” in the spirit of Pope John XXIII (What a challenge for our Fraternity!).

This is the “sauce” where I met brother priests in Fraternities, Little Brothers and Little Sisters, and Laymen Fraternities: incarnated witnesses, fraternal and joyful missionaries of Jesus and His Kingdom.

In Kenya, Paul Mathenga was in vacations, we had a good chat with Vincent Kamiri and Peter Njau: we are dreaming of a Month of Nazareth in 2005 for the English speaking countries: Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Sudan. There are contacts to be made. We missed you dear Noel Connolly, we hope you will be back by then. I will never forget the “Lord’s Supper” celebrated with the Little Brothers and students putting in God’s hand, the future of these Fraternities.

In Rwanda, I was brotherly received, by Denis Sekamana, he who shared with us in Cairo, his four years in prison after the Genocide. His country is recovering from his 1,200,000 deaths. Wonderful brother, he has just given life to a new Fraternity with eight brothers, he visits seminaries, priests meetings, brother Bishops, making Br. Charles and Fraternities known in Rwanda. On going from one place to the others, we shared his concern for an African Theology and the “invention” of Christian Communities. Sharing time of prayers and celebration in his “Basilica” half-full in labor day, in Nyansa: I will never forget the “faces of Christ” with whom their poor brothers from La Legua (Chile) had shared four tons of rice” during the Genocide. “Blessed are you who are the poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God!” With my friend Thomas, in Bucare, we dreamed of approaching our Churches in Brazil and Africa: why this “European dependence”? When these Churches have their “Liberation Theology”, it is “Biblical Renewal”, and it is “Basic Christian Communities”? They can join our poor Continents and Churches that have made an option for the Poor” in the name of Jesus and the Gospel” (Dear Jose Bizon and Brazilian Fraternities...there are “challenges” for you).

If Rwanda is recovering, the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the Bukaru frontier...is catastrophic! The central government since civil war, has not paid soldiers, teachers...roads are abandoned...the door is opened for “bandits” and “militiamen” with “boy soldiers” to assault and kill poor peasants. It is in this conflictive area that Adrian Gishugi greets me! Last may he have to hide himself in the forest to save his life; he offered me a photo where Mr. Ndombolo is apologizing in front of the Community for attempting against his life. We share at Kabira with his Fraternity. We share the prayers, the fraternity and the concern for the “human rights”... I have the experience of meeting real “prophets” of the Church in Africa!

However, our Western World, and its “media” ignore all these atrocities, (as they tell me) they are not in the “orbit” of the United States interests... (sic).

Fraternities in French speaking countries are very isolated, that is the reason why Felicien Endffimoyo, the African Regional, has proposed a “Month of Nazareth” mid July to mid August 2004. This proposal was well received in Rwanda, Congo and Madagascar (we will need “a hand” dear brothers!)

In Johannesburg, Sergio Lorenzini was waiting for me at the Airport (where I lost all my “documents”...). Member of our Fraternity in Santiago, as well as Roberto Guzman in Mozambique (his father was assassinated by “la Caravana de la muerte” (the Lethal Caravan), his mother was very sick and he had to travel to Santiago) they are both “fidei denum” sent by our Church in Santiago. Up to now, he has not managed to contact priests who are interested in Fraternity life, like in many countries in Africa it is Little Brothers or Little Sisters that welcome them. South Africa is the country where twelve years ago, 80% were “exiled” in their own country. We visit Soweto, the Square where the high school students faced the police...(the young martyr Hector Peterson), the Regina Pacis Church, symbol of the Church’s commitment...from there to the “City Centre” (taking me for an European, a “white” citizen almost crying tells me: “this is what we built with effort...look! Not one white left! Look at these wonderful big buildings, hotels...all ruined!” I tell him that I came from a poor country and that I was very happy to see what I see). Sergio is a real “new style missionary”: the only white priest to speak “Sutu” currently. Sharing life in his poor multi-racial neighborhood, founding a “JOC” group with unemployed young people, in a miserable slum, sharing the Eucharist at home in a Basis Christian Community (the “owner” must move out, because he has no money to pay it...). Sharing Eucharistic celebration in the Parish School (10% Christians), where “new life” in Jesus becomes “contagious”...the funeral a real Easter’s Celebration! “Here I am God...it is me Lord!” It is through “brother missionaries” like Sergio that our “white missionaries” (us too, amongst the “excluded” of our cities!) will be forgiven of our “colonialism”.

The contemplative prayer flows sweetly when Incarnation is real! (He is crazy about Day of Desert!). The last Fraternities to visit in my “Pilgrimage” where them of Madagascar, I was “fraternally” received by the Little Sisters of the Gospel. (It was there that I started this letter...too long maybe?) At Tananarivo I met a young Fraternity of priests Jean Borgia, Rasolind Jatocio, Solo Rakotandramana y Abdan Rafidison: we took a whole morning for to revise our prayer life... it is the first time that I find a group of young priests searching the contemplative dimension of their ministry. At lunch with brother priests and their fraternal Cardinal I am surprised of how well known is Br. Charles and his spirituality in Madagascar. I had to visit “in situ” Jose Doutriaux, priest from Calais, France, the “vieux frère” of Malagasy Fraternities. We met in Tuliara, in the south-west coast, 40º! With his Fraternity: Jean Desire Razafinirina, Ramon Rakatomanana y Bonifacio a seminarian: the “madness” of Br. Charles attracted each of them: Absolute of God, Universal Fraternity, and the Mission. Wonderful brothers! As they live in distant places, they meet once a year, for a whole week, with all members of the “Spiritual Family of Br. Charles! It is nice to see poor people from the “slums” in these meetings! Jean François insists on these sharing with the Spiritual Family of Br. Charles... Africa gives us a good example! It was my purpose to visit Manumbo (small village of very poor fishermen and peasants, terrible roads...), as a possible place for our Month of Nazareth: as the place is by the seashore, desert and solitude, a very fraternal community (20% Christians), with all basic material needs, possible work in the country... it is an ideal place! Finding a man of God and of his poor brothers is worth no matter distance and the “roads”! All those poor brothers and sisters I meet here and there, are the biggest human reserve of Human kind, and a new Image of the Church of the Poor Jesus of Nazareth! It is in this “periphery” that one can “touch”, see and hear...that Life has revealed herself. I must admit that I leave Africa with a deep wound...the “scream of thousands of brothers that we have to “descend from the cross”. (Jon Sobrino)

In our so-called Christian Society and his Christmas celebration, Jesus of Nazareth is the “Great Absent”. Africa, its People, is like an immense Manger, where Jesus of Nazareth, the Resurrected Christ shouts with all the strength of the Spirit to our society, churches, each one of us:

“I come to give Good News to the Poor!”

“Blessed are the Poor, theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!

“Blessed are those who weep, they will be laugh”

“Blessed are those who are hungry, they shall be filled”

Have you the feeling that the “excluded” of the Kingdom, have stolen Christmas from the “excluded” of our societies...citizens of the Kingdom?

How can our Fraternities help each one of us to be, in Jesus, Good News for the Poor?

In Joy and Hope in He who comes!

Merry Christmas!

Mariano