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Rev Fr. Celestine Diang: My Forgotten Mentor – Happy Silver Jubilee! By Lambert Mbom

Posted on May 4, 2016 by lambom's vuvuzela

The month of April and the liturgical season of Easter which often coincide mark important moments in the lives of most priests of the ecclesiastical province of Bamenda(archdiocese of Bamenda, dioceses of Buea, Kumbo, Mamfe and Kumba). Priestly ordinations often take place during the Easter Octave. Many priests thus celebrate the anniversaries of their ordination in April.

Two and half decades ago, I witnessed the ordination of Rev Fr. Celestine Diang and Rev. Fr. Joseph Awoh both of the diocese of Buea who recently celebrated their silver jubilee with their classmate of the diocese of Kumbo, Bishop Agapitus Fon now Bishop of newly erected diocese of Kumba. Each of them played an important part in my life: Fr Celestine guided me on the labyrinthine journey to the Catholic priesthood which ended prematurely albeit; Fr. Awoh provided a much needed “pillow” when I crashed out of the race and began teaching in CCAS Kumba while Bishop Agapitus remained close to my family and afforded them the necessary support. To each of them I want to use this medium to express my gratitude for all they provided me.

I particularly dedicate these lines to Fr. Celestine Diang who provided me a much needed lens into the exigencies of parish life. St. Joseph’s parish, Muyuka became my pastoral lab even before I went to the major seminary.

First, I watched Fr Celestine enjoy his priestly life as he burnt with zeal for his father’s house. He took me to the many outstations of Muyuka and thus prepared especially for the experience I would later on live out in St Gabriel’s parish Bafmeng while on pastoral experience. I remember vividly the pastoral visit to Bavenga and the very warm welcome all the Christians afforded you. The many times “going to the bush” became a priority rather than sitting in the comfort of the office of the main parish would become instrumental when I had to spend time in the resettlement camp of Lake Nyos victims in Buabua.

In the words of Pope Francis, the pastor must smell of his sheep and I find an apt instantiation of these words in your ministry. Particularly striking to me is the fact that Fr. Celestine introduced me to the Daiga’s in Muyuka not one of those rich families of the parish but simple, dedicated Catholics who attended mass daily and struggled to eke out a living but graciously welcomed me as their oldest son. It could have been easy to let me enjoy the cozy comforts of the parish but Fr. Celestine afforded me the opportunity to learn that the family as domestic Church is a strong foundation for building one’s vocation. He not only expanded my world view but also extended my family.

Fr Celestine has an unrivaled passion for liturgical music. He infected me with this and while many people wrote some us off as being “tone deaf,” I invariably developed a passion for liturgical music. I remember exploiting Fr. Celestine’s impressive library of tapes of music from the seminary choir which I “ravished” daily. In addition, I admired Fr. Making the time to teach the choir and prepare for the liturgy and taught me the value of good music for worship.

Fr. Celestine also impressed upon me the value of enjoying a good meal. I learnt basic table manners and the value of a meal as an act of worship. I relish the flashbacks of those trips to BOTA with the occasional lunch at the Procure, the stop overs at different parish houses sharing in priestly camaraderie and above all the finesse with which Fr. Celestine consumed corn fufu and roasted chicken, staple meal of the Kom people. I am reminded of my dad’s friend of blessed memory, Pa David Teh who had a healthy appetite for corn fufu and vegetables. In this Fr exemplified one of the best ways of staying true to his Kom identity out of Kom without the parochial entrapments wont of such cultural affiliations.

It warmed my heart when your Bishop decided to send you to Rome to study Spirituality and I found this definitely apropos. The two books you offered me to read while under your tutelage were Teresa Avila’s book on mental prayer and the biography of Cure D’Ars. These left an indelible imprint on my mind.

For these and more others mention of which would be superfluous, I would like to say Thank you! My formative years might not have yielded the desired intention namely ascending to the altar as a priest but they impacted my life in a real way and that is why the experience has remained evergreen in my mind. They remain invaluable lessons and you continue to inspire me even to be a good person and a saintly one too.

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Celebrating Lent in the Year of Mercy. By Lambert Mbom

Posted on February 24, 2016 by lambom's vuvuzela

Lent 2016 is here. It is 15 days old. It came in quite early. Did we not just celebrate Christmas? Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter. But everything points to Easter, the culmination of our Christian faith. This year’s celebration of Lent has an added value and significance given it is the Year of Mercy. Pope Francis inaugurated this year while on pilgrimage to war torn Central African Republic on the last lap of his apostolic visit to Africa last December 2015. While he spent the first Sunday of Advent in Africa, Pope Francis spent the First Sunday of Lent in Mexico. The Christian life is in essence a pilgrimage. This Lent seems to be an appropriate time to follow the example of Pope Francis and go on a pilgrimage but more than just a physical journey, it is an opportune moment to fatten our spiritual leanness and trim our spiritual excesses.

As I reflected on what this Lent holds for me, I found the answer in Pope Francis’s homily at Ecatepec, Mexico. It was not just the fact that in visiting this poor and crime ridden city, Pope Francis struck a favorite chord in his ministry namely going out “to the periphery” but also the message he delivered on that first Sunday of Lent.

Vatican Radio’s description of Ecatepec seems to bear resemblance to the messiness of the spiritual life for some of us: “It’s now an ugly sprawl of a shanty town littered with rubbish in one of Mexico’s ‘barrio bravo’.  An expression meaning a lawless neighborhood where organized crime, pollution and poverty reign and where most people fear to tread.”

In his homily for first Sunday of Lent, Pope Francis exhorted us all to ward off temptations by following the example of Christ. In this familiar passage of the Temptation of Christ, we find Christ using Scriptures to respond to the devil’s temptations. The Gospel passage referring to Scriptures notes that “It is written…” and “It also says…” Even the devil takes up the example of Christ and in Luke’s account the devil builds the third temptation from scriptures and quotes the Psalm. Pope Francis however exhorts us not to dialogue with the devil.

In his off the cuff remarks, Pope Francis calls us to imitate Christ and use Scriptures to fight off the devil’s temptation. This is a continuation of his Lenten message of 2016 where he says: “For all of us, then the season of Lent in this jubilee year is a favorable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practicing the works of mercy.” In the Pope’s message for Lent 2016, Pope Francis calls for an “attentive listening to the Word of God” stressing the “prayerful listening to God’s word, especially His prophetic words.”

But just what does “attentive listening to the word of God” entail? There is a serious charge against us Catholics by our other Christians that we do not know the bible. We shall take up that charge on a different day. Let each of us examine their conscience and find out where we are on this. How familiar are we with the word of God. I have heard it repeated to me very often that you must know someone to love the person. One of the best ways to know God is in and through the bible. Not just memorizing some stock verses and parroting them but actually praying with the Bible.

One method of attentive listening is the Church’s ancient practice of lectio divina. This is a way of encountering God through Scriptures normally by reading a specific passage from the Bible and using that as the basis for prayer. Lectio Divina is not the traditional bible sharing or reading the bible for edification but letting oneself be soaked in and steeping oneself in Scriptures.

Lectio Divina is characterized by four steps namely: Reading, Thinking, Praying and Acting. The renowned professor of scripture, Fr James Martin (SJ) describes the process thus: Reading: You pick a scriptural text and then you read it.  At the most basic level, you ask: What is going on in this passage? What does the text say? Meditation: What is God saying to me through this text? At this point, you ask whether there is something that God might want to reveal to you? It is recommended that one chooses a word or phrase from the passage and meditate on it. Prayer: What do I want to tell God about this text? Then Action: We are always called upon to do something: Quite simply Go forth and be a witness. This year, we are called to practice the works of mercy.

We live in a very noisy world and we are bombarded by many distractions and attractions. We hear too many discordant voices and hence end up hallucinating. Our pilgrimage this Lent should help us center our lives on God by listening attentively to Him. Let us walk with God this Lent through Sacred Scriptures. Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

Pope Francis in the last paragraph of his 2016 Lenten message exhorts us: “Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable(sic) a time for conversion!” Recalling God’s words of mercy written all over the Bible we too should become missionaries of mercy in this year of mercy.

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Visiting the sick in the Year of Mercy by Lambert Mbom

Posted on January 15, 2016 by lambom's vuvuzela

field-hospital-open.jpg

The Basilica of the National Shrine – last Tuesday launched its 2016 Speaker and Event Series with a splendid lecture on “Compassion – The Thirst of God: Visiting the sick as a work of mercy” by Msgr. Brian Bransfield, recently elected General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pope Francis has given us an incredible year, said Bransfield. In fact, he has given us two gifts namely the notion of the Church as a field hospital where we meet Jesus Christ. And secondly, Pope Francis has introduced us to the Year of Mercy.

In an interview to the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, published in the Catholic magazine, America in September 2013, Pope Francis in answer to the question on the kind of Church he dreams of, responded: “I see clearly that the thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the Church as a field hospital after battle…” This possibly explains why of all the spiritual and corporal works of mercy this first lecture of the year focused on visiting the sick.

The Year of Mercy officially launched last December 8th, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and runs through to November 2016, Solemnity of Christ the King.

The Holy Father invites us to deepen our notion of mercy through an understanding of the compassion of God, a compassion manifested in Christ, Bransfield told the over 40 persons that had stayed after evening mass to listen to him.

It is no mere coincidence that this jubilee Year of Mercy kicked off on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception which happens to be the patronal feast of the Basilica of the National Shrine. The Basilica is intimately connected to this Year of Mercy then.

In his recommendations for the celebration of this year, Pope Francis calls on Catholics to reflect on and live out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, one of which is visiting the sick. Bransfield submits that compassion is at the heart of visiting the sick.

Drawing from a rich pastoral experience while ministering to the sick in a large parish in his diocese of origin, Philadelphia, he recounted a life changing experience with a dying woman in a hospice room. As he blessed her, she repeated the blessing after him but ended up saying: May the blessing of the Lord come upon you and keep your faith alive. Visiting the sick is an act of faith and benefits both the guest and the visitor.

“We may think we do the sick a favor when we visit them. In some sense we do,” said Bransfield. Christ invites us to the ministry of the sick. He himself touched the leper and entered into the margins of life. The speaker urged all to enter into the uncomfortable space of visiting the sick. They are Jesus Christ to us.

These words echo a favorite theme of Pope Francis namely reaching out to the peripheries.

“We must get out of ourselves and go toward the periphery. We must avoid the spiritual disease of the Church that can become self-absorbed: when this happens, the Church itself becomes sick. […] Between a Church that goes into the street and gets into an accident and a Church that is sick with self-referentiality, I have no doubts in preferring the first. (Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio to the pre-conclave General Congregation of the Cardinals, March 2013)

Msgr. Bransfield then explained the Christo-centric character of visiting the sick noting that, “When we visit the sick, we imitate Christ the physician; when we visit the sic, we visit Christ the victim. But it is also an act of compassion.” But just what does it mean to be compassionate?

Availing of the parables of the Good Samaritan and Prodigal son, Msgr.Bransfield elucidated the meaning of compassion beyond just feeling sorry for someone. He demonstrated how the anonymous man who fell in the hands of robbers and laid wounded is doubly hurt by the rejection especially of the priest and Levite who passed by. Many of the sick in our community feel this sense of abandonment and rejection in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes, he intimated.

The Samaritan’s action teaches us compassion. The parable recounts that the Samaritan was traveling and was moved with compassion for the victim. The essence of compassion here is conveyed from the Greek meaning of compassion, “splekchne” – inner most places are trembling with the presence of God. The Father in the parable of the prodigal son is also moved with compassion – he is trembling.

We visit the sick because Christ leads us there and he ministers to us and to the sick.

“On the Cross, Christ gives new meaning to all suffering. He cries out: I thirst, he empties everything. In this cry of I thirst, Christ calls us to works of mercy. He invites us to visit the sick: I was sick and you visited me. He draws us to the mercy of God. We enter into God’s mercy as we step closer to those who are sick,” concluded Bransfield.

At the end of the talk, the speaker had the opportunity to autograph some of his books which were on sale in memorial hall out of the Crypt Church where the lecture had taken place. The Next lecture will be on February 17th after the 5:15pm mass.

 

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Walk With Francis: Pope Francis in the US by Lambert Mbom

Posted on August 23, 2015 by lambom's vuvuzela

In 30 days’ time, Pope Francis will be in the US on an official and pastoral visit that will bring him to Washington DC, New York and Philadelphia. Ahead of this visit, the archdiocese of Washington D.C. launched a “Walk with Francis” project that invites Christians to honor the pope’s visit by prayer, service and action. Four weeks ahead of this visit, 2278 persons and 54 parishes/organizations have taken the pledge to walk with Francis and 2697 messages shared on social media according to archdiocese’s website, www.walkwithfrancis.org

In preparation for this visit, I have decided to walk with Pope Francis.  I have committed to read five books by and about Pope Francis over the next four weeks. Of course, what better way to begin this journey other than reading his latest encyclical, “Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home” Even though touted as an encyclical on the environment, commentaries reveal it is groundbreaking in many respects and Franciscan. It sure will make Stephen Beale’s “7 Papal encyclicals that changed the world.”http://catholicexchange.com/7-papal-encyclicals-that-changed-the-world

Were the Pope to call me on my personal cellphone or were I to receive a personal letter in the mail from the Pope, it would be historic. Yet, surprisingly, I left this personal letter unread since May 24th, 2015. Well, since the Pope will be in town, it seems incumbent that one reads this letter so as not to be embarrassed by the question: Have you read the letter I sent to you three months ago?

Child psychologists have us believe that the first two years in the development a child are very important. The veil of obscurity of Rev. Jorge Bergoglio who became Pope Francis tapers off in the first two years of his pontificate. He is the surprised choice to shepherd the Church and in deed he is a Pope of Surprises. Two books that capture the defining infancy of his papacy are, The Church of Mercy: A Vision of the Church and Antonio Tornelli’s, Fioretti-The Little Flowers of Pope Francis.

Pope Francis’ ecclesiology is worth examining to be able to understand his statements and declarations. For an avowed conservative or one with conservative trappings like me, it is imperative to discern where Francis is taking the Church to. In the light of the forthcoming Synod on the Family (October 4-25, 2015), and in preparation for the Year of Mercy (December 8, 2015 – November 20, 2016), the Vatican’s authorized Church of Mercy is a must read.

The Vatican Insider, Tornelli’s “The Little Flowers…” also celebrates the first year of the Francis Pontificate offering “inspiring stories, incidents, encounters, and excerpts from the writings and talks of Pope Francis”

It would be interesting to see the points of convergence and divergence between the two books celebrating the first anniversary of Pope Francis’ pontificate.

To understand where Pope Francis is leading the Church to, it is just fitting to know who he is and where he is coming from.  Austen Ivereigh’s, The Great Reformer: Francis and the making of a Radical Pope is tempting enough and I look forward to devouring it nine months after getting an autographed copy of this work last December at its launch at Georgetown University.

Given that Pope Francis is coming to the United States, it seems appropriate to savor some American flavor and who else but John Allen merits consideration. His most recent publication, “The Francis miracle: Inside the transformation of the Pope and the Church,” is quite enticing.

Join me on this pilgrimage!

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Holy Trinity Choir of The Cameroon Catholic Community DC Invites you: Sunday May 31st 2015. By Lambert Mbom

Posted on May 28, 2015 by lambom's vuvuzela

At every event to which we are invited, there is often a dress code: Formal, business casual or casual. For many of us, one distinctive way of celebrating our “Africanness” is by flaunting our traditional garb. In every day jargon, we talk of our “Sunday best” referring to how we dress to Church. It is such a big deal what the First lady wears to any public event. People spend hours speculating and analyzing the dress because it always carries a message. The truth is: our dressing always communicates a message and always indicates the importance we attribute to the said event.

This is no different for the choir. In fact the tradition of wearing choir robes dates as far back as Old Testament when we read David was vested in a robe of fine linen, as were all the Levites who carried the ark, the singers, and Chenaniah, the leader of song; David was also wearing a linen ephod. (1 Chronicles 15:27)

Dr. Schindler, dean emeritus of John Paul II Institute at the Catholic University provides a fitting context when he remarked in an interview:

“The liturgy is an act of worship and at its heart is a pedagogy. Etymologically, it is an instruction that leads people to God. The vestments used are separate from what is worn in everyday life. This becomes an important pedagogical moment. When a person enters the liturgy, they are drawn into something, which requires an effort and an understanding. There is something strange that draws into the mystery. If left with the familiar, then something is lost.”

This seems to be the message for the spectacular event happening on Sunday May 31st 2015 at the Church of the Resurrection, Burtonsville where the Holy Trinity Choir of the Cameroon Catholic Community is organizing a fundraiser to buy choir robes. Beyond the beauty of those angelic and mellifluous voices, this group of young adult Cameroonians seeks to add to the grandeur of the liturgy. Under the distinguished patronage of the pastoral council, this group seeks to raise $6500 to realize this noble ideal.

Join the Cameroon Catholic Community of the archdiocese of Washington DC to bring this dream to fruition. There shall be a musical concert after the 2.30 p.m. mass. Generous donations will be taken up.

Come listen to the consummate Nadege and virtuoso Sam Orock warm your hearts; come and discover the keyboard wizardry of Lazare and Herman. Come enjoy some classy performance from out of this world. It shall be entertaining, relaxing, soul-stirring and a good tonic to spice your week with.

You are specially invited!

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Five fetishisms of Lent: Towards a genuine Lenten Spirituality. By Lambert Mbom

Posted on February 24, 2015 by lambom's vuvuzela

Lent is here! Among the Catholic Liturgical seasons (Ordinary time, Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter), Lent seems the least “popular” given its somber outlook and its inner meaning. For 40 days, the Church invites us it would seem to sacrifice, to give up something. The intriguing part of this season is displayed in what I have referred to as the fetishes of Lent.

The season itself kicks off with Ash Wednesday when Catholics are reminded of the need to give perspective to life through those words: Remember man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return. One cannot but wonder what is it about these ashes that many people want to “dirty” their foreheads with. I am sure some people who for one reason or the other cannot receive the ashes on Wednesday would advocate that it be given the day after. The number of people attracted to and by this Catholic tradition is exciting but also raises some questions. When ashes become more popular than Holy Communion or the reception of it then one must wonder what the alluring enticement of ashes are if they do not draw us to Christ?

Once we are reminded of the futility of this life through ashes, we are equally invited to penance which enables us to build intimacy with Christ through Holy Communion. Receiving ashes is a penitential practice which we must build upon throughout Lent especially with the sacrament of reconciliation paving the way for the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ.

During Lent, the Church invites us on the Via Dolorosa to walk the way of the Cross after the example of Christ. Praying the fourteen Stations of the Cross is a popular practice in St Anthony’s parish Njinikom like many Catholic parishes. As a kid, my maternal grandparents compelled me to come with them and I learnt how to say basic prayers in the vernacular and I have never forgotten these. I often found it intriguing that the Church would be full during the Stations of the Cross which preceded mass and immediately after the last station a good number of people left for their farms. It is interesting how people would choose the Stations of the cross over mass.

While I grew up knowing that it is critical to pray all 14 stations every day of Lent except Sundays, I have learnt over the last decade that these are “mere private devotions.” In some places in the U.S, it is one station every day over 14 days while in others all fourteen are prayed once a week. To some acquainted with daily stations, this is a scandal. Again, we must find a true place for these devotions in our lives and eschew the temptation to dramatize these for public display rather than real spiritual gain.

My best experience with praying the stations of the cross is what the Rector of the Spiritual Center helped us to do namely ask each of us to write out our personal meditation on these. May be, this Lent each of us could design our meditations on this devotion. Our daily lives as pilgrims is laced with judgments like Pilate’s, condemnations of others to death in speech and in deed, burdens unto others with our cross, slips and falls many times under the weight of the cross and the list is on. Our life story itself is a reflection of the Stations of the Cross and we could weave these into beautiful meditations.

Another popular day during Lent is Palm Sunday which kicks off Holy Week and celebrates the triumphant entry of Christ into Jerusalem. The blessing of palm branches symbolic of those waved to welcome Christ is an equally enticing event. Many people scramble to have these palm branches which they keep in their cars or at home. Some of us seem to ascribe some magical powers to these. It is often very interesting seeing people struggling to ensure that the holy water the priest sprinkles to bless the palm branches actually touches theirs or else it is not blessed. There is the great temptation to exaggerate the significance of these branches and so lose their real value. It is not surprising that the ashes are made from palm branches blessed on Palm Sunday.

Let us fast forward to Good Friday when again many people turn out for the Stations of the Cross. There is no denying it that this is one of the most important days of the year; but the story does not end there. Easter is the most important day of the year and the essence of the Christian message. The Cross is our only hope because beyond it there is the resurrection. Good Friday is the only day in the year when mass is not celebrated throughout the entire Catholic world. The plea here is that we do not misplace our spiritual priorities. This explains why many of us find it difficult to appreciate the many Good Fridays of our lives and move beyond to the Resurrection. As the English saying goes: No crown, no thorns.

On Ash Wednesday, I sent a text message to seven of my good friends, two priests, three Catholic colleagues and two very close friends. I asked them what they thought I should give up for Lent. The responses I got were so enlightening and I will share these at an appropriate moment. In a bid to deflate some of these, I heard myself saying it is not important what they want but rather what do I want to give up for Lent? On further meditation, I believed the right question I should be asking is what does God want me to give up for Lent? I am sure the answer is nothing. Rather God is asking me to do something this Lent.

Like many have said the danger during Lent is to reduce it to a slim cause a time when we give up what we do not like. Giving up meat for Lent in a country like Cameroon where meat is a delicacy is a worthwhile exercise but it would be more gratifying if booze is given up. But again, it is not just giving up food and drink for the time being – postponed consumption where we starve during Lent to glut the appetite and be drunk at Easter. What we give up is important but equally important is why we give up and what happens to what we have given up.

Lent is an invitation to love ourselves and our neighbors. Maybe our Lenten journey would be more meaningful if we rediscover the meaning of those beautiful words of St. Paul’s hymn of love: If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor.13:3)

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Celebrating May as Catholics – Five things to Consider by Lambert Mbom.

Posted on May 5, 2014 by lambom's vuvuzela

We are still in the highs of Easter as we enter the third week of Easter. It is the Resurrection: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! One of the best messages I heard on Easter is Pope Francis’ beautiful Easter vigil homily in which he invited us Catholics to: “Return to Galilee.” On the Resurrection morning, the first witnesses heard this from the angel and then from the risen Christ. Galilee is the place where they were first called, where everything began! To return there, to return to the place where they were originally called. The Holy Father explains the meaning of the invitational challenge to return to Galilee. First it means a re-reading of the central events of the life of Jesus in the light of this new beginning, the supreme act of love.

It is also an invitation for each of us to remember and celebrate our baptism. As Pope Francis says: “For each of us, too, there is a “Galilee” at the origin of our journey with Jesus. ‘To go to Galilee’ means something beautiful, it means rediscovering our baptism as a living fountainhead, drawing new energy from the sources of our faith and our Christian experience.”

During this Easter, let us seek to rediscover the meaning of our Baptism. We must ask ourselves the question: “Where is our Galilee?” For those of us who were baptized as infants, Easter presents us with the unique opportunity to “claim” our baptism. We are encouraged to find out when we were baptized and to “re-live” that moment every Easter. The blessing with holy water and the paschal candle that burns throughout Easter are eloquent reminders of our Baptism. Embark on the spiritual journey to the place where we first encountered Christ.

Perhaps, throughout this month let us take the time to meditate on what Easter means to us as a community and as individuals. What does the Resurrection mean to me? What does it mean to say we are an Easter people? It is important to avoid the danger of complacency – whereby Easter becomes a mere cyclical return of the seasons over which we have no control. As an Easter people we are invited to show the power of life over death, exude joy and above all, live in and bring hope. Easter reminds us of those very famous words, the sadness of Good Friday makes way to the joy of Easter. Such is the rhythm of Christian life. The cross is not the last word.

Easter is already warming up to be very exciting with the wonderful gift of two new saints. They are not just the ordinary regulars but two great contemporary giants of our faith: St John XXIII, who convened the famous Second Vatican Council that revolutionized the Church and St John Paul II. For young adults like some of us, the memories of St. John Paul II are still very fresh in our minds and hearts. These are our contemporaries who walked this “vale of tears” and appreciate better our daily struggles. For over two and half decades, the universal Church prayed daily at every mass for our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II and during prayers of the faithful. We prayed for the Pope and today we are invited to pray with and through the Pope now a saint.

 May we be inspired by these words of the Preface the priest uses during mass for saints – holy men and women: “You renew the Church in every age by raising up men and women outstanding in holiness, living witnesses of your unchanging love. They inspire us by their heroic lives and help us by their constant prayers to be the living sign of your saving power.” There could be no better way of living the joy of this Easter other than enjoying it with these two new saints. In order to be inspired by their heroic lives we must seek to get to know them better. How about buying a biography on each of the recently canonized Popes and reading it. One of the greatest tragedies of Catholicism is the abundance of literature we posses and yet many remain ignorant of the faith. During this month, let us resolve to learn something from their lives. Above all, let us seek their intercession for our daily needs. Saints Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, pray for us.

A critical ingredient in St. Pope John Paul II’s pontificate undoubtedly is his dedication to the Blessed Virgin Mary. May is celebrated throughout the Catholic world as a Marian month. This is in honor of the Blessed Mother’s apparition at Fatima, May 13, 1917. During this month, we shall also celebrate Mother’s day on May 11th. We are invited to treasure not just the genius of the woman but also the amazing gift of motherhood. Hence, we must reflect on what it means to be not just a woman but above all what it means to be a mother? In fact, the challenge is to come to terms with not only what it means to be a Catholic woman and one who belongs to an apostolate but also a Catholic mother? How Catholic are we?

In a very special way, this month must be dedicated to the Catholic women apostolate of our Cameroon Catholic community in DC metro area who are in crises. The bickering, the rancor, bitterness and division fueled by a vaulted ambition to be in control no matter the cost by a coterie of know-it-all, high-class and well connected women expressed in pidgin as “over-sabis” are clearly not Marian virtues. It may sound outrageous but truth be told, it is not enough to pray the rosary! If these are the fruits of their bimonthly meetings praying the rosary, then we must reexamine our prayers.

Do we just recite the rosary or do we pray the rosary? May we grow in our devotion to Mary especially throughout the course of this month of May. During this month, let us seek to mirror the virtues of Mary, with and through whom we pray. Like St Pope John Paul II taught us in that beautiful encyclical on the rosary:With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. This month let us return to Mary’s school and sit at her feet to contemplate with her the face of the Risen Christ.

During this month when we get to celebrate mother’s day, it is also incumbent upon each of us to celebrate the motherhood of the Church. It is time for us to reexamine what does it mean to belong to the Catholic Church? Is the Church just a structure where we go to worship? Is it the dominant all male hierarchy which hardly understands women and above all contemporary issues? If Baptism makes us members of the Church – God’s family and the Church is mother, let us draw out the meaning of this for our spiritual edification. What is my relation to holy mother, the Church?

By some strange twist and divine providence, the Church launched the month of the rosary by inviting us to celebrate May 1st as feast of St Joseph, the worker. The Church celebrates the value of human labor. Work is good, it is noble and it is divine. In one of his homilies on one of these celebrations of May 1st, St Pope John Paul II drew out this significance of work when he said:

If the Son of God was willing to learn a human work from a man, this indicates that there is in work a specific moral value with a precise meaning for man and for his self-fulfillment. In the Encyclical Laborem Exercens, I mentioned precisely that “through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfillment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes more a human being” (n. 9) How can we not recognize then the great dignity of work, whatever kind it may be in its concrete expression? How can we not see the fundamental role that it fulfills in the life of the individual, of the family, of society?

This month many people are graduating from school and will be in the job market. May they ask the powerful intercession of St Joseph, the worker to afford them good jobs. May all those searching for jobs implore the intercession of St Joseph. And for all those who work, there is an invitation to rediscover the true meaning of work. There is the temptation to view work only in its economic value and forget its intrinsic spiritual value. To work is to pray and we are saved because we work or better still we are saved in and through our work.

In sum, the five things Catholics can do during May include the following:

–       Celebrate Easter by recalling and reliving our Baptism

–       Pray the Rosary

–       Avail of the intercession of Sts. Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II

–       Celebrate our mothers and the motherhood of the Church

–       Celebrate St Joseph the worker and express the value of work.

 

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