By Fr Giorgio Massa IMC
In every walk of life there are good and bad times, joys and sorrows . This is true also for businesses, institutions and churches
So far this month of October it has been a time of joy and excitement for the Roman Catholic Mission of Our Lady of Sorrows , at Hluti (Shiselweni Region).
For the past 2 years we had conducted a serious effort to help a number of school going children to come closer to Jesus, to choose Jesus as their best friend and Redemeer . We had ups and downs but on the 1st October 21 of them and 2 adults, had the joy to crown their dream by being solemnly baptized with the partecipation of the all Catholic Community and relatives and friends from other christian communities.
You could feel and see the joy of these new members of God’s Family on their faces. What a great gift of God for these children, their families and the Catholic Community ! May their knowledge and love of Jesus continue to grow in them all with the active assistance of the older members of the local Catholic community.
The joy and excitement was still in the air when on Sunday, October 8th, we had the joy and honour to welcome our Rev. Bishop Josè Luis Ponce de Leon who had come to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to a group of youth and a significant number of adults that for one reason or another had never been confirmed before.
It was a moving experience to see the young easily kneeling in front the Bishop for the anointing with the oil of Chrism and easily getting up while the older ones found it more difficult to kneel and had to be helped to stand up !
God calls at any age. We are never too young or too old to welcome Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives !
The choir graced the celebration with a variety of hymns calling on the Holy Spirit to come down on those being Confirmed as He had come down on the Apostles on Pentecost Day.
The inspired words of the Bishop in the homily will, for sure, resonate for a long time in the hearts of those being confirmed and of the congregation .
And what next ? We wait expectantly for another round of grace and joy towards the end of November when more young people will receive for the 1st time the Body and Blood of Crist in the Sacrament of the Eucharist . Come Lord Jesus !