“I WILL RISE AND GO TO MY FATHER”
(Lk. 15:18)
Pastoral Letter of His Grace Archbishop
Metropolitan of Gulu
Dear beloved sons and daughters of God.
Reconciliation and Love!
This year we are celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the foundation of Gulu Diocese (1953) now Archdiocese. It is being marked in a very special way with three historic events: the present tribulations caused by the over seventeen years of insurgency, the canonization of Saint Bishop Daniel Comboni on 5th October this year 2003 and the coming centenary of Faith in Northern Uganda. These three events are God’s grace of evangelization today as they had been some one hundred years ago in the then Vicariate of Central Africa which included Northern Uganda.
Let us receive every thing from God’s hands as a call to praise Him who is Our Father, to whom we sincerely want to return.
The first Comboni missionaries in fact set foot on Omach soil in 1910 having left the small port of Khartoum on 30th December 1909 and came to Gulu the following year in 1911. From Gulu they moved to Kitgum in 1915.
Looking at the reality of the Catholic Church in its past and present we find it abundantly clear that the Church has lived and matured through the cross. Suffering has always been and still is part of the life of Faith in space and time. Paradoxically, life comes through suffering and persecutions (Num. 21:4-9). I am sure this is the situation of the Church in Uganda and elsewhere.
Amidst persecutions and tribulations of that time, Bishop Daniel Comboni remained a firm founding pastor. “The Church is used to contradictions and oppressive hands of despots, nay even at martyrdom, such being God’s works” (Comboni’s writings 6489). And more explicitly regarding evangelization of Uganda. Being the Catholic missions of Uganda God’s work, thus God will destroy the devil’s mechanizations and after their first trials the Catholic missions in Uganda will succeed. Let us pray” (Scritti. 6498). Now dear brothers and sisters, it is our turn and our challenge. Let no one get discouraged.
Comboni distinguished himself by his care and esteem for the African people. He promoted their good education and taught them God’s words of salvation through a large network of catechists and teachers. He also strenuously opposed the abduction of people and the cruel marketing of the slaves, to the point of risking his very own life.
I invite all of you dear priests, religious, catechists and all the lay faithful to thank God for our Christian calling which brought about to us all so many good things. I request that we make a thorough examination of our lives in the light of God’s word and the teaching of the Church which our ancestors willingly accepted and professed with perseverance. Comboni’s prophecy was truly and fully realized in our lives in our martyrs Daudi Okelo and Jildo Irwa who were beatified on 20th October 2002 and in many other saintly people who offered their lives and became true witnesses of Christ. I am confident that even in our present time of persecutions and adversities against the Church, many more people like Comboni are offering their lives for Jesus and spreading of his gospel. I do strongly recommend that all priests, religious, catechists and laity take stock (written record) of so noble an offer for the evangelization of peoples. All these will perhaps add up to an edifying martyrology of our saintly and heroic people.
Knowing our frailty, we should first ask for pardon from Our Father in heaven and secondly the reconciliation with our brothers and sisters whom we might have wronged in one way or another. In fact, we learned since the first catechetical instruction that the Father in heaven does pardon us if we pardon those who wrong us (Mt. 6:14-15).
Pardon or mercy is a blessing and as such it is a very important point in the process of reconciliation. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt. 5:7). Mercy is paid with mercy in the process of achieving happiness here on earth and in heaven. When you pardon or show mercy, you will obtain pardon or mercy and so become happy and blessed in life. Isn’t this what we are looking for?”…is not this the position of Christ with regard to mankid when He says ‘As you did it to one of the least of these… you did it to me?’ (Mt. 25:40). Do not the words of the sermon on the mount on mercy constitute, in a certain sense, a synthesis of the whole of the Good News of the “wonderful exchange” contained therein? This exchange is a law of the very plan of salvation, a law which is simple strong and at the same time easy. Demonstrating from the very start what the human heart is capable of (to be merciful), do not these words from the sermon on the mount reveal in the same perspective the deep mystery of God; that inscrutable unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in which love containing justice, sets in motion mercy, which in its turn reveals the perfection of justice?” (John Paul II (1980) on the mercy of God: 8). But perfect justice goes beyond justice of retribution unicuique suum. It is loving.
The process of reconciliation must help us to abandon the rampant ethnic customs of considering some other peoples as our traditional enemies; to hate and kill, thus going beyond legitimate defence. It is a process of a difficult interior journey; it requires a sincere act of humility. We find the process best expressed in “the parable of the prodigal son” in the Gospel according to Luke.
Finding himself in different life from his Father’s house, the prodigal son began searching his soul. The situation in which he found himself when he lost the material goods of his father’s house should have made him aware of a deeper loss, a loss of his own dignity. Underneath the loss of material goods is concealed the tragedy of lost dignity. He became aware of his squandered son-ship. The conclusion is a resolute “I will rise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servant” (Lk. 15:18-19), a real metanoia (change).
A similar experience is to be found in the experience of St. Paul. Both the prodigal son and St. Paul recognized their frailty in the gruesome struggle to maintain their dignity.
My dear people, at this point you understand my worries about our own present situation. Years of what should have been struggles to defend and maintain human dignity in our nation are being squandeed. There are still talks of wars and killings among us as if we are not sons and daughters of the same Father in Heaven. We are squandering the lives of our neighbours. Must I not worry about these acts which clearly erode human dignity under our very eyes? I wonder how many of us people of Uganda have not directly or indirectly squandered lives of our neighbours! Haven’t we lost our dignity? Do we realize that in killing rather than forgiving our neighbour we lose our dignity? We must search our souls.
Going back to the parable of the prodigal son, let us look at the Father’s attitude. The Father of the prodigal son does not waste time to listen to the son’s profound excuse. He immediately gives a blanket amnesty to his prodigal son whose dignity needed so much restoration.
When lost dignity is restored by pardoning, reconciliation happens. Reconciliation happens with oneself, with neighbours and with the world around (with the whole creation as St. Francis of Assisi teaches us).
We need true conversion by listening to God’s voice and by repenting of our sins, an inner conversion to God as Christ our Model shows us. It is the metanoia changing of our mind and heart to Christ, our only Redeemer. St. Paul warns us that the process of inner conversion is not easy “I cannot understand my own behaviour. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the very things I hate… In fact this seems to be the rule, that every single time I want to do good it is something evil that comes to hand. In my inmost self I dearly love God’s Law, but I can see that my body follows a different law that battles against the law which my reason dictates…” (Rm. 7:15,21-23).
We need true conversion by listening to God’s voice and repenting of our sins; an inner conversion to God as Christ our model shows us. First of all, one has to reconcile oneself and transform, to give way to the grace of Jesus, then our inner conversion must extend to our neighbour just as Jesus loved all sinners.
Finally the process of reconciliation will extend to nature and to all created things since “God saw that they are good” (Gn. 1:30-31). Of this we have a marvelous example of St. Francis of Assist for whom all created things are brothers and sisters. But above all we need to reconcile in our small groups putting aside anger and prejudices. We need to heal our conscience, purify our memory and avail ourselves the God given opportunity of the sacrament of Penance. Vatican II document teaches that “those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain pardon from God for the offence committed against him, and are at the same time, reconciled with the Church they have wounded by their sins and which by charity, by example, and by prayer labours for their conversion” (cfr. LG II # 2).
According to the New Catechism of the Catholic Church: “it is called the Sacrament of Conversion because it makes Sacramentally present Jesus’ call to conversion, the first step in returning to the Father from whom one has strayed by sin. It is called the Sacrament of Penance, since it consecrated the Christian Sinner’s personal and ecclesial steps of conversion, penance, and satisfaction. It is called the Sacrament of Confession, since the disclosure or confession of sins to a priest is an essential element of this Sacrament. In a profound sense it is also a “confession” acknowledgement and praise of the holiness of God and of his mercy toward sinful man.
It is called the Sacrament of reconciliation, because it imparts to the sinner the love of God who reconciles…” (cfr. LG II Ns. 1422-1442 pages 357 and 358).
In the above parable of the prodigal son, Jesus urges us to change our evil attitudes by practicing the virtue of humility. Jesus never punished sinners, rather he helped them to abandon wrong doing and urn to good ways. Even with the prodigal son and the traitor Judas Iscariot, Jesus maintained patience and talked to them lovingly and respectfully. We are always to act as Christians.
Looking at St. Daniel Comboni when he took possession of the Central Africa Mission in Khartoum on 11 May, 1873 at the time of the cruel custom of slavery, we see how this is possible. He remained merciful and welcoming. “I intend to defend those oppressed without hurting the oppressors, to condemn sins but without failing to help sinners come to conversion”. I insist we forgive those who do us wrong, because there is dignity in forgiving. “An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind and life for life will leave the whole world dead”. Do we want to live in the world of the blind and the dead? No. The law of love and life must reign supreme in our hearts.
I am terribly bothered by the inhuman practice of neglecting, and even often desecrating dead bodies. What sanity can we hope for if we continue to hate even bodies of people we have already killed and even stripped of their clothes? Let us remember how Tobit was praised and blessed in his pious practice of burying the dead persons of his time (O.T).
At this point we have to ask ourselves how much we love God Our Father who loves and wants us to forgive both good and bad people alike; Jesus Our Saviour who leaves the ninety nine good sheep to go and look for the one strayed sheep; and the Holy Spirit and his sven gifts; the Church, mother and teacher being one with Peter. Jesus on the cross and the Risen Lord made it very clear in both Jn. 19:24, where his tunic on Calvary did remained whole, not torn; and like wise in Jn. 21:11 where the old fishing net, through old, did not tear at the big catch.
The reference here is clearly to the Church which must always remain one undivided, founded on Peter the rock and his successors. Hence, the real reconciliation for the one who has abandoned the faith in the Church or denied any of the seven sacraments is to return to Jesus in his unique Church which rests on Peter the Rock and his lawful successors.
The Church, our mother, offers us prayers and the seven sacraments, by teaching us their true values. How is our faith and the seven sacraments in various moments of our Christian life? We should treasure the wealth of the Church’s sacraments, all of the seven sacraments, which heal and enrich our lives and Christian commitments. If it is necessary to assure that our children are followed in their growth with prayers, reception of sacraments of Christian initiation, it is like wise a must for parents to live the sacrament of marriage which Jesus blessed with his first miracle at Cana of Galilee (Jn. 2:1-12). In fact marriage enables parents and the whole family to transform their homes as it were into a domestic Church as the magesterium repeatedly teaches us. Moreover, it is very important that our children grow up with constant example of Christian life in the sacrament of the Eucharist, the very sacramet of love, in which the family shares the food of life. Let us make sur that our local customs do not water down the richness of our Christian life, by delaying the reception of Sacraments indefinitely.
Baptism of children. Our common son-ship in God is revealed in the natureal law for the respect of life “Thou shalt not kill” which was usually applied only to the next of kin. By revelation of Jesus all the baptized become children of God the Father and so the commandment thou shalt not kill applies to all people including especially enemies. When we understand the importance of our dignity as sons and daughters of the same Father then we also understand why all our children should be baptized in the name of that God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit.
I am telling you my people to go beyond acquiring a new name at baptism but rather to become new people, children of God. It is a matter of becoming, acquiring a new status of being, through the grace of God. We are not born Christians but we choose to become Christians.
The Eucharist is the greatest gift in the Church. Frequenting the Eucharist brings peace and love in our families, our villages and country. The Eucharist is the pledge of eternal life for us. In the Eucharist properly received we exchange the sign of peace with all our neighbours. And let us in such a way that we may receive and share this food of life with all our neighbours. And let us also help in building up decorous Church which at times will keep the Eucharist and beautiful parish Churches and Cathedrals as it is in the ancient tradition all over the Christian world.
Confirmation is no less important as we grow up in life. It completes baptism in a perfect process of spiritual growth of a human person. “In the words of St. Augustine the grace of God will not save you without your cooperation. God has created you in His image and so he gives you His Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety to perfect you.
Dear Children of our Mother Church, we are living in a troubled time, errors are tempting to destroy our saving faith, Children and the youth are, at times, taught to commit criminal and evil actions in the end of which, they become terribly traumatized and desperate. They contemplate suicide even if their hands are full of material wealth amassed by force of arms and intrigues.
Please, let us strive and persevere in doing good with the maternal help of Mary and the intercession of the Saints, particularly those who shed their blood in for doing good in this country, remembering Jesus’ words particularly “Qui perseverbit usque in finem hic salvus erit” meaning, “Whoever perseveresin doing good, during persecutions, attains salvation” (Mt. 10:22).
I conclude with the words of the great apostle of the gentiles Paul writing to the Galatians 5:13ff. “My children, you are called to liberty; but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self indulgence. Serve one another, rather, in works of love since the whole of the law is summarized in ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ (Lev. 19:18)”. And we must add what Jesus tells us: “Love as I have loved you” “love one another as I love the Father and the Father loves me” (Jn. 13:34ss).
With this exhortation and encouragements I implore God’s infinite mercy on us all through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “Mother of Mercy” and of Our Blessed Martyrs so that through a thorough conversion we may be witnesses of the love of Jesus in this troube world.
With my Pastoral Blessings to you and your dear ones.
+John Baptist Odama.
From my residence, on 1st Sunday of Advent, 30th Nov., 2003