Holiness Should Be the “obsession”: Catholic Bishop on Lessons from Saints of Africa

Nairobi, 07 November, 2025 / 8:08 PM

The Saints of Africa provide numerous lessons about emptying oneself with heaven as the goal, Bishop Thulani Victor Mbuyisa of South Africa’s Catholic Diocese of Kokstad has said, calling for Africans to make holiness their “obsession.”

In his homily on Thursday, November 6, the feast of All Saints of Africa, Bishop Mbuyisa said that true holiness begins with spiritual poverty, “the daily self-emptying that frees us for God’s Kingdom.”

“The Saints of Africa, both ancient and modern… invite us to empty ourselves, thus allowing God to make a home in us,” he said at the closing Mass of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) board meeting at St. John Vianney Seminary in the Catholic Archdiocese of Pretoria.

Bishop Mbuyisa added, “Like the countless women and men of Africa over the centuries who have laboured for the Kingdom of Heaven, we too, together with our youth, are called upon to make holiness our own obsession and our own goal.”

The South African-born member of the Congregation of Mariannhill Missionaries (CMM) said that the young rich man in the Gospel passage of Mark who ran to Jesus, asking what he had to do to inherit the kingdom of God, provides numerous lessons about letting material things go in the search for heaven.

“Even though he was surrounded by wealth, the young man still felt some form of emptiness,” he said, and added, “Although he had every possession imaginable, he still lacked wholeness and contentment in his life. This man was a seeker and wanted to be certain that he was on the right track to attain the ultimate goal, eternal life.”

Bishop Mbuyisa said that holiness as a gift from God can be attained and won.  “How, we may ask ourselves,” he said, and explained that the answer is in the first Beatitude in the Gospel of Matthew.

In the Beatitude “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”, Jesus is calling on all to embrace spiritual poverty so as to free themselves for heaven’s kingdom, he said.

“This is an invitation to be and to do as He did, He who was in the form of God, but did not consider the divine nature as something to be exploited, to hang on to. Instead, He emptied himself,” Bishop Mbuyisa said, and continued, “Without emptying ourselves and surrendering ourselves completely to God, we cannot hope to be numbered among the saints.”

He also noted the fact that some Saints of Africa were youths, reiterating the message of Rwanda’s Antoine Cardinal Kambanda, in his address at the closing ceremony of the 20th Plenary Assembly of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) held in the country’s capital city, Kigali.

“Our very own martyr, Blessed (Benedict) Daswa, was only 44 years old when he was martyred of his faith. But how about our youth today? Do they desire and long for eternal life as much as that rich young man did? Are they able to empty themselves for Christ?” he posed.

The CMM Bishop prayed that the Feast Day of All Saints of Africa would strengthen the bonds that bind Africans together as a community of faith.