Advertisement

“Go to them”: Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya Urges New Deacons to Serve the Troubled, Abandoned

The seven newly ordained Deacons in Kenya's Homa Bay Diocese. Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

The representative of the Holy Father in Kenya has urged the new Deacons he ordained on Thursday, May 18 in Kenya’s Homa Bay Diocese to reach out to “the troubled” and “the abandoned” during their Diaconate Ministry.

“The Church needs to be in those places where most of the pain is,” Archbishop Hubertus van Megen said, and highlighted hospitals, “families where they have lost their loved ones … where men and women are struggling, not able to keep their marriage together” as some of the situations that need the presence and action of Deacons.

Archbishop Hubertus van Megen,Bishop Michael Cornelius Otieno Odiwa in procession during the 18 May 2023 Diaconate Ordination Mass. Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

You have to go to them. Visit them at home, visit them in hospitals, visit them when there is death in the families, when they are sick, when there is somebody in prison; visit the old people, be with children so that in the evening when you go to bed and look back at your day, you have something to give to Him and you can tell Him Lord, this is what I give today,” Archbishop van Megen emphasized, and added, “This is where God is calling us to be.”

The Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya and South Sudan who was presiding over the Diaconate ordination of five Seminarians belonging to Homa Bay Diocese, and two members of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (Passionists) also blessed the foundation stone for Holy Trinity Cathedral, a new Cathedral for the Kenyan Diocese with a sitting capacity of 3,000 worshippers. 

Advertisement

The seven candidates for Diaconate Ordination are presented to the main celebrant. Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

He described the groundbreaking for the new Cathedral as a milestone for the 47-Parish Diocese that was erected from Kenya’s Kisii Diocese in October 1993. 

In his homily during the May 18 event, Archbishop van Megen urged the Diaconate candidates to cultivate the virtue of compassion, manifested in being “moved with pity” to be in solidarity with and serve “the troubled” and “the abandoned”, offering prayer for them “because my heart was moved and I want to cure them of every disease and illness; I want to stand with them in their loneliness.”

Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

“Let that be our desire, to be moved with pity for the people around us; to be true shepherds for them, laborers. We can offer our lives to the Lord and then He may say to us, enter into my kingdom, receive my share because I have seen it was good,” he said. 

More in Africa

Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

The Dutch-born Vatican diplomat who started his service as Apostolic Nuncio in Sudan in March 2014 urged the candidates he was about to ordain Deacons to “work and work hard”.

Credit: Fr. Joshua Mege/Arise Communications Network

“When in the evening you go to bed, you should be exhausted and tired from all the work you have been doing throughout the day,” Archbishop van Megen said during the May 18 event in Homa Bay Diocese.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.