It was on this special and solemnity day of the presentation of Our Lord that we as the religious of Kampala Archdiocese gathered at Uganda Martyrs Namugongo Minor Basilica to celebrate this great feast. This was on 02nd February 2025. We began with a spiritual talk from one of the Religious sisters. She invited us to remember the day we made our first vows. I recalled how wonderful the Lord has endowed us the great opportunity to be like Him when He accepted to become a human being. In Heb 2:14. the Parents of Jesus presented Him to God as the ritual often goes when the religious are taking vows, our parents do the same and what a great gift! The speaker also quoted one of the popes saying, “how would the church look like without the Religious or consecrated people?” And for sure, I invite you a prominent reader of this article to pause a bit and ponder on this question, is there something significant that without the religious/ consecrated people, the face of the church would be different? Having pondered more on this I agree that the religious indeed do many things big and small but what was sweet to me was this: I believe that there are many Angels in heaven whose work is to worship, praise, adore and serve the Lord God Almighty Heb 1:14, then isn’t it worthy that we the religious should exist on earth to symbolize what is in heaven? But how bad it is that a religious fails to serve the Almighty God as expected, this issue arose in the conference room as some confessed of the growing “Nsekkere” (fleas) in our communities. This came up as we talked about something special to do in this jubilee year, members brought in beautiful ideas of visiting the sick, take care of the poor etc. But another one felt that we were more ‘out’ than ‘inside’ he urged us to begin doing something new in our communities , so the fleas I mentioned above do not mean the real fleas but those things that don’t align with what is expected of us. We later matched into the church, it was like heaven on earth as we lit the candles, shook the palms as we walked in gently. The Eucharistic celebration was presided over by the Right Rev. Paul Ssemwogerere, the Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese. He emphasized the Jubilee year with the theme” Pilgrims of Hope” invited us to anchor on Christ and bring hope to God’s people. It was the day the consecrated people of Kampala Archdiocese inaugurated the Jubilee year 2025. Represented by our religious leaders, we received the Cross as a sign of victory and a candle to be and remain the light of the World.
Cellina Komweru, RSCJ