From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013
Next Sunday I shall not have my homily. I shall be attending funeral of Joan Muganda on Saturday June 8, my long time family friend and pioneer of Ukwala Catholic Church in Siaya County, Kisumu Archdiocese. She was about 95 years old. She had made a wish last year at one of the memorial services in Ukwala that I shall be the one to bury her when she dies.
At the same time, I have decided to comment on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, for one reason that it is where our charism as members of the Missionary Institute of the Apostles of Jesus, The Good Shepherd is drawn. This charism encourages us young missionaries to love and endure suffering with our flock and be compassionate to them.
Compassionate implies action. It doesn’t ignore the problem or run away from our flock when they are in need. In Mark 1:41 Jesus is moved with compassion. The phrase “moved with compassion” means “stirred to action.”
Therefore, in taking “the good shepherd,” as our charism like Jesus as the members of the Apostles of Jesus missionaries we are to protect, guide, and nurtures the flock. They must always be under our watchful all the times. We do not run away from them in case of any danger.
Encouraged by the move of David who killed a lion and a bear while defending his father’s flock as a shepherd boy (1 Samuel 17:36), as members of the Apostles it is our noble responsibility that we must tend to our flock, even to the extent of giving our lives in protecting the sheep.
This is precisely was the vision of our two Comboni missionaries’ founders, Bishop Sisto Mazzoldi and Fr Giovanni Marengoni. After having witnessed social and political upheaval in Sudan, Bishop Sisto Mazzoldi and Fr Giovanni Marengoni endured lots of suffering, yet they did not runaway from their flock. They were ready and willing to suffer with them.
Against the background that they were convinced that in order to survive and grow the Catholic Church in Africa they needed not only to found a congregation of its own native born clergy but also its own African missionary religious.
Even though this partly this conviction was inspired by the motto of the founder of their own Comboni Missionary Institute, Saint Daniele Comboni: “Saving Africa with Africans”, primarily their vision was to found the Institute of the Apostles of Jesus, Africa’s very first institute of missionary religious, following the experience the bishop and the priests under went as missionaries in Sudan.
By being native priests and religious our founders were convinced we should be in a better place to understand and save Africa. The two were forcefully expelled from Sudan by the government authorities’ in1960s.
In 1964 the government of Sudan had fallen into the hands of Islamic extremists, expelled all Christian missionaries and Bishop Mazzoldi and Fr Marengoni crossed the border into northern Uganda. During the journey the two men had time to discuss future plans and agreed, near the town of Morulem in the diocese of Moroto, to work together to found a new Institute.
Their letter dated 16 August 1967 addressed to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples in which they explained the pastoral plan was immediately approved following official communication to the Holy See, Cardinal Gregorio Pietro Agagianian, the then Prefect of Propaganda Fide.
When he contacted the Bishops of Uganda asking their opinion about the foundation of an Institute of Missionary Religious, the answer was positive and the bishops expressed their consensus to the Holy See. On 3 May 1968 Bishop Sisto Mazzoldi, Ordinary of the diocese of Moroto, received a letter from Cardinal Agagianian giving permission to found the Institute.
The letter read: “With this letter the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide, having considered the purpose of the Institute and heard the favourable opinion of the Ugandan Hierarchy, grants you the authority to issue a decree of approval for the Institute in question as well as all the necessary faculties to achieve this task”.
On 25 May 1968 Bishop Mazzoldi issued the decree declaring the purpose of the new Institute in three points: to evangelise; to strengthen the Church in mission lands; to help local Churches grow and become self-supporting.
This was the idea of founding the institute of the native Africans. The Congregation Propaganda Fide approved the Institute’s Constitutions on 23 February 1970. The first seminary was opened on 22 August 1968 and that was the beginning of the new Institute.
Inspired by the same vision, later the visits to Africa of Paul VI and John Paul II would confirm the intuition of our founders. In 1969 on a visit to Uganda Paul VI said in his discourse in Kampala: “Africans, the time has come for you to be your own missionaries! You must carry on the work of building up the Church on this continent”.
In 1980 in Nairobi, Kenya John Paul II, encouraged the Apostles of Jesus at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, where our members prepared and served at the Holy Mass he celebrated there”. He urged: “Africans to be missionaries “not only in this country which is waiting for the Gospel, but further afield”. It can explain very well why today Apostles of Jesus missionaries have spread to Europe, Australia and USA.
Bishop Sisto Mazzoldi MCCJ (1898-1987) was born in Nago (Trent) 13 January 1898. He joined the Comboni Missionaries and at the age of 24 was ordained a priest. After a period of formation in the diocese of Trent he was sent on mission to Sudan, mainly to organise seminaries. He spent the next 57 years of his life in Africa.
In 1950 he was appointed Prefect Apostolic of Bahr el-Gebel, in Sudan. The following year he was ordained Bishop of Lamus. His activity from then on was to guide and found new dioceses and he helped found no less than four religious Congregations: two Lay Institutes (the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and St. Martin de Porres Brothers, respectively in 1953 and in 1954, in Sudan) and together with Fr Giovanni Marengoni, the Apostles of Jesus (1968) and the Evangelising Sisters of Mary, Missionaries, in 1977, both in Uganda.
For the Apostles of Jesus Mazzoldi himself, as Bishop of Moroto, approved the Constitutions examined by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. In 1980, at the end of his mandate, he stayed on as Bishop Emeritus of Moroto, where he died on 7 July 1987.
On the other hand, Fr Giovanni Marengoni MCCJ (1922-2007) had the charisma of the founder and the formator of consecrated persons. In his free time he worked in direct apostolate in parishes and for other religious institutes, organising retreats, spiritual exercises, spiritual formation courses, conferences and he administered the Sacraments.
Giovanni Marengoni was born at Trezzano Rosa, in the province of Milan, 18 January 1922. A novice in Venegono, where he made his first vows in 1940, he completed his formation in Verona, Rome and Rebbio. He was ordained a priest in 1946 and served as formator and professor at Rebbio Seminary.
In 1952 he was sent on mission to Sudan, where he stayed for 12 years (1952-1964), at first at the missions of Rejaf and Kadulé and later at Okaru, as Rector of the seminary. After a year as Superior of the scholasticate in Venegono, he set out for Uganda, where he served for three years at Gulu Cathedral parish and then in 1968, moved to Moroto for 13 years as formator and superior general of the Apostles of Jesus.
Fr Giovanni continued this responsibility (1978-1983) also when the Institute was transferred to Nairobi, in Kenya. In Uganda and in Kenya he spent his life nurturing the three Institutes he founded: the Apostles of Jesus, the Evangelising Sisters and the Contemplative Evangelisers.
After a sabbatical year in Rome (1985-1986), Fr Giovanni lived for 16 years in Rongai, Kenya (1988-2004). In November 2006 he was admitted to hospital in Milan, where he died at the age of 85 on 27 July 2007, only hours after celebrating Mass for the repose of the soul of the deceased Bishop Mazzoldi.
Since its foundation the Apostles of Jesus have had five General Superiors: 14 February 2008: Fr Speratus Kamanzi AJ (Tanzania) whose term is coming to an end next year 2014-2002 – 2008: Fr Augustine R. Njuu AJ (Tanzania); 1996 – 2002: Fr Silvester Ruwamukube AJ (Uganda): 1990 – 1996: Fr Thomas Oliha AJ (Sudan); 1984 – 1990: John Masawe AJ (Tanzania); 1968 – 1983: Fr Giovanni Marengoni MCCJ.
Apart from Europe, Australia and the United States of America, today there are more than 60 communities in 30 dioceses in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, South Africa, Botswana, and Ethiopia. There is also the Association of the Friends of the Institute (AFAJ) founded by Fr Giovanni Marengoni.
This is an association of lay people to live the charisma and spirituality of the Apostles of Jesus and to ensure spiritual support for the Institute. The AFAJ is an association of people of different states of life who strive to know, love and practice the gospel virtues and spirituality: diocesan priests and seminarians, religious, lay single people and married couples, who strive to engage in missionary activity, practice devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, live following the example of the Lord’s first Apostles.
The association members pray and assist the Apostles of Jesus that they may be faithful to the religious life and vows of chastity, poverty and obedience and persevere in missionary and apostolic work.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
Tel +254 7350 14559/+254 722 623 578
E-mail omolo.ouko@gmail.com
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002