Remembering gives us hope

On Friday 29 November 2019 I was at St Phillip's Parish for the celebration of the Mass and the function that followed "celebrating" the closing of the residential hostel for children.

I am really grateful for this opportunity to be with you today. I would like to thank both the priests at the service of this parish and the Cabrini Sisters for the invitation. I would like to thank in a special way Sr Barbara for being with us today. She lives in Rome and we know she now belongs to the world but, as she herself has said, Eswatini remains home for her.

I am here as the bishop of the Catholic Church. The Cabrini Sisters and Cabrini Ministries are the Catholic Church. What we see here today is a picture of who we are as a Church. You can see it in the many different elements:

• it is never about us but about "others", those who are in need. In every speech, understandably so, we show how grateful we are to Sr Barbara and Sr Diane but I know that in their hearts it has never been about themselves but about the children: children who we see have grown up and have been able to build their lives according to God's will;
• we never work alone and therefore in everything we do we make sure we involve the whole Church and the local communities. In fact, today's program says: "Thanksgiving for 20 years of Co-parenting with the community";
• we partner with government, other NGOs who share our goals and views and other organisations all over the world ready to support our initiatives.

This, for us, is a dream come true. One wonders how we can be celebrating the "closing" of a residential hostel for children. The truth is that the project was born 20 years' ago when HIV/Aids devastated our families and our children did not have a safe place to grow up. The project was never meant to last forever. We looked forward to this day. Being able today to say that HIV is no longer a death sentence and that our families are now able to bring up our children at home is the best news ever.

Sr Barbara has just invited us to remember how bad it was 20 years' ago. Indeed. At the same time, being able to remember and to see how different life is today gives us hope that today's challenges are not the final word. No matter how bad it might be today at other levels of the life of the country, like we did 20 years' ago, with God's grace we believe we can make a difference in the lives of our people.

Therefore, as I thank each and everyone who served in this project, I invite you all once again to identify today's needs and to answer to them in the same generous way. God bless you!