"When last year we launched an Extraordinary Missionary Year, none of us expected the world to be facing this pandemic. As I wrote on Ascension day, our call as being a baptised and sent community has not changed. What has changed is the context in which we are called to live it. COVID19 is the context where we are called to proclaim Jesus".
I shared this with 19 young people from some of our parishes who spent the weekend being trained on COVID19. Thanks to the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) we were able to launch an awareness project in our diocese. It is led by our "Catholic Nurses Guild". We chose young people to be the ones to be sent. They were identified mostly by their priests at: Our Lady of the Assumption (Manzini), St Peter and Paul (Kwaluseni), St Phillip's, St Ignatius of Loyola (Siphofaneni), Anunciation of the Lord (Florence), Holy Rosary (Mankayane), St Joseph (Mzimpofu).
I am really grateful to the Catholic Nurses Guild for taking the lead. I am also impressed. I know the quality of their members but I am also aware that they have more than enough on their plates as they are in the front line dealing with this pandemic. It was not me who went to them asking to do take this extra service, they themselves asked to do it so that the Church would be faithful to her call.
This is not just another awareness program. It is clearly marked by our diocesan missionary spirit and what see Jesus doing in the Gospels:
- on their backs the familiar passage from John 10:10 "I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly". These are the words Bishop Zwane chose decades' ago to identify our diocesan Catholic Centre based in Manzini: "Kute babe nemphilo" - "that they might have life";
- in the Gospels we see people going to Jesus asking him to be healed. In this case they are being sent so that... people do not get sick! When coming across those who are already sick, they will know where to send them so that they are cared and get better;
- they are not just sent to everyone but the project was planned in such a way that they would be looking for the most vulnerable in their own communities and those most difficult to be reached.
The passage of the lost sheep could be a good reference, I told them. Not because they are the lost sheep (!!!) but the fact that not being with the rest, have put them at risk of not receiving the message; - two target groups have also been particularly considered: people with disabilities (one joined the training) and migrants and refugees (with the help of the refugee centre in the Kingdom)
I found it important for them to know that this project is possible thanks to the generosity of our brothers and sisters in Italy, a country that experienced 236.000 people being infected with the virus and 34.000 people dead. It opens our eyes to see that in the midst of such a tragedy they could still think of those in our continent who are now facing the same pandemic.
I invited them to show our gratitude not only in words but also by giving the best of themselves in this project: "let us make every cent count, let us give the best of our energies, let us go beyond the 5000 people we want to reach".
Click below
for photos from the training
for photos from the training
