On 20 October 2020, the clergy of the diocese came together
at Our Lady of the Assumption
for the first time in this year marked by COVID19.
Below, the third and final part of my homily.
at Our Lady of the Assumption
for the first time in this year marked by COVID19.
Below, the third and final part of my homily.
3) Final image: The cross
Paul’s words to the Ephesians in today's second reading should always be treasured. “So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household.”
I still remember when some decades’ ago a movement for black priests in South Africa shared their restlessness at the fact of not feeling home in their own Church.
None of us should ever feel “alien” or “a foreign visitor” in the Church but a citizen like all the saints. Let us therefore continue to build a church where each one of us is at home.
We are not a national church. We are not a McDonald’s either: a church that looks exactly the same in every part of the world like a Mac Burger or KFC wings do.
Our church should be clearly rooted in this country and at the same time enriched – as it has always been – by the journey of the church all over the world offered by the different missionaries who come to serve among us.
I would like to use the cross as the final image. When we talk about it, we normally point out that it has two parts - a vertical one and a horizontal one - saying: one pointing to God and the other one to our brothers and sisters.
Paul’s words to the Ephesians in today's second reading should always be treasured. “So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household.”
I still remember when some decades’ ago a movement for black priests in South Africa shared their restlessness at the fact of not feeling home in their own Church.
None of us should ever feel “alien” or “a foreign visitor” in the Church but a citizen like all the saints. Let us therefore continue to build a church where each one of us is at home.
We are not a national church. We are not a McDonald’s either: a church that looks exactly the same in every part of the world like a Mac Burger or KFC wings do.
Our church should be clearly rooted in this country and at the same time enriched – as it has always been – by the journey of the church all over the world offered by the different missionaries who come to serve among us.
I would like to use the cross as the final image. When we talk about it, we normally point out that it has two parts - a vertical one and a horizontal one - saying: one pointing to God and the other one to our brothers and sisters.
Allow me today to read it in a different way: one deeply rooted in the history and culture of this country and one able to embrace the whole world. Not one without the other.
Therefore, dressed
for action – with an apron – deeply rooted in the Kingdom of Eswatini –
in communion with all the peoples of the world with Jesus as
the main cornerstone
