From our sister Georgette Ouedraogo, Lilongwe community, Malawi
On 29th April 2023, MSOLA sisters in Malawi, we celebrated the feast of our Lady of Africa.
Before the appointed day, we had some reflections and discussions about how to celebrate the feast, seeing that our parish and cathedral is named “Our Lady of Africa”. At the end of all the discussions and in the midst of so many ideas, suggestions and possibilities, we opted to use the opportunity to open our doors by inviting a few members of our parish and our brothers the Missionaries of Africa to join us for the celebration. This was in view of calling out to them for a new form of belonging with a focus of finding people who would like to be part of Lavigerie group in Malawi.
The program for the Mass included at the beginning the sharing of the history of our Lady of Africa and at the end to share briefly about other forms of belonging and give an invitation to anyone who would like to embrace it. We had four families who joined us, two aspirants and 2 other people. Fr. Jos Boxtel, M.Afr who presided the Mass spoke in his homily about Our Lady of Africa in Algeria and how the Muslim women trust and pray to her and he invited us to cling to her mostly in times of trouble.
After explaining the possibility of other forms of belonging and living our charism in a different way, some of the guests were interested and we promised to meet as soon as possible to see what we can live together.
On Saturday 20th of May two women, a mother and a lady, came for the meeting. We had an afternoon to pray with them, share the history of our congregation and the life of our founder Cardinal Lavigerie.
We believe that the group will grow with time.
