By Sr. Georgette Ouedraogo, Lilongwe community, Malawi
In this jubilee year, as pilgrims of hope, the Church of Malawi has demonstrated his commitment to bring hope to the Christians and guide them to receive and share hope with others. To realize this, a series of congresses at national level are taking place in the Church.
The Children’s Congress
Children are bearers of hope and children are givers of hope to the church, to the nation and to the whole world. The Church in Malawi has understood that and on this journey of hope no one is left out. A National Children`s Congress was organized, the first one in history, and indeed it took place in the Archdiocese of Lilongwe (at Don Bosco Parish) from the 30th July to 04th of August.
The congress was honored by a resident from the Islamic community who, pleased that children are considered in this way, made a contribution of 300.000 Malawi kwacha to support the congress.
We were also honored by the presence of the secretary of the Pontifical Missionary Society (PMS) in Rome and we were part of the delegation to welcome her from the airport and to facilitate communication. There was also a representative of the PMS office of the United States to the congress.
There were 1397 children from the 8 dioceses. A delegation of 8 children from each parish were sent to the congress to reflect on issues related to children, their future and their responsibilities as children. Their discussion during the congress was guided with a particular theme: “Children, Missionaries of Hope.”
With different people intervening (Priest and lay people), several topics were tackled at the congress:
- Child Trafficking and Child Labor,
- Catholic Teaching of the Church,
- Mental Health, Children and Technology,
- Climate Change and care of the Environment
At the closing ceremony, the children shared what they learnt and made some critical recommendations. One of them was that the Bishops should appoint persons who love them because some of the parish priests abuse them. The president of the Episcopal Conference, Bishop Mthumbuka, in response to their presentation, promised and urged all the Bishops to insist on the safeguarding and care of the children.
First National Eucharistic Congress
After the National Children’s Congress, we entered into the National Eucharistic congress with the theme:
The Eucharist, source and summit of the Pilgrims of Hope.” This too took place within the Archdiocese of Lilongwe at Our Lady of Africa Cathedral, our Maula Parish.
Various topics were presented by priests, sisters and lay people to the participants who came from the 8 different dioceses. Among the topics were:
- Christ’s presence in the Church, especially in the liturgical celebrations
- Renewing and deepening our Eucharistic faith
- Centrality of the Eucharist in consecrated life
- Sacrament of penance and reconciliation as preparation for the Eucharist
We also had a Eucharistic procession with the blessed sacrament; it was almost a 3 hours’ march through the city with songs, dances and pauses for adoration.
At the closing mass, the President of the Episcopal Conference of Bishops in Malawi, Ambuye Mtumbuka said that we still do not know the real meaning of the Eucharist and he recommended that such a congress be organized at the Diocese, Denary and parish levels so that
we become fully aware of the Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist and the centrality of it in our Christian life.
