UGANDA: On Missionary Childhood Sunday Children Encouraged to be Evangelizers to Peers
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
As the Church celebrated annual Missionary Childhood Sunday on July 12, an occasion dedicated to all children who like adults, are missionaries by virtue of Baptism. The children in Uganda have been urged to be preachers of the Word of God to fellow children.
“We want the Children to know that they belong to the Church, that they have a purpose and mission to evangelize to their fellow children who in the end evangelize the families,” the Sunday school teacher of Uganda Martyrs Minor Basilica, Namugongo, Ms. Dorothy Atuhaire Ssonko told AMECEA Online Thursday, July 16, adding that “Jesus loves children and they too can share that love with their fellow children and their families.”
Celebrated under the theme “Holiness” which was declared by Pope Francis early this year Ms. Ssonko who has taught the children for eleven years said, “This year’s theme of holiness calls the children to know that in their little ways they can be holy.”
Missionary Childhood Day was established by Pope Pius XII but each country has its own day instituted for the celebration. In Uganda, the yearly Missionary Childhood Sunday is celebrated on the second Sunday of the month of July each year.
This year, the Corona-virus pandemic couldn’t allow the children to gather for the celebration because of lockdown. However, according to Ms. Ssonko, the children have been having Rosary prayers virtually every Saturday since the commencement of lockdown in Uganda.
In the liturgy bulletin for Sunday, July 12, shared with AMECEA Online, the children have been reminded to pray for fellow children in the whole world, read the Bible and share what they have learnt with other children and their parents, and carry out acts of love and charity to needy children, especially those within their neighborhood.
Meanwhile, the National Director of Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Uganda, Fr. Pontian Kaweesa explained that the Catholic Church has four Pontifical Mission Societies for the evangelization and spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ in the world.
Explaining these societies Fr Kaweesa said, “We have the Pontifical Society Formation Childhood which deals with children as friends of Jesus; the Society for the Propagation of the Faith which deals with the members who build and support the Church as adults; the Society for St. Peter the Apostle which deals with young boys and girls and young adults who want to become priests, religious brothers and sisters; and finally the Society of Pontifical Missionary Union which deals with all those who go out and work together or cooperate in doing the work of Jesus that he commanded all the Christians to do in the world.”
He further disclosed that Covid-19 pandemic that has led to closure of Churches in Uganda “is not to destroy the Church but rather to teach us that there is one thing that unites us and that is prayer.”
“We have to pray and ask God to help us in these difficult times, to ask God to help the doctors and the nurses who are taking care of the sick and also to help the scientists to come up with the much-desired medicine and vaccine that can help us get rid of the Corona-virus,” concludes Fr. Kaweesa.
