KENYA: You are Called to “Midwife People’s Conversion,” Bishop Oballa to Newly Ordained Apostles of Jesus

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA

Fourteen (14) newly ordained priests who belong to the Religious Missionary Congregation of the Apostles of Jesus (AJ) have been reminded to offer their services with the aim of bringing forth new life and transforming people’s heart to God.

The Sunday, February 14, priestly ordination is the third since 2018 when the Institute has been under a Pontifical Commission of inquiry, a committee of Catholic experts mandated by the Holy See to oversee the process of the Congregation’s rehabilitation.

Addressing the deacons during the homily shortly before their ordination to Priesthood, Bishop John Oballa Owaa of Kenya’s Ngong diocese said, “Dear sons, today Jesus the Lord, the lover of outcasts, the one who affords to have pity and compassion, the one who chooses to meet and touch the untouchable and the alienated from the society calls you to send you out.”

“He sends you out to the outcasts of the society and the Church. He sends you to midwife by the help of the Holy Spirit the people’s conversion to him by proclaiming the gospel in season and out of season,” Bishop Oballa who was the ordaining minister narrated.

The Prelate added further that the priests when offering their services to the Church should remind God’s people not to make other lepers by form of discrimination whether within families, neighbors, friends, parents, children or spouses and that nobody should be closed out “as unlovable and as unloved.”

The newly ordained clerics who hail from three Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (AMECEA) countries; Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, have undergone the formation process for over ten years.

Emphasizing the role of the newly ordained priests in the society today whom the Prelate asks to be “vigilant, loving servants of God,” Bishop Oballa who serves as the Vice-Chairman of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) said, “You are being sent out to people who may be considered unclean, the outcasts, people difficult to love; they could be alcoholics, the lonely, the isolated, the poor, the unemployed, the sinners.”

He continued, “You are being sent out to a society that tends to exclude those of different cultures, different tribes, and different race with different political affiliations.” Remember, “The Church must always remain inclusive in order to continue with the mission of Christ that is ever open and inclusive.”

To counteract the challenges that have bedeviled the society, the Bishop has called on the newly ordained priests to show sincere love to the people and entice them to God.

“My dear sons, it is the love that accepts each one in readiness to correct what has gone wrong that you are being called to do. A message of God’s love that you will proclaim is to tell all people to make contact again with those they have cast out and to cure them by their acceptance. You will teach people the value of every human being for it is what lies within us that counts,” he said.

Speaking during the event, the Pontifical Commissary Fr. Raphael p’Mony Wokorach congratulated the 14 priests urging them to empower those they are to serve and to be “bearers of light” which they have received at ordination.

“Dear new priests, I congratulate you on behalf of the Pontifical Commissary, and the entire family of AJ. You are today empowered by the Holy Spirit, please empower the people, empower the women, empower the children, empower the priests and all God’s people,” Fr. Wokorach a member of the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus (MCCJ) told the priests just after their ordination.

“Your empowerment comes from the Holy Spirit and you are sent out to continue with Jesus’ own mission in a society that is somehow confused, somehow disoriented, somehow end-locked in darkness and suffering in many ways,” Fr. Wokorach said adding that “there is no greater empowerment than one that comes from the Holy Spirit to guide these people of God.”

The Institute of AJ has been under Pontifical Commission of inquiry after the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) issued a Decree “which called for internal reforms and a re-organization of the life of the members and of the Institute.”

The Commissariat comprise of four members; Fr. Wokorach, two Pontifical Assistants; Sr. Jacinta Auma Opondo a member of the Franciscan Sisters of St. Anna (FSSA), Fr. Angelo Bettelli a member of Canossian Sons of Charity (FdCC) and the Secretary to the Pontifical Commissariat, Sr. Eugenia Campara a member of Daughters of Saint Paul (fsp).