SECAM: At Pentecost, SECAM Calls for Prayers to Break Threatening Barriers in the Continent
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
On Pentecost Sunday, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) has called for joint prayers so as to break threatening barriers in the continent.
In a message signed some days to Pentecost Sunday by SECAM President Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo, the Archbishop of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), acknowledged that the continent is facing various challenges and it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that Africa can be enlightened for the good of all.
“The Holy Spirit continues his work in the Church so that she can transmit the message of the Gospel to all peoples through the use of vernacular languages. So, like the crowd that gathered in Jerusalem to hear the apostles preach, we too celebrate the feast of Pentecost in our parishes, welcoming the message of Christ through our respective languages and giving thanks to the Lord for the wonders that the Holy Spirit has accomplished in the life of the Church,” reads part of the message from the Bishops in Africa.
In so doing, they said, “We join in prayer with all our believing brothers and sisters in asking the Holy Spirit to fill us with his gifts so that we can break down the other barriers that threaten “living together” and social peace on our continent.”
Some of the barriers affecting the African continent, as the bishops reveal, include ethnic barriers, the persistent inequalities that characterise our societies and the culture of indifference.”
According to the prelates, as many countries on the continent are plagued by armed conflicts, claiming many innocent victims, they called upon all people to “ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten the decisions of our leaders so that they are taken with intelligence, wisdom and discernment for the good of all African peoples and for the establishment of a more just and fraternal society.”
Addressing the need for a better world, the bishops said, “For those of us Christians and non-Christians alike, who believe in the advent of a better world, the answer is clear: we must work to establish a new world where peace, justice and brotherhood between peoples reign.”
In their collective message dated Thursday, May 25, and referencing Pope Francis in his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti on fraternity and social friendship, the bishops stressed that as the apostles and the first Christians experienced Pentecost to have brought new life and renewal to the world, “The renewal that the Church and Christians must bring to humanity consists in “building the civilisation of love”, and it is “thanks to ‘social love’ that it is possible to progress towards a civilisation of love to which we can all feel called.”
They echoed Pope Francis message further, “Charity, with its universal dynamism, can build a new world. Social love is a “force capable of inspiring new ways of confronting the problems of today’s world and of profoundly renewing structures, social organisations and juridical norms from within.”
Consequently, they added, “We have to clear the way “in order to travel the roads of brotherhood and build bridges between men and between peoples, in a world where so many walls are still being built out of fear of others.”
SECAM members compared the event of Pentecost when the Apostles began speaking in different languages after being filled with the Holy Spirit, to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9 noting that, the dream of humankind is alive.
“The fact remains that humankind’s dream of building a tower like that of Babel has not died out: indeed, the progress made by the industrialized countries in the late 20th and early 21st centuries show the extent to which the myth of Babel has remained alive in people’s minds,” they said.
They added, “Globalisation, the modern version of Babel, thus appears to be the realisation of the imagination of the designers of development, which conveys a Promethean vision of the world in which the idea of progress and happiness is envisaged without any reference to transcendence or the existence of God.”
“Globalisation claims to erase linguistic and cultural diversity with the support of information and communication technology (ICT), resulting in a tendency towards uniformity,” the message reads in parts and continued, “A single language as a means of communication, a single culture as a vector of values (for example, the culture of performance), to the detriment of other cultures.”
Therefore, in the context of our Christian commitment in Africa, “We must listen to the Spirit of Pentecost who transformed the crowd of curious onlookers in Jerusalem Square into a people of believers living communion in diversity, so that we can make our mark with our Christian faith and our cultural values emphasising the family, solidarity and a sense of the sacred in this globalised world where opportunities for interaction between cultures open up new perspectives for intercultural dialogue,” the Bishops in Africa said.
They called upon the Blessed Virgin, Queen of Africa to intercede for the Continent so that the Lord “may put an end to fratricidal wars and that every nation may live in peace.”
