By the Office of Communications
As the journey towards diocesan golden jubilee celebration still goes on, various groups of people are also taking part in it differently. For example, at the parish of Koche today (21st April, 2023), Christians have had an interaction with Rt. Rev. Montfort Stima, the bishop of the diocese of Mangochi, on his pastoral visit. The program of the day started with Eucharistic celebration led by the bishop himself. The aim of this visit, according to His Lordship, was to assess if the Catholic Christians of today have got strong faith in God or not, after having the diocese for fifty years. He used a scriptural reading (Acts 2:42-47), from where he extracted the theme of unity which can help them to move forward as a church.
Bishop Stima said that every Christian starts his Christian journey at baptism. From there, he has to be a witness of Jesus Christ and after fifty years of existence as a diocese, one has to ask himself or herself whether he or she has drawn other people to Christian faith by way of life as the first Christians were doing. He continued to say that in the Christian families, unity has to exist up to the small Christian communities and culminating in the churches. “Self-reliance is difficult among Catholic Christians because there are divisions among them. The first Christians were not selfish and we have to adopt that spirit of being altruistic,” said the bishop.
Remarking on the interaction, the parish priest of Koche parish, Fr. Paul Rapozzo thanked the bishop for coming to meet the Christians. He also asked the parishioners to utilize the lessons from that interaction with the bishop, so that its fruits have to be experienced, not only in the parish of Koche, but also in the whole diocese of Mangochi.
Bishop Montfort Stima has been on pastoral visit to different parishes in his diocese since early April. From Tuesday (18th April 2023), he was in the deanery of Nankhwali which has got four parishes. With Koche parish, it means he has finished visiting parishes of this deanery.
