By Florence Wesley
Every year the Catholic Church of the diocese of Mangochi celebrates the feast of St Augustine, the Patron Saint of the diocese of Mangochi, who was the bishop of the diocese of Hippo and became the doctor of the Church. The feast day is on 28th August, but this year, the celebration took place on 8th October due to some reasons. This celebration took place at St. Augustine (Mangochi) Cathedral parish and started with the Eucharistic sacrifice, whose main celebrant was the bishop of the diocese of Mangochi, Rt. Rev. Montfort Stima. On this occasion, priests, religious men and women and the parishioners are always encouraged to come and support their diocese. This year, the aim of the occasion was to raise funds for school fees for major seminarians of this diocese.
Speaking to the Christians who came to the occasion, the bishop called upon all Catholic Christians to love one another and follow the will of God. He said that Christians should not allow poverty to kill their conscience because it (poverty) brings more darkness to the world. “Love has no meaning if we fail to follow the will of God, which will help us to raise our faith,” said the bishop. He also reminded the Christians that it is their responsibility to pay fees for seminarians through their bishop.
In addition to that, the Vocational Director Fr. Steven Namame encouraged Christians to adopt a seminarian at the parish, church, small Christian community, family, individual or church group levels and be supporting him through fees payment, stationery, transport and medical care. “For Christians to receive the sacraments all the time, it means having enough priests in the diocese and this can be achieved if we have seminarians in the seminaries. These seminarians will be sent to such seminaries if the diocese has paid school fees for them. It is therefore the responsibility of the lay faithful to support for the achievement of this goal,” said the Vocations Director.
As of now, the diocese of Mangochi has got thirty-three seminarians as follows: sixteen of them are at St. Peter’s Major seminary in Zomba, twelve of them are at St. Anthony’s Major seminary in Mchinji and five are at the Spiritual formation centers of Christ the King in Rumphi and Kasina in Dedza. For all these seminarians to complete an academic year, the diocese requires twenty-seven million kwacha to pay for their school fees and other necessities for their priestly formation. On this day, there was an auction sale of different items and farm products. Many people brought fish, goats, bags of fertilizer, smart phones and many items to be sold and the money was offered to the diocese for the same purpose. There were also maize and other vegetables from Utawaleza farm of the diocese.