Prayer, the power of self-belief

Eco-Connect'20

[Prayer the power of self-belief]

Everyday we engage ourselves in what we have now come to call prayer... We pray, we get in touch with the Divine.

This has to lead one to something... You don't enter into prayer without knowing what has taken you there-in in the first place.

Prayer is to transform one in spirit and make one into a person in the person of Christ.

That now means one entering into conversion, metanoia that deep change of heart in which one dies on a certain level of self in order to find the self alive and free and on a more spiritual level.

That is why we say, if you are not yet to ready to be converted don't pray, and if you pray at all be careful of what you are praying for.

The love of God as taught of holy men and women more so the monks and nun require two things: Love in the heart (effects mentís) and productive virtue (effectus operis). Virtue and love are great components of spiritual experience.

Virtue consists in a certain way of life: fasting, vigils, manual work, reading, prayer, poverty. This calls one to enter into 3 types of meditatiin: memory of the past, then awareness of the present things, concerns of the future. (cfr. Thomas Merton, on Contemplative Prayer, p.89).

As we pray, we are called upon to control out thoughts and our desires, we must acquire interior freedom. Here we are called upon by st. Paul as he says

"We have to be pure-minded, enlightened, forgiving and gracious to others, we have to rely on the Holy Spirit on unaffected love, on the truth of our message, on the power of God..." (2 Cor 6:6-10).

During prayer, we suspend earthiky preoccupations and direct our focus to the Father. We shall always enter into a struggle for divine peace and spiritual love, in contemplation.

This calls one to think of what he or she is doing and this can only be helped from the grace and without ever renewed self-discipline. This may call upon one to fast to achieve this personal meditation.

We have to think of what we are doing, and reasons for our action must spring from the depths of our freedom and be enlivened by the transforming power of Christian love.

Our ability to sacrifice ourselves in a mature and generous spirit may well prove to be one of the best test of our interior prayer, for prayer and sacrifice go together.

Where there is no sacrifice, there will eventually turn out to be no prayer, and vice versa. When sacrifice is an infantileself-display, or maudlin self - pitying introspection.

Serious and humble prayer, united with mature love, will unconsciously and spontaneously manifest itsrl in habitual spirit of casrifice and concern for others that is unfailingly generous, through perhaps we may not be ware of the fact. Such union of prayer and sacrifice is easier to evaluate in others than in ourselves and when we become aware of this we longer try to gauge our own progress in the matter.

© Don J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho
Www.nyamusus.blogspot.com

PASTORAL LEADERSHIP IN TIME OF C-19

Pastoral leadership

1. Practice Personal and Team Learning:

a. Pursue passions,

i. Explore what attracts or beckons
ii. Discover what energizes
iii. Recover what’s been suppressed
b. Examine what de-energizes

c. Pursue ministerial and professional proficiency, but…

d. Surpass competence and seek excellence

e. Report personal learning

f. strategize team learning, set dates, prepare, follow through

2. Practice Menagerie Ministry (possibly with a skilled consultant)

a. Name and tame Elephants: drive out blame, eradicate fear,

i. Nurture trust,
ii. Clear safe space,
b. Acknowledge Gorillas
i. Practice facing up to bad news
ii. Re-imagine failure
iii. Learn to welcome conflict as “something important going on”

c. welcome the Dove

i. Acknowledge, respect and engage change
ii. Inspire, call to, and lead change
iii. Re-align the change sequence: end; middle; begin

3. Cultivate and Share Spirituality: as persons, as teams

a. Take time for personal deepening

b. Bring your spirit to work

c. Honor Real Presence

i. Take time to be in God’s presence together
ii. Pray for each other
d. Set aside ordinary times -holiday
e. Set aside Sabbath time - for rest
i. Fold in to weeks, month
ii. Get away

4. Aspire to Common Mission:

a. Review the mission, link everything to it
b. Compose and declare a vision: with a “gulp” factor
c. Dream it, tell it, plan it, grow it
d. Name it, affirm it, take delight in small steps
e. Practice tagging
f. Ask, How does this foster my own personal mission?

Don. J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Keeicho

PEDAGOGY OF THE YOUTH AND THE ROLE OF THE CHURCH

Eco-Connect'20

THE PEDAGOGY OF THE YOUTH

[Things necessary]

- We need to enlighten the minds of the youth, so as we are able to direct them.

- We need to change our attitudes towards them.

- We need to learn from history

- We need to play a more prophetic role when dealing with the youth

- We need dedication

- We need apostolate that is beyond our church

- We need to know the different behaviours of different stages

- We need to know their families and even have concern for them.

- Beware of the society around us.

- Beware of their needs

- They are looking for the society that is revolutionary; they will question the steps of the church.

- Need for solidarity, with their parents, friends and common good.

- Need for truth. They are searching for truth and they will always be in constant protest. They love examples rather than speeches

- They need to be understood.

- Need for complete vision- better die standing than kneeling, have creative mind to escape anything that induces fear or tension. We have failed to prepare the youth in the basic manner so that they are able to imitate.

- Need to work with the parents and the state.

[THE CHURCH AND YOUTH]

There is little being done for the youth

- The church needs a new strategy for the youth which is more accommodating for
them. We need a revolutionary strategy. This is the church should employ

- Inspiration approach which should consider objectively

- Kind of world we live in

- How that world can be changed

- The force that can change the world.

- Instruction for action training them how to fight against evil of their society

- Global struggle through group study

- Categorized catechesis

- A follow up

- Dedication, zeal the church should evaluate their apostolate

Don. J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

MARRIAGE IS WHAT YOU WANT NOT WHAT IS THERE...

THE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE

“There was a wedding in Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there and Jesus and his disciples had
also been invited.” (John 2:1)

“Marriage is an order in which the profession must be made before the novitiate.” (Jean Pierre Camus)

“The form of matrimony consists in an inseparable union of minds; a coupled pledged to one another in a
faithful friendship. The end is the begetting and upbringing of children, through marriage intercourse and
shared duties in which each helps the other to rear children.” (St. Thomas Aquinas).


“Marriage is a covered dish”
 (Swiss proverb)

“Marriage is heaven and hell”- (German proverb)

“Marriages are happy. It’s the living together afterwards that causes all the trouble.”(Farmer’s almanac)

1. Always place yourself in the hands of God, so that he may give strength and courage you need to carry your cross.

Walk with Christ through prayer and rosary which unites families with family of Nazareth, which came before the families of the earth.

2. You are the true images and mirror where the people clearly see God’s plan since creation. It was God who chose you and asked you to live in the vocation of family life.

3. You should always be a role model of Christian values. Always guard yourselves against the hostile winds currently blowing against the family around the world through the media.

4. Sacrament of marriage like the ordination plays a very important role in the life of the church because the domestic church, the first school that teaches the basics of Christian values.

5. If you read the Holy Scriptures from where it starts to the last page you would continue
to admire and marvel at the wisdom and unique ways of God.

6. The disposition of the couple is to listen to God’s voice. Gal 5:13-16

7. Have the ability to listen, objectively analyse what you say and hear. Prejudice and emotions should not be in your vocabulary when dealing with an issue.- be open, wise,
simple, prudent, tolerant and sincere.

8. Be optimistic about your life, marriage, family, husband, and wife. God’s ways are not always ours.

9. Strongly believe in providence- in thee I put my trust, I and my house shall worship the lord, a family that prays together stays together, if the lord is for me who can be against
me, he who puts his trust in man is bound to fail- salt and mystery- the lord bless the upright-Ps.73/74, a pure heart create in me O lord.

10. You shall never look strong faced like the bereaved. Always be cheerful and ready to welcome a visitor in your home with a smile.

11.The identity of a catholic is the Eucharist where all other sacraments rotate. Without the Eucharist we would have no identity. Receiving the Eucharist is part of the identity of a
catholic. If you strike it off, you become unrecognisable. It is a feast of peace where everyone is invited to partake.

 Teach your children the sign of the cross. On your death bed the words will be
“Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.”

©Don. J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho 

Be honest...

BE HONEST                           

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a 
successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his 
Directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called 
all the young executives in his company together. 

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have 
decided to choose one of you. “The young executives were shocked, but the 
boss continued, “I am going to give each one of you a SEED. I want you to 
plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what 
you have grown from the seed I have given you. Then I will judge the plants 
that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO”

One man named Joseph was there that day and he, like the other, received a 
seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him 
get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Every day, he would 
water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of 
the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that 
were beginning to grow.

Joseph kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew. Three weeks, four 
weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now others were talking about 
their plants, but Joseph didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure.

Six months went by, still nothing in Joseph’s pot. He just knew he had 
killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, and tall plants, 
but he had nothing. Joseph didn’t say anything to his colleagues; however, 
he just kept watering and fertilizing the soil. He so wanted the seed to 
grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought 
their plants to the CEO for inspection.

Joseph told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she 
asked him to be honest about what happened. Joseph felt sick to his stomach; 
it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life. He took his 
empty pot to the board room. When Joseph arrived, he was amazed at the 
variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful, in all 
shapes and sizes. Joseph put his empty pot on the floor and many of his 
colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him.

When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. 
Joseph just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees and 
flowers you have grown”, said the CEO. “Today one of you will be appointed 
the next CEO”

All of a sudden, CEO spotted Joseph at the back of the room with his empty 
pot. He ordered the financial director to bring him to the front. Joseph was 
terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! May be he will have me 
fired”.

When Joseph got the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed, 
Joseph told him the story. The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Joseph. 
He looked at Joseph, and then announced to the young executives, “behold 
your next Chief Executive Officer!” His name is Joseph; Joseph couldn’t even 
grow his seed.

How could he be the new CEO?” the others said.

Then the CEO said, “one year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. 
I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me 
today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead, it was not possible 
for them to grow.” All of you, except Joseph, have brought me trees and 
plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow you 
substituted another seed for the one I gave you. Joseph was the only one 
with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. 
Therefore, he is the one who will be the new Chief Executive Officer.

If you plant honesty, you will reap trust.

If you plant goodness, you will reap friends

If you plant humility, you will reap greatness.

If you plant perseverance, you will reap contentment.

If plant consideration, you will reap perspective

If you plant hard work, you will reap success

If you plant forgiveness, you will reap reconciliation

So be careful what you plant now; it will determine what you reap later.

© Don J.B Nyamunga 
Girimori Catholic Parish 

YOU FIGHT BECAUSE YOUR HEART IS EMPTY OF LOVE...

WHY IS THERE WAR, QUARRELS AND FIGHTS AMONG US? 

A beautiful Christian ideal to have before us is that which Jesus presents in my neighbor. Jesus is in the person next to me, behind me, in front of me, in the person with whom I live and work. 

One person in recent times who lived this reality is Mother Teresa of Calcutta. While in hospital in 1983 she meditated intensely on the Gospel  message on Matt 25:31-46, where Jesus said that whatever we do to others, we too do to him:

Jesus is the Hungry - to be fed.

Jesus is the Thirsty - to be satiated.

Jesus is the Naked - to be clothed.

Jesus is the Homeless - to be taken in.

Jesus is the Sick - to be healed.

Jesus is the Lonely - to be loved.

Jesus is the Unwanted - to be wanted.

Jesus is the Leper - to wash his wounds.

Jesus is the Beggar - to give him a smile.

Jesus is the Drunkard - to listen to him.

Jesus is the Mental - to protect him.

Jesus is the Little One - to embrace him.

Jesus is the Blind - to lead him.

Jesus is the Dumb - to speak for him.

Jesus is the Crippled - to walk with him.

Jesus is the Drug Addict - to befriend him.

Jesus is the Prostitute - to remove from danger and befriend her.

Jesus is the Prisoner - to be visited.

Jesus is the Old - to be served.

As Mother Teresa accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1979, part of her acceptance speech went like this:

“It is not enough for us to say: ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor.’ Saint John says that you are a liar if you say you love God and you don’t love your neighbor. (1 John 4:20) 

How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your neighbor whom you see, whom you touch, with whom you live? And so this is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt.”

How can we love like this? 

Where will we get the power to love Jesus in others in this way as he asks in the Gospel? (Matt 25:31-46) 

In her letter to the people of Albania on April 28^th 1997 Mother Teresa gives the key on being able to see Jesus in others. The key to loving others is prayer. She wrote,

“To be able to love one another, we must pray much, for prayer gives a clean heart and a clean heart can see God in our neighbor. If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another. If each person saw God in his neighbor, do you think we would need guns and bombs?” 

We may not remember every time we are talking to someone, “Jesus is in this person.” In the parable in today’s Gospel the people were not aware of the presence of God in those around them. That is why in the parable both those to left and to the right of the Son of Man ask, “Lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” (Matt 25:37,44). Because we do not always think like this. 

Mother Teresa rightly said, “If now we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten how to see God in one another. If each person saw God in his neighbor, do you think we would need guns and bombs?”

Thinking like this means thinking in a new way, putting on a new mind, letting our brains be washed with the Gospel of Jesus. And as Mother Teresa said, it is through prayer that we will receive the grace to see others with this new mind of Jesus.

When we put on this new mind, the mind of Jesus, then his kingdom is coming in our world. Then Jesus is King of our world.

Be kind this week and look at a sister, brother, wife, husband in the eye and say I care and I love you.

© Don J.B Nyamunga

Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho 

Reconciliation and It's Colours in Time of C-19

RECONCILIATION

a)   What is reconciliation?

Reconciliation means:

Restoration of broken relationships, like when Yahweh brought back Israel from exile into their land; He restored the broken relationship between Him and Israel.

Its also used for healing

Improvements in a negative relationship

Reconciliation stresses the mutual relationship and its reconstruction.

Through reconciliation, the changed relationship is rectified for better, a relationship between person or groups who formally were at enmity with each other.

It means a renewed walking together of those who had been separated from each other by conflict.

In this light it refers to the act of which people who have been apart and split off from one another begin to stroll or march together again.

Essentially, it means the restoration of broken relationships or coming together of those who have been alienated and separated from each other by conflict to create a community of love again.

Reconciliation involves the willingness of both sides to résumé the risks of relating with each other once again.

Reconciliation is a process:

First we note that in reconciliation confession, repentance and forgiveness of sins are means by which reconciliation with God and others in sought.

Forgiveness and reconciliation presuppose each other, and their relationship is so close that it is not really possible to talk of one without the other.

In the process of reconciliation forgiveness is the first element. However reconciliation is more comprehensive, since it presupposes forgiveness, on the one hand, but on the other hand, is the fact that there can be no true reconciliation without forgiveness and that forgiveness has to be complete only when there is reconciliation.

Every sin committed offends the holiness of God and affects the personal relationship with other, thus having a social effect. Forgiveness has both divine and human dimensions. Christians endeavour to reconcile through forgiveness has to be inspired by God’s forgiveness of His sinful people.

In order to realize reconciliation in Christian community, that makes way for peace, forgiveness has three practical requirements that ought to be fulfilled by the estranged parties.

First, there should be restoration of an attitude of love in the Christian community, because wrong doing is not a valid reason for not loving the wrongdoer.

Second, there should be working through pain, anger and alienation until both parties perceive that the repentance process is mutually satisfactory. Through family to family apostolate and by other sciences like psychotherapy, psychological support through counselling both pastoral and clinical to repair damages.

Thirdly, there should be the opening of the future to appropriate relating, with trust and good faith that permits risks, spontaneity and the possibility of further or conflict.

The willingness to forgive and reconcile stands first in the list of things that make human relationships work. All members of the community must understand quite well that no fault can be repaired without forgiveness.

What needs to be understood is that reconciliation is a process that:

-        Is often painful and costly

-        Requires moral compromises;

-       Involves negotiating with one’s memory deciding which memories are to have the last words.

-          Cannot be imposed;

-          Should be done freely;

-          Takes time.

© Don J.B Nyamunga 

Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho 

A PRAYER OF A YOUNG MAN IN TIME OF C-19

Eco-Connect'20

[PRAYER OF A YOUNG PERSON]

Jesus, I am still young,
I have passed childhood and am struggling to be an adult.
Often I am mixed up.
Lord help me to sort myself out.
Often I am pulled in many directions,
Lord, help me to follow you.
Remember you said “I am the Way the Truth and the Life”

Lord, You went through these turbulent years of growth.
You had to struggle to become the man for all people. You were once young as I am now and I have no cause to be afraid. Lord teach me

- What to love
- Who to love
-How to love

I tell you straight, lord, sometimes I just want to be with it,
to attract attention, to have plenty of money, to have a good time, to have influence and popularity. Get a grip on me, lord, and I will do my best.

[Making decisions]

Lord, I am about to make an important decision and the day before me is charged with uncertainty. Enable me to sense Your presence and to feel Your undergirding power. To be assured of Your guiding concern. Amen

© Don J. B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

HOW OUR SEXUALITY IS DISPLAYED IN TIME OF C-19

KNOWING YOUR SEXUALITY IN TIME OF C-19

Personal Integration

The personal dignity and worth, (we had even before we were born) belong to us in the full sense as persons who can know and love, be known and loved. We should therefore be aware that the call to become self, is the call to achieve maturity and integration by striving to unify sexuality by all the levels and dimensions of our being. This is because the life of any person is a journey towards human maturity: from self-centeredness (need, selfishness, possessiveness), towards self-giving (love, gratuitousness). Self-centeredness is typical to children; gratuitousness is proper to the maturity of love and it is source of freedom.

The three main steps toward personal integration in the realm of sexual maturity can be summarized as follows:

i) Awareness

Awareness of one’s own sexual identification – overcoming the ingeniousness of the childhood

ii) Profound acceptance

The point here is that we must affirm and accept ourselves as men and women and be at peace with this noble fact or gift. For example, I did not choose to be a man but am a man and there is nothing I can do to change the fact but accept it with joy. In deed J. Dwyer summarizes this point on acceptance vividly by saying that “to affirm ourselves as men, is to affirm and accept our dependence on women and to affirm ourselves as women is to affirm and accept our dependence on men”.[17]

iii) Integration into one’s Vocation

Integrating sexuality into a truly personal existence is the greatest challenge and which we cannot avoid because the existence itself is that of man and woman. Each of us existing as man and woman is powerfully drawn to the opposite sex, intellectually, emotionally and physically. The fact that we exist as sexed being, either as man and woman, constitute the file in which we are called to move from being potential to actual or real persons. To attain our human sexual maturity means that we have responsibly integrated our sexuality into our own vocation and at the service of life and love.


Biblical, Traditional and Magisterium Teaching on Human Sexuality

In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Vatican Council II declared: “All the preaching of Church, as indeed the entire Christian religion, should be nourished and ruled by sacred Scripture”.[18] The study of the biblical teaching on human sexuality is the appropriate and necessary, for Scripture is the primary fount of the Church’s teaching.[19]

The Old Testament

The Old Testament in general articulates fundamental truths about God himself and the created universe, and in particular, about human life and destiny, and the special relationship of friendship that he wills to exist between himself and human beings and between men and women. It reveals to us too the source of what Pope John Paul II terms “a fundamental disquietude in all human existence”, namely, the disobedience of our first parents and its devastating effects on human persons and human sexuality. Our main interest in this sacred book will mainly be narrowed to the fundamental truths about human sexuality.[20]


The statements of the Old Testament and in particular of the book of Genesis have preserved mankind’s primal understanding of the differentiation of humans. Human heterosexuality is the work of Creator. “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them” (Gen 1:27). The text speaks in the same breath of man as God’s image and as differentiated into two sexes. The sacred author adds to this that this is very good (Gen 1:31). The entire human person is created good. Therefore sexuality too, as a gift of God, is wholly acceptable.[21]

In this summary of Old Testament teaching on sex, our attention will mainly focus on the first two chapters of Genesis. These chapters describe God’s original design for human existence, human sexuality, and human marriage. The third chapter of genesis is also crucial inasmuch as it treats disobedience of our first parents, and the terrible effects of their sin on human existence, human sexuality, and the relationship between men and women.

© J. B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

PASTORAL CARE FOR THE SICK IN TIME OF C-19

Eco-Connect'20

PASTORAL CARE FOR THE SICK IN TIME OF C-19

Pastoral care of the sick and the suffering is not limited to anointing or giving them viaticum. It includes even the needs the sick have, the needs the family have plus other services.

The work of caring for the sick is not only limited to the priests but all people of God. Jesus Christ is the doctor of life, a great healer, the doctor of doctors (Cf. EZEKIEL 34:11-16).

In the messianic activity, in the ministry of Israel Christ went around doing good Act 10:38. Jesus Christ was sensitive to all human suffering.

Sickness brings a crisis for the sufferer and the relatives. As pastors we should know the types of sickness disturbing our people. It is with this that a pastor may try to fight against the advancement of sickness.

We should make use of the community in helping in the ministry of caring for the sick. The sick would like to see that s/he is attended to in time, given assistance (material and spiritual), talked to our voices to the sick are very powerful, it brings consultation. But this should make the carers of the sick to be careful with the patients suffering from contagious diseases.

If possible use an instrument for anointing. Catechists and their wives should be given opportunity for annual retreats.

The catechist should know how to send the information to the parish priests.

- He should know to prepare the place of the sick person, e.g to see that a table is available, a candle or lamp etc.
- How to receive the pastors on arrival e.g. reverence to the Blessed Sacrament should be kept in mind.

- Should know to prepare somebody before she or he dies and also the people. The mourning shouting and confusion shouldn’t come with someone’s death. One should not necessary need to make noise in order to be heard.

There should be pastoral care for the parents and relatives to come to terms with the reality and will of God and not resort to witch hunting or curses or to waste time to know who killed the deceased.

People should not keep themselves in dangerous situations, as in sinful ways like retaliating back or looking for the cause of death.

Reciting the prayers and calling on for God’s forgiveness and making an act of contrite. A sick person who may be far from the priest can say an act of contrition hence good catechesis.

As priests we should prepare ourselves for our end since getting the sacrament of the sick at our time may be hard and difficult.

We help others into the other world it is also opportunity for us to be ready by asking for the anointing of the sick whenever we are seriously sick so as to give meaning to the sacrament.

Sick calls:

When called it is good not to waste much time. But know first the sick person’s situation as it will help you when you go there: Is he or she Christian, married, is s/he a child, youth etc.

Pray for a good journey when going, have some money when going. When the priest reaches, reads the signs that the patient is passing away, shorten the Rite of Celebration.

Oils for anointing:

- It is advisable to take along the oils of anointing whenever you go for safari.

- Keep the oil as near as possible in the house, in a ready handbag

- If there is possibility of getting first Aid box, do have it.

- Know some experts in medicine.
When we visit the sick:

- Console them

- Encourage them

- Pray

- Help the people to lead practical signs from the patients, patients expect to receive charitable services.

- Help those who are able not to overcharge the members of the sick because they are in problems.

The aged:

- Also need People who approach suffering with a merely human attitude of mind cannot understand what it means and can easily collapse in defeat. We as Christians, however being instructed in the Faith, know that suffering can be transformed.

If we offer it to God into the instrument of salvation and into a sacred way which helps us get to heaven.

For Christians pain is no reason for gloominess but for joy, the joy of knowing that on the cross of Christ all suffering has redemptive value.

Treatment outcomes when the patient's faith community prays for the patient. Treatment outcomes are those moments when a faith community who do not know the patient prays.

© Don J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho
Www.nyamusus.blogspot.com

OBEDIENCE IN TIME OF C-19

Eco-Connect'20

OBEDIENCE IN TIME OF C-19

Once the word obedience is pronounced, it sends many mixed stimuli to many, and what rings out like a big beng sound in our minds, the sense of tyrannical authority of power abused, of service and groveling submission by people with no self-respect or sense of their own worth.

But supposing we changed the word obedience and replaced it with love, what reaction awakens in us? Smiles break out immediately, because we know, love is what we need, what we are looking for continually. Rarely do connect obedience with love together. Sometimes we think of obedience as being a negation of love.

We only obey people when we have to, out of fear, out of respect for superior strength. It'snt something we want to do, given the choices we would prefer not to do it.

Love on the other hand springs from free will and desire. Any element of fear or compulsion would corrode and undermine it. We love freely and willingly, and we wouldn't like to do otherwise.

Obedience is love in action, availability. The essence of love is in giving, and sometimes, we have to go beyond our usual natural feelings.

You may not feel like giving but you have to give anyway. If you can put off everything you are doing and attend to that person who knocks at your door to be attended to, then that is obedience. You have to put others before yourself.

This now means you have to obey everyone, not only superiors, but everyone placed in authority over us. The mother obeys her daughter, waking up in the middle to the night to quieten her, a father obeys his children, by waking up every morning to go and work for their survival.

Obedience to superiors and authority is simply extension of principles we have mentioned above.

St. Benedict says:

"monks should not obey the abbot, but should also obey each other".

It's obedience that bides monastic community life together, it's love in action. We too need to emulate this example in our everyday life experience as religious and laity in our homes and workplaces.

The situation changes when we have to obey the superiors, people invested with authority over us. It is not easy to see this kind of obedience as an expression of love. Obedience is never genuine when it emanates from fear or compulsion.

We need to sentimentalise our obedience. Our superiors need to be loved more than feared. Of course there is some fear in a relationship but shouldn't be predominate.

We obey our superiors, out of the the love for God, and they too we know that they obey God. The will of God is expressed through our superiors.

Obedience should produce a motive that is entirely spiritual, founded on faith because our superiors too are human vessels, weak and with their personal character and understanding. At times, they too are bound to make mistakes, they often will make errors of judgement and order things which are not quite right, at any rate in the short term.

You are not compelled to obey your superior, but you have freely chosen to do so. As one lives in a given community, you are subject to the superior, because that power comes from God, anything else vitiates the law and robs it of all spiritual value.

To many who are in the modern world all these sound strange and frightening. Today, we have a great sense of human dignity and we cannot see any serious reason by anyone to order anyone else around, many have a great sense of human rights. To many these human rights and dignity are undermined by obedience.

This is what Nietzsche felt and despised Christianity for advocating slave virtues? Of course religious virtues are not based on these ideas but it's about me doing my duties to God and to each other.

There will be no competition, conflict, aggression and no one will be neglected, if each one will be thinking not for his or needs but the needs of the other.

Even our superiors should realise that, they can't be despots, but their governance too is restrained and conditioned in all sorts of ways. They ought to be responsible for those they rule, held accountable for any harm that comes to their subjects.

If the superior is harsh and tyrannical to his community then the brothers / sisters will become unhappy, hence making life difficult for the superior himself, he should not stir up unnecessary ill-feelings.

Obedience is something reciprocal, the superior should serves others and others too serve him. This goes in line with whomever wants to persue the Christian spiritual path with with any degree of seriousness. Everything has to be done without murmuring or grumbling.

The channels of dialogue have to be opened. We all obey trusting in the grace and providence of God, putting in mind that the superior's word is final, the last word and once that is uttered, it has to be obeyed.

St. Paul reminds us to "have the mind of Christ". It'snt a small thing he is asking. He wants us to think, feel and act in the way that Jesus did in his earthily life. This means that we can't think only in our thoughts, but God's. We may be appearing to live our ordinary lives, but really it's God who is living, thinking and acting in us, and through us. "I live, but not but Christ who lives in me". For Paul says our lives is hidden with Christ in God.

Our natural will and mind will have to be broken, if the light and power of God are to take over. This will involve our intelligence and will. We must renounce our will so as to obey the will of God, putting in mind that God can't be known by the natural human intellect, which can neither prove that He exists at all nor explain what He is.

We have to bend the mind, humble it, deny some of its normal operations, if we are to know God. This is the obedience of intellect.

There should be a radical change in our motivation. We can't stop willing, we can't stop wanting, or desiring things. We can't stop loving, what we will is what we love. The human heart is often devious.

The superficial desires are usually cut off and this is usually done through obedience, where we do not follow our natural desires at all but simply do what we are given to do, accepting that it's a will of God mediated through our religious superior, we do it as an act of service.

We have to be free from internal compulsions, or anything that springs from our intellectual blindness, moral weakness, and psychological hang-ups. Once we are liberated from those, we are truly free, even though we may be outwardly living under an unjust and repressive political regime.

Jesus told Nicodemus that those who are reborn in this way are like wind which blows freely, coming from no-one knows where. They are untrammelled, governed by the Holy Spirit like a harp, provided we are ready to let go of our own thoughts and desires so that God alone moves us. This is the essence of spiritual obedience.

© Don J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho
Www.nyamusus.blogspot.com

VOCATION AND IT'S TURNS AROUND C-19

Eco-Connect'20

[VOCATION]

The word “vocation,” has roots in the Latin world, vocare, “to call” or “invoke,” and in the present context, the call from God to a particular way of life.

Let it be said that one’s call can change and evolve over the course of time. For example in history, there are men and women who were at one time married, raised children, and then at a later stage joined a religious community or became diocesan priests.

And yes, in some cases people who are in a religious community and then for one reason or another discern a change in lifestyle, obtain the proper Church dispensations, return to the single state and maybe get married.

Thomas Merton points out in his extended essay “Come to the Mountain,” published in 1964 by the Trappist monks of Snowmass, Colorado, that:

“One of the basic truths of Christian faith is expressed in the idea of the divine call and the answer of [people]. The whole Christian life is outlined in this vocation and response.”

Expressed another way, all followers of Christ should strive to discern the call of the Lord.

How is a call best recognized?

Some of the means include meditating on the teachings of Christ found in the Gospels and what the entire Bible is saying, which is filled with the theme of:

“This is what God is asking of you.”

Every believer will respond to the Lord’s call personally and in a manner they discern God is calling them.

In addition to meditating with the Bible, active participation in the Sacraments of the Church, making time for prayer, as well as receiving some guidance or accompaniment in discerning God’s will for one’s life, are value tools in determining one’s vocation.

By now it should be clear that it would be completely incorrect to say that only those who live in monasteries, convents, rectories or seminaries have a “vocation.”

Every Christian is called by God, and thereby has a “vocation,” a calling, to follow the Lord. It would be no exaggeration to say that the number of vocations in the Church coincides with the number of believers!

ApAll vocations are intended to build up the one Body of Christ spread throughout the world and under the leadership of the Risen and Ascended Lord.

It should also be said that a monk, for example, does not have two vocations: first, as a Christian, then as a monk. Rather, the monastic call or vocation is another expression and hopefully a deepening of the call to be a baptized Christian.

The monk should not be thought of or considered by himself to be “better” than others. We can say that the monk or nun has simply felt a call to offer his or her life in a manner that includes more time of solitude, silence, prayer, mediation and community life, than what one would have in the married state, single life or as a diocesan priest or members of an active religious congregation.

It is sometimes believed that monastic practices, such as silence and solitude and the rest necessarily lead to bliss.

Such a perception understandably promotes an attraction for those not in a monastery, but in fact monks struggle like every sincere seeker of the Lord to patiently fight distractions, find happiness and persevere in prayer and good words.

It also should be said that silence and prayer is not the monopoly of monks and nuns, but something everyone can cultivate and profit from.

Monks attend to it in a very specific way, but those not in the monastery can and should find ways to incorporate elements of the monastic way into their lives.

The proliferation of books and articles on silence, solitude, prayer, fasting and contemplation, intended most often for those not in monasteries, are an indication of the increasing interest among people in centuries-old practices for living a spiritually and physically balanced existence.

Thomas Merton wrote that a vocation to whatever state in life “may be manifested in obscure and strange ways. It is often hard to say exactly what constitutes a vocation” (“Come to the Mountain”).

In whatever way the call of God may come, responding to God needs to take concrete shape, since we don’t live in the abstract or in theory, but in the concrete, where life has a definite shape and form, as varied as those who embrace their vocation.

It is always possible, too, for people to resist or reject God’s call. To walk away from obligations or commitments, for example, would not be considered following God’s voice.

The 12th century Cistercian monk and abbot, Saint Aelred of Rievaulx, said this about the monastic call, but it is applicable in general to the notion of vocation:

“You are called by Christ, called to suffer together with Christ, to the end that you may reign together with Christ. And we are called in three ways: by exterior admonition, by example, and by secret inspiration” (“Come to the Mountain”).

That being said, Thomas Merton wrote this in the 1960s: “Relatively few vocations are decided without struggle” (“Come to the Mountain”).

Discerning one’s call can be a test of faith, but that should not be cause for discouragement. God’s call can be considered an adventure whose ending cannot be foreseen because it is ultimately in the hands of God.

There is always an element of risk and challenge in responding to God’s call. To surrender one’s life into the hands of God takes faith, courage, and work.

Our focus needs to be on seeking first the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) as Jesus taught His followers, and never to give up in the endeavor.

© Don J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

MAKING RIGHT CHOICES IN TIME OF C-19

Eco-Connect'20

[MAKING GREAT CHOICES: Learning to use your head and heart]

(Chukua control wewe mwenyewe)

We had all warmed up to enter the new year and excited to see the year 2020. We need to build a foundation, and a strong one that can help us survive through this C-19 year.

We need to have an ambitious vision of the future, and stand for values that are not for sale. We need to create an enduring core but also be prepared to change everything else. We need to preserve the core and stimulate inner progress.

There should be something to incite us lest we become immuned or simply become indifferent.  If you have no core principles, you will fail, more so if you are not apart of change of the world around you.

[How can we make decisions through 2020?]

You need to set a tool of engagement and operation of doing things, amidst the dilemma we have to resolve. So instead of looking outside ourselves for answers in bookstores shelves when we face major decisions. We have to learn to look inside ourselves with ever greater confidence through 2020.

Newman’s wise maxim brings to us great memories…

“To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often.”

 We know that bad outcomes don’t always indicate bad decisions. Good marriage requires lifelong work, sacrifice, compromise and mutual support.

Marriages fall apart for all kinds of reasons, sometimes not because the decision to wed was misguided but because either partner or both stopped working at the marriage. The partners may have chosen well but failed to live out their choices day and day.

We can’t resolve most of our consequential life decisions by punching numbers into calculators.

Everything has to be done when we sit down and start confronting each other, than simply becoming hearers and carrying rumours of what is happening on others.

We can’t be experts of solving other people’s problems, life has a lot many problems than adding more problems of others into your years.

The straight forward choice between two people’s proposals may follow a gut-wrenching decision to accept a job/mission transfer and relocate your family/community.

Some of us pay a lot of attention to feelings and thus make irrational, emotionally driven decisions. Others of us feel comfortable only with tangibles in what we can measure or count, so we completely ignore our inner voice.

We need a rigorous method for decision making that incorporates both hard facts and intangibles such as feelings, values, and religious beliefs.

Instead of compartmentalizing, we need to make whole-life decisions for whole-life strategies. We need to choose wisely.

To use our heads through 2020 in knowing our talents, circumstances, opportunities and beliefs, and means using our heart and spirit to make free choices that bring peace rather than regrets. Decision making is an art, not a sterile science of lining up a few facts.

You have to use your intuition rather than on facts in running the business of life. The higher you advance in your life and profession is a more you need to use your intuition.

The difference between happiness and misery often lies in the ability to choose well.

(Proverbs3:13-15,18-19)

Blessed is the man that finds wisdom and is rich in prudence:
14. "The purchasing thereof is better than the merchandise of silver, and her fruit than the chiefs and purest gold: 15 She is more precious than all riches: and all the things that are desired, are not to be compared with her. 18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her: and he that shall retain her is blessed.
19 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth, hath established the heavens by prudence".

The root of the word wisdom means “seeing” or “knowing” Sometimes we don’t see that we are on the wrong track. We lack wisdom.

Each one of us ought to be wiser than we are today. To be sure wisdom will remain to some extent both a gift and mystery.

Wisdom is at home in the mind of one who has understanding, but it is not known in the heart of fools (Proverbs 14:33).

In the heart of the prudent resteth wisdom, and it shall instruct all the ignorant.The first step towards attaining wisdom is to desire it in the heart. The fool doesn’t even desire wisdom because he doesn’t recognize its value. The art of wisdom is instructive.

And as most arts, we pursue it by learning certain practices and applying them considerately and patiently, we improve with time and practice.

The wisdom we seek is spiritual in nature and grounded, but it is also worldly. Wisdoms makes us whole people who are spiritual yet fully immersed in the world.

We rarely use the word wisdom in our daily interactions. Wisdom may be nice to come by and comforting in old age but largely irrelevant to the day-today-today business of living.

[Basic facts of making good decisions through 2020]

Some elements of Ignatian Spirituality could be handy at this point in time. (30 days of retreat) which is not only for the religious but all who feel the need to see something better than what you are seeing and for better sobriety.

1.      Take charge of your life
2.      Retreat to go forward
3.      Control the controllables
4.      Free yourself
5.      Consolation & desolation
6.      Get (real) friend
7.      Do it over again… and again…

© Don. J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho
Www.nyamusus.blogspot.com

FORGIVENESS IN TIME OF C-19

Eco-Connect'20

[Forgiveness in time of C-19]

We shall always learn to forgive, to seek the heart of God, which is love itself. This will involve doing the difficult part of damage repair and reconciliation.

One has to enter into that door which seems uninhabitable to soul search the sense of forgiving and praying to get the ability to make a move on the road less travelled, often with no travel Geo-Map yet you have to soldier on.

One has to create a space of experience that is open to the horizon of hope, because the more one is open to that self discovery, s/he encounters God’s tender mercy towards that inner conviction of who He is in one's life, enabling Him to extend that mercy and compassion and above all  more so towards others. (Reid, 2011).

The Lord is an active agent in promoting forgiveness, and he uses our acts as vehicles to accomplish his agency (Wade and Worthington, 2005).

God is always patient to all you go through all the emotional process you feel like, so as to face your very self, this sometimes escapes our meditation and discernment.

As one considers all these  he  also learns to find the connection between forgiveness and love, for the two cannot be separated from each other.

One is called upon to proclaim the good news of the Gospel, which includes the forgiveness of sin as the gospel message teaches one from the Scripture (John 20:23).

This can only happen through love. Love cannot be experienced in the fallen world without forgiveness. Love must start with God and be consistent with God’s eternal relational paradigm of love.
(Cheon and DiBlasio, 2007).

Loving God is a response  has to give to God’s indwelling love, you cant remain indifference to that gesture of warmth of God's loving face.

As God initiates love, His children respond as gratitude. The affections, thoughts and will are reoriented in Godward direction, evinced in the command that Paul said “Walk in the ways of love” (Ephesians 5:2) and “be rooted and grounded in love” (Ephesians 3:17) and “bear fruit” in love (Galatians 5:22-23). Jesus himself showed the way when he said “Love one another just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). It’s a source of deep joy to know that God can be trusted (Harvard, 2014).

Lack of forgiveness of self and others can result in guilt and shame. Therefore self-forgiveness and communitarian dimensions of forgiveness, shame and guilt also need to be considered.

Forgiveness involves making right relationships. In Hebrew Bible, these aspects were applied to the temple, the family, the courtroom, business dealings, treatment of widows, aliens, orphans, and the poor and the most of all, to relationships with God.

In the New Testament, it involves a process of restoration after an act of injustice has taken place. To forgive you must do it individually, recall all moments in your life when you also were forgiven, people had mercy on you and the feeling you went through to receive forgiveness.

As many would say, you cannot understand love if you don’t know what hate is. The more you love, the more you will be hurt, but the more you feel hurt the more you ought to change the form of looking at certain things in life.

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, what are you living for. Everyday you have to wake up, good, everyone seem to be doing the same, but for you what gives you the reason to wake up, you have entered into the world of resignation, living because you have life...that is too cheap way of evaluating yourself?

The  world  is  full of doubt, confusion, and leaving your legs on the breaks ruins the clutch plate, you will smell the burning that indicates things are not fine, you just have to relearn your mechanical electrification of you car (life), or you have a free drive through the park and enjoy the breath of air and respiration, so that you fulfil life by looking at everything with new eyes and freely accepting to be surprised by God and counting your blessings every day and seeing what the lord has done in your life. The choice will always be personal.

As Pope Francis teaches that to wise you have to three languages:

"Think well,

feel well, and

do well, to be wise allow yourself to be surprised by God".

You ought to respect your dignity as a person, recognizing your personal struggles and refusing to judge. God's mercy reaches out to everyone and you have no justification to hold it for yourself or against your brother or sister.

© Don. J.B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho
Www.nyamusus.blogspot.com
Twitter@omuhulundu

PRAYER AS A SCHOOL OF HOPE

Eco-Connect'20

PRAYER AS A SCHOOL OF HOPE

The first essential setting for learning hope is prayer. When no one listens to me anymore, God still listens to me. When I can no longer talk to anyone, I can always talk to God. When there is no longer anyone to help me deal with a need or expectation that goes beyond the human capacity for hope, he can help me. (CCC 2657).

The Holy Spirit, who instructs us to celebrate the liturgy in expectation of Christ’s return, teaches us to pray in hope.

Conversely, the prayer of the church and personal prayer nourishes hope in us.

The Psalms in the concrete way teach us to fix our hope in God: I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry. (Ps. 40:2).

As St. Paul prayed: ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope ’ (Rom 15:13).

When you have been plunged into complete solitude… you are never totally alone.

St. Augustine in his homily on the first letter of John, describes very beautifully the intimate relationship between prayer and hope. He defines prayer as an exercise of desire.

Man was created for greatness- for God himself was created to be filled by God. But this heart is too small for the greatness to which is destined. It must be stretched.

How do we do this?

“Suppose that God wishes to fill you with honey [symbol of God’s tenderness and goodness]; but if you are full of vinegar, where will you put honey”?

The vessel that is your heart must first be enlargened and then cleansed, freed from the vinegar and its taste.

This requires hard work and is painful, and in this way alone do we become suited to that for which we are destined. (1 John 4:6).

To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness.

When we pray properly, we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well.

In prayer:

 - We must learn what we can truly ask of God-what is worthy of God. - We learn that we cannot pray against others.

 - We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment- that meager, misplaced hope that leads us away from God.

- We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. But who can discern his errors? Clear me from the hidden faults (Ps 19:12, 18:13).

 Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is.

If God does not exist, perhaps I have to seek refuge in these lies, because there is no one who can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion.

Your encounter with God should awaken your conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of you and those of your contemporaries who shape your thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to Good itself.

For prayer to develop this power of purification, it must on the one hand be something very personal, an encounter between my intimate self and God, the living God.

It must be something which is constantly guided and enlightened by the great prayers of the church and of the saints, by liturgical prayers, in which the lord teaches us again and again how to pray properly.

Prayer has to have this element of intermingling of public and personal prayer.This is how we can speak about God and God speaking to us. In this way we undergo those purifications by which we become open to God and are prepared for the service of our fellow human beings.

We become capable of the great hope and thus we become ministers of hope for others. Hope in the Christian sense is hope for others as well. It is an active hope, in which we struggle to prevent things moving towards the ‘perverse end.’ It is an active hope also in the sense that we keep the world open to God.

Only in this way does it continue to be a truly human hope.

© Don J. B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

Twitter handle @ omuhulundu

Blog: www.nyamusus.blogspot.com

Get To Know Your Parish iin this Time of C-19

Eco-Connect'20

[Different parish structures]

1- Traditional structure

2- Retired structure

3- Model structure

In traditional parishes you find:

A. [Sacramental structure]

a) Only the administration of sacraments is what matter. No time of preparation.

b) Preaching on certain sacraments only.

c) Bury any dead, anoint any sick

d) Opt for saying masses as many as possible

e) Take pride in statistics

f) No room for none Catholics

B. [The Man structure]

- You find that they are parishes with a patriarch around whom everything is centred. A know-it-all.

- Very sensitive with their priesthood and insistent on titles (Fr). They have people of their own taste to stay around them, and often the “yes” ones.

- They always control the diocese either financially or through certain work they do.

- Always has lots of exaggerated respect for authority and also demands as twice that exaggerated respect for himself.

- Talents of others are abused
- The whole trend seems all right yet deep within is dead.
- Sacraments will be seen as personal property instead of God’s gift to the whole church community. A sacrament calls for community participation with honour and respect

[Retired parishes]

- Hardly do you find anything going on but complaints and providence.

- Pastoral activities are based on reward mentality- no petrol no safari etc. In the end people think that sacraments are bought.

Everybody is on the waiting end. A society of consumers and not producers.
- Such parishes will be identified BAD
- Identified with obesity of clergy
- Identified with lack of availabilities within the parish because there are a lot of holidays and feasts going on.
- Identified with Sundays and feast days and defensive apostolate.
- Identified by the public disgust of people expressed in dirty talks or sometimes empty and exaggerated accusations. By such talks as “no work in this parish”
- By amount of alcohol consumed
- By the way things are e.g. buildings are falling in pieces.

Shaping and preserving society necessarily involves personal dedication, costly risks and constant struggle. In both traditional and retired parishes the dangers are:

• Christians become cargo Christians. It is like a refrigerator where things are okay but dead.

• Priesthood would be understood as a privilege not as a call to be bruised by public service.

• Religion becomes a foreign element.

• It always leads to terrible selfishness.

[Model parishes]

1. Constant struggle to maintain, find out the experience of the early Christian community.

2. The experience of the mission of Christ himself. Every opportunity is used not to repeat what already happened. Tries to see the trend and signs of the times.

3. Parish where people are working, they realize their limitations and thus foster the concern and aspirations of others.

4. It is the parish of the people and by the people for everybody who becomes involved in its growth.

5. The plans are based on pastoral methods the parish has opted for.

[Such parishes are identified by]

a) On-going formation for all the groups of people and all institutions. This is probably based on adult education. There should be a sort of dialogue form but not monolog, a conscientization. A course which makes people come of age.

b) Categorized catechesis or involving catechesis because it is based on adult education

c) Attempts to form Small Christian community (Jumuiya), starting humbly as we descend towards God but not starting from God highly.

d) Apostolate based on research and constant survey and the needs of the community, i.e. relative apostolate.

e) Will be identified with an apostolate which trains for the future.

f) The priest in such parishes is seen as facilitator, coordinator, and adviser but not a dictator, neither relaxed nor retired.

What type of parish do you belong?

Remember me in your daily prayers to be a holy priest and to love my
ministry and to be obedient to the Word of God.

God bless you abundantly and thanks All for your support.

© Don J. B Nyamunga
Girimori Catholic Parish - Kericho

[Www.nyamusus.blogspot. com]