Month: February 2019

This weekend I went with Joseph, my Kiswahili classmate, to visit his community in Ruiru, which is located about 25 miles from the language center where we take classes together. Given the roads and traffic here, the drive is typically a little over an hour (but can be much longer during peak times). Joe stays at Consolata in a room a few doors away from me during the week, but goes back to his community in Ruiru on Friday afternoons after lunch and returns to Consolata early on Monday for morning Mass. This is Joe’s last week at the language school, as he is not staying for the second level class. He may return at a later date to resume his Kiswahili studies, but at that point I’ll be in Mombasa. I am so happy I went to Ruiru with Joseph as I had such a fulfilling weekend with him and his community.

The community that Joe belongs to is called the Society of Christian Doctrine  (SDC). SDC is a society of lay missioners that teach catechism to children and adults. The society was established in 1907 in  Malta, but they now have missioners all over the world including three here in Ruiru, Kenya – Joe, Mario and Oliver, who is the superior for the community in Ruiru. Oliver, Mario and Joe are all from Malta. Mario has been in Ruiru the longest, about 13 years, followed by Oliver, who has been in Ruiru for about 10 years. Joe just arrived in Kenya a few days before I did at the end of 2018/beginning of 2019. He had just finished 7 years in Cuba and before that had served in Peru and Sudan and was replacing a SDC member who was returning to Malta after a number of years in Ruiru. Joining Joe, Mario and Oliver in Ruiru is Mike, who is an SDC candidate. Mike is Kenyan and has been involved with the Ruiru SCD since he was young. Mike is  currently attending university and stays in the Ruiru house only on the weekends.

Oliver, Mario, Joe and Mike made me feel so at home in their community. They not only provided me with a nice guest room in which to stay, but also let me to join them in prayer and faith formation, meals, as well as pastoral activities. I can’t thank them enough for how welcome and part of the community they made me feel.

The SDC compound consists of three separate structures –  a main house where Joe, Oliver and Mario live, a guest house with the three apartments (each one containing four twin beds and a bathroom, although I was he only one staying in my room), and a school where the classrooms, library, registration office, and play areas are located. Classes, prayer, and faith formation are held each day of the week. Oliver, Mario and Joe coach and mentor SDC candidates, who help teach the classes, but also lead some sessions. In addition to attending  daily Mass at the parish next door and praying the rosary together in the chapel in the main house in the evening right before dinner, there is also one hour of daily prayer and faith formation with the approximate ten candidates to the society that are in various stages of formation.  During the week, general religious education classes are held. However, Sunday classes are specifically for sacrament preparation – first communion, confirmation, and baptism. Everything at SDC is grounded in community life and ongoing faith formation.

Joe and I left Consolata on Friday after lunch and arrived in Ruiru in time for the afternoon activities and classes. This was followed by the one hour of prayer and faith formation with the other SDC members and candidates. Oliver, Mike, Mario, Joe and I got back together at 8 PM to pray the rosary and then ate dinner.

SDC is exploring doing ministry work at the Ruiru Prison. It just so happened that the weekend that I was there, they were going to the prison on Saturday morning with one of the local parish priests to celebrate Mass there. I was welcomed to accompany them. The Mass was scheduled to start at 9:30 AM. Oliver, Joe and I left SDC at about 8:45 and headed over to the parish to pick up Fr. Moses, who was going to say the Mass. The parish next door to SDC, with which they work closely and for which they provide the religious education and sacrament preparation, is called St. Francis of Assisi. There is also a primary school, which was at one time parish run, but is now run by the Kenyan government. Fr. Moses welcomed us in and offered us some fruit and a drink. Fr. Moses and the other priests at the parish are Franciscan Capuchins. Interestingly, Fr. Moses is being re-assigned to a parish in California. He has never been to the United States – sort of like me coming to Kenya without having ever visited beforehand.

We then headed, with Fr. Moses now with us, over to the Ruiru Prison, which is not far from SCD. Ruiru Prison is a sprawling farming prison with about 600 inmates. The prison appeared to me to be a sort of minimum security prison as inmates are allowed to roam freely within the smaller secured area and sleep in shared cell block buildings, not individual cells. Outside the secured area are residences for prison personnel as well as land for farming, which is where inmates spend their morning working. As I mentioned, the Mass was supposed to start at 9:30 AM, but actually didn’t start until 11:30 AM.  In Kenya, you kind of have to go with the flow and Fr. Moses was good about the delay, but am sure he would rather have had the time back. Luckily he didn’t have another commitment and so was willing to wait around. The reason for the delay had nothing to do with the prison, but the fact that a number of parishioners from three deaneries (groups of neighboring parishes), who were coming to the Mass, arrived very late. One good thing that came out of the delay is that we were able to get a tour of different areas of the prison by Mr. Songa, the person running the Catholic ministry at the prison, and speak with him while we were waiting.

Once the Mass started, all the delays were forgotten. The Mass was celebrated in an outdoor covered area , which was a very good thing as there was a very brief downpour during the Mass and we all would have been soaked. The Mass was an absolutely wonderful experience. There had to be well over 100 inmates attending the Mass, about 50 people from the deaneries, some prison staff, Fr. Moses, Oliver, Joe and me. The deanery attendees processed in singing and dancing. Most of the congregation was clapping and some were even dancing in place during the procession. There was a prison choir that provided some accompanying music and background vocals and the folks from the deaneries led the congregation in song and did the Mass readings. A few inmates offered petitions during the prayer of the faithful. Fr. Moses did such a wonderful job with the Mass. He had the congregation engaged and even laughing during his homily, which lasted between 45 minutes and an hour. At one point he threatened to preach for three days –  as long as Christ was in the tomb! Even some of the prison guards joined in the laughter. The Mass lasted almost two hours in total.

The Mass was in Kiswahili, which made it a bit of a struggle for me. However, Fr. Moses, like most Kenyans, mixes in English when he speaks and so his homily while predominantly in Kiswahili, had a bit of English mixed in. It fascinates me how Kenyans will mix Kiswahili and English even within a single sentence. Between the English and my now more “advanced” Kiswahili vocabulary, I was able to follow a little more of the homily than past Masses in Kiswahili I’ve attended. I also had the added advantage of reading the Mass readings beforehand. As the Gospel for Sunday was St. Luke’s account of the Beatitudes, I knew that much of the homily would revolve around that, which was indeed the case. In Kiswahili, the words for the “Blessed or Happy are you” of the Beatitudes are “Heri ninyi”.  So “Heri ninyi mlio maskini, kwa sababu ufalme wa Mungu ni wenu.”  or in English, “Happy are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.”. In what seems like contradictory terms, Jesus is actually giving us a blueprint for happiness. He is showing us the way to be truly happy. Our God, who created us with sole purpose of being happy with Him in eternity, is telling us how to get there. The amazing thing is that Jesus doesn’t start out with a set of rules and prohibitions, but with happiness. Happiness. God wants us to be happy. God created us to be happy and Jesus is telling us how to be happy. At its core, I believe this is what our faith is really all about – following Jesus along the path to happiness. Jesus told us that He came so that we may have life and have it to the full. So be Happy! (I’m telling myself this as well. Again, life is a journey!)

At the end of Mass, Fr. Moses had the “Brothers” – Oliver, Joe and myself introduce ourselves and say a few words about what we were doing in Kenya. Although we did not play an active role in the Mass, people really seemed to appreciate that we were there and participating.  It will be wonderful to see what ministry evolves at the prison for SDC.

After Mass, we headed back to the SDC house for lunch, a little rest, and then the children come in for afternoon study, classes and some play. Joe amused a bunch of the kids with some magic tricks and they all gathered around him in fascination. It was great. I ended up playing a number of games of Uno with the students. As it has been many years since I last played Uno, I needed a quick refresher before we began.  However, once we got going, I was able to hold my own and win my fair share of games. In fact, I would have won the first game, but didn’t remember you had to call “Uno” when you have one card left and ended up losing that game because of that. You would think I would remember I had to call “Uno” as the whole game is named after this fact 🙂 . As a penalty, I had to drawer four cards and never recovered. Upon further investigation, it appears that the penalty in the official rules of the game is to draw two cards, not four. I think I was taken advantage of! After the students left, we had the hour long prayer and formation session, then went back to the house for a little break before gathering to say the rosary, have dinner, and head to bed.

On Sunday, Oliver, Mario, Joseph, Mike and I got up and walked to the neighboring parish, St. Francis of Assisi Church, for 8 AM Mass. The church is being expanded and so at this point in time it is basically a construction zone. However, Masses still go on and the Church was full.  It was also a beautiful Mass, as are pretty much all the Masses I’ve attended here in Kenya, with lots of singing, clapping and dancing, and a long by U.S. standards, rousing homily. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m so inspired by the enthusiasm of the Catholic Church in Kenya and the fact that they can’t build Churches quickly enough here. It is a wonderful thing.

After lunch, students come in for classes and some play. As I mentioned, the students who come on Sunday are specifically there for sacrament preparation, but there was also ongoing faith formation sessions for both young adults, who have already received the sacraments, which Joe led, as well as one for older adults, which Mario led. The week of classes ends with a prayer and reflection session, called the Union, and is led by Oliver. At the hour of faith formation later in the day, Joe led a reflection on Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Guadete Et Exultate on the call to holiness in today’s world. Over the span of several months, Joe has led the group in the reading and reflecting on the document. This was the last session on Guadete Et Exultate and we read and discussed the final sections in the document. I really enjoyed the session and hope that I added some good commentary to the discussion. It was a great way to end the weekend and my experience at SDC.

On Monday morning, Joe and I drove back to Consolata. We had left in what should have been enough time to make 6:45 AM Mass with the Consolata Fathers, but there were some accidents and a lot of congestion on the roads, which caused us to arrive too late for Mass, but just in time for breakfast. We had the best of intentions …

I thank Oliver, Mario and Joe for so warmly welcoming me into their community for the weekend and allowing me to experience and participate with them in their ministry, prayer and community life The experience gave me a lot to think about as head into my second and final Kiswahili class at Consolata and prepare to head to Mombasa to start my own ministry.

Happy are we that Jesus is leading us to true happiness with Him.

As I write this, it has been a month and a week since my arrival in Kenya. Like most periods of time in my life, whether it be a week, a month, a year, or even a decade, when I look back, the time has appeared to have passed in an instant. This is not new phenomenon for me, not a product of my “advanced” age, but something which I have experienced my whole life. Time marches ever forward and I’m always trying to keep up with it. I’m never bored as there never seems to be enough time, always things I want to do, things I want to finish. However, I’m old enough now to realize and appreciate that life is what happens during the time when I’m trying to keep up with time – if that makes any sense.

As the well-worn saying goes, life is a journey. The question is where am I going and how did I get here. I often wake up here and find it hard to believe that I’m over 7000 miles from where I grew up and lived all of my life, the place where everything is familiar and where all the family and friends I’ve known for most of my life are. My journey has now taken me in another direction – one which I am on the journey of trying to understand. Coralis Salvador is my regional director here in Kenya. She often uses the tagline “Be in the Moment!” In her emails. This is constant reminder to me, that although the journey is important, life is really living the journey. I try more and more to make sure I’m doing that.

This wasn’t necessarily the way I intended to start this blog post, but this is what came out. I think I’ve been on this line of thinking since the first reading at last Sunday’s Mass – “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.” It always amazes me how the little things we see, hear and experience, can bounce around in our heads and gently nudge us in certain directions. For me, I take this to be our Lord at work and Him urging us to come along for the ride. God has a plan. God is the plan. I don’t necessarily take the word prophet in the line from the reading from Jeremiah from last Sunday’s Mass to mean missionary work. This is just the direction my journey has led me at this point in my life. We are all called to be prophets. We are all called to be witnesses to the truth and the manifestation of that truth, which is love. We live this out in our journey of life.

All of this I hope serves a a preamble to some thoughts on the past month. My arrival in Kenya and being greeted by Kathy, Mike and Dee seems in the distant past at this point. Kathy and Mike headed back to Mombasa after spending a few days with me. Dee lives here at Consolata, but as she takes classes at a different school, I usually only see her once or twice a week. However, she always is available if I need something. Most of my days are spent with the Consolata Fathers, my fellow classmates here at the language school and a few of the Seminarians. As I mentioned in a previous post, my days are pretty regimented – Mass, breakfast, language classes, lunch, study, and dinner with time thrown in for occasional shopping trips, reading, praying, as well as trying to keep up with family and friends on Facebook and via email and texts. Saturdays are my primary days for resting and catching up. It is when I typically write my blog posts, wash clothes, do some things with other students, and prepare for the coming week. As for washing clothes, I’m fortunate to have access to the Fathers’ washing machine. Otherwise I’d have to hand wash and wring my clothes! There is no dryer, so everyone hangs their clothes out to dry. I’m going to miss the access to the Father’s washing machine once I leave Consolata. Sundays are pretty busy between Mass, or sometimes more than one Mass, and the pastoral visits with Francis to Kibera. I typically don’t have a lot of free time on Sundays, so Saturday is the day for getting done what I want to get done.

The unique experience here at Consolata is being together with such a diversity of people. With Dee off campus for classes, I’m often the only American here. Most of the Fathers and seminarians are from Kenya and Uganda. Most of the students come from countries in Africa – including a number of students from Eritrea, a country in the northeast part of Africa on the Rea Sea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as well as the Republic of the Congo. I have to admit that I didn’t even know that Eritrea existed before I got here. However, I’m glad it does as I’ve been blessed to meet and get to know some of the students from there – most of whom are priests and religious sisters. While most of the students are from the countries I’ve mentioned, there are also students here from other parts of the world – Brazil, India, Italy, Malta, Hungary and Belgium. Working for IBM for 33 years, I got to meet and work with people from all over the world. However, this is a whole other level. If only everyone would realize how much more alike we all are than different.  A number of things certainly vary by culture, but at the heart of things, we are all the same.

My Kiswahili classmates are Fr. Francis and Joseph. Joseph is a missionary from Malta, who speaks more than six languages and has lived and done mission work in both Cuba and South Sudan among other places. The society he is from is based in Malta, but has a house about an hour outside Nairobi. Joseph lives here at Consolata during the week and goes to the house that he shares with two other members of his congregation on the weekends and teaches catechism classes. Fr. Francis is a Carmelite priest from India. He was ordained about a year ago, but did his Theology studies at a university in Nairobi, so has been in Kenya for a few years. Fr. Francis also speaks several languages. Fr. Francis lives a distance from the school, but stays close by at another Carmelite house during the week and goes home on weekends. Fr. Francis has to say at least three Masses each weekend at parishes that are not very close together, so he is pretty busy.

Both Joseph and Fr. Francis both speak English fluently, which becomes the default language among us even though we should be trying to use Kiswahili more often.  However, when our teacher is present, we have to use Kiswahili! Although I’ve studied and am familiar with Italian, German and Spanish, I’m probably the only person here who only speaks one language fluently.  Hopefully that will change soon! Most of the Fathers speak at least four languages. Fr. Francis tends to pick up vocabulary the quickest. He can remember words and phrases that I struggle to retain. I want to attribute this to the fact that he has been in Kenya longer and has been exposed to Kiswahili longer than I have. However, in reality I know it has more to do with age and the fact that I never was good at rote memorization. Both Fr. Francis and Joseph are only taking the first level seven week long Kiswahili class for now, which means we only have two more weeks in class together. I will be staying on for an additional seven week level two class before leaving Consolata and heading to Mombasa.

Incorporated into each session of classes at the Consolata Language Center is a cultural activity.  Yesterday afternoon the students went to the Bomas of Kenya, a tourist village that is a short walk from Consolata  Bomas means homesteads. Traditional villages of Keynan communities are on display there. The Bomas also features a program of traditional cultural music and dance as well as one segment that was full of acrobatics and jumping through, over and under fire. The performers also invited a few audience members on stage and some of the acts are pretty funny. I kind of thought of it as the Kenyan version of the Harlem Globetrotters. Kenya is modernizing rapidly. The Galleria mall near the school has a Pizza Hut and KFC. The Bomas appears to try to preserves some of the traditional cultures in the midst of all this “progress”.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention before closing that the second reading at last Sunday’s mass was St. Paul’s beautiful Ode to Love, which many of us are very familiar with, especially since it is used in many wedding ceremonies.. Although there are many beautiful lines in that reading, the one that stuck with me this week is “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” As St. Therese taught us, we don’t need to do great things, but rather do the small things, the things that constitute most of the, at times mundane, parts of our lives, with love. I know I fall far short of this ideal, but I keep trying. It’s part of my journey.

On Sunday morning at breakfast I asked Fr. Denis where he was celebrating Mass. Last Sunday he was the main celebrant for the Sunday morning Mass in the Seminary chapel, which is where I went to Mass. Fr. Denis told me that this weekend he was going to say Masses for the Consolata Sisters and asked if I would like to go with him. I told him that I would definitely like to go and drove with him to the Consolata Sisters Flora Hostel, which is about a twenty minute drive. The hostel provides accommodations for missionaries and their family and friends and is run by the Consolata Sisters. Next to the hostel is a fairly large chapel where Masses are celebrated daily. A different Consolata Father goes to the Flora Hostel every Sunday morning to celebrate two Masses – one in Swahili and one in English. Each Mass lasts almost ninety minutes and there is about thirty minutes between Masses. Fr. Denis celebrated both Masses and I attended both. Following the Mass in Swahili is still a challenge for me. I can follow the prayers of the Mass fairly well, but struggle with the readings, homily and songs (with which I am not familiar). Swahili is not Fr. Denis’ primary language as he from Uganda, where English is the official language. He “picked up” Swahili on his own while living in Kenya. As Fr. Denis has worked, spent time and also studied in Latin America, he speaks a number of languages. He is urging me to immerse myself to learn the language, which is why I try not to pass up opportunities to participate when Swahili is being spoken. However, as pretty much everyone in Nairobi speaks English, it’s a challenge to be  completely immersed in Swahili here.

The Masses in Kenya are very inspiring. The church or chapel is typically full for a Mass and the people are very engaged in the celebration of the liturgy. This is especially true of the music where people will not only sing, but also clap and move their bodies in praise and worship. There is much more music incorporated into the Masses in Kenya, which is why the Masses tend to be closer to ninety minutes rather than the hour that most of us are used to.

Fr. Denis’ homily centered around the second reading, which was taken from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians – St. Paul’s well known Body of Christ metaphor.  In his homily, Fr. Denis urged the congregation to be active participants in the life of the Church, which is the body of Christ. Fr. Denis stressed that we are all individually integral parts of the Body of Christ. Of course, I understood this from the English version of Fr. Denis’ sermon, not the parts in Swahili! Hopefully in time …

To me, Fr. Denis’ homily and the reading from St. Paul fits very nicely and is a continuation of what I thought about last week and wrote about in my last blog post. St. Paul’s reading tell us that God has designated different roles for each of us. He has endowed each of us with different gifts, but not necessarily the same gifts to each and every person. As St. Paul tells us, if the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? This reading has so much to offer, even though I’ve probably heard or read it several hundred times in the course of my life. St. Paul goes on to say that the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary and that if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy. If only we could all live this teaching out more fully – me especially included.

We got back from Flora and Fr. Denis drove straight to the building where we have our meals so that I could eat. He knows that I leave with Francis to go to Kibera at 1:30 PM to do pastoral work and we didn’t arrive back at Consolata until a few minutes after 1 PM. The trip to Kibera is always interesting as it is too far to walk to, so we take a matatu – the privately owned minibuses that are ubiquitous in Kenya. A typical matatu seats about 8 – 12 people packed in. I still have not gotten the hang of them yet. I’m never sure of which one to get on, where they will drop me off, how much it costs, … They are always crowded and hectic. It took a long time for a matutu which went in the direction of Kibera to come along and when we go on, we were all crushed together. Luckily the matatu stop is right up the road from Consolata, next to the Galleria shopping mall that is easily walkable from Consolata. However, there is still quite a bit of walking  involved on the other end – getting from where the matatu lets us off to the entrance of Kibera and then making our way through Kibera to get to the location of the week’s meeting.

The meeting this week was again very uplifting for me. It was held in the place where one of the members of the small Christian community lives. She has recently lost a son and part of the meeting, after praying the rosary and reading the Mass readings for the next week, was to pray for her and offer words of condolence. She spoke some in English so I could understand and I said a few things in English. This woman now has one remaining son. She is not surprisingly still coming to terms with her loss, but spoke so beautifully about her trust in God even though she doesn’t understand the reason why something tragic like this happened. The members present were all so inspiring. Their intense love of God shines forth from them. There is no complaining, just praise for our Lord.

Although I practice speaking and listening in Swahili with the seminarians on my way to and from the meeting, I do resort to a lot of English to ask questions. I’m going to force myself to only use Swahili at Kibera with the residents there. It will definitely limit what I can say, but I want to keep pushing forward. I see some improvement in my ability to pick out Swahili words and phrases from week to week, but I’m still a long way from being able to understand a lot of things. I can follow along with prayers like the rosary and the Mass in Swahili, but other than that, learning Swahili is definitely a work in progress. In Swahili they say ‘pole pole’ which means slowly, slowly. I’ve only been here a month. When I look at it from that perspective, I’ve learned a lot.

We got back to Consolata from Kibera around 5:30 PM, which gave me time to take a shower and get ready for dinner. Dinner is late here – around 7 PM. I’m pretty used to eating dinner late now and am able to make it from lunch to dinner without a problem. I eat a lot less here and really don’t snack between meals. I don’t eat desert often, but will partake when it is available, which only happens on special occasions. Unfortunately, I don’t get much in the way of exercise with the exception of a little bit of walking. I’m not starving and I arrived in Kenya with a few extra pounds that I could easily afford to shed. I think I’m making some progress in that respect as I feel my clothes are generally looser fitting now. I guess that is a good thing.

Today is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord. In celebration of the feast there was a special Mass this morning in the large chapel. The Mass was celebrated by Fr. Geoffrey, the superior and rector of the Seminary, along with five other Consolata Fathers. We – Fathers, Seminarians, Sisters, and some students – gathered  at the flog pole in the courtyard for a few prayers and for a candle lighting to recall the light of Christ in us. With lit candles in hand, we processed to the chapel for Mass. The Mass was very nice. The seminarians are very vocal and engaged in the liturgical music. In his homily for the Feast of the Presentation, on which we also celebrate the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin (according to the law of Moses), Fr. Geoffrey talked about the ways in which the Lord touches and purifies us in our lives – whether through suffering or graces that He gratuitously bestows on us. May our Lord continue to purify us and shine brightly in each of us so that we may be a light to others.