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.
What a weekend of fantastic experiences!