Catholic Church in Kenya Marks Silver Jubilee of Commission for Missions and Golden Jubilee of ‘Ad Gentes Divinitus”

CANAA || By Rose Achiego, Waumini Communications, KCCB, Nairobi || 24 August 2015

The Commission for Missions of the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB) marked the two events: golden jubilee of “Ad Gentes Divinitus” the document that promotes the missionary activities of the Catholic Church and 25 years since the Kenyan Catholic Bishops formed a commission to promote the same.

The three-day celebration took place the grounds of St. Mary’s School in Nairobi, from Thursday, August 20 to Saturday, August 22, with more than five thousand children under the Pontifical Missionary Childhood (PMC) in attendance.

Speaking during the launching mass, the Chairman of the Commission for Missions, Bishop Peter Kihara said that Kenya has achieved a lot in terms of missionary activities since the Mother Church in Rome launched the document in July 1965 with the intention to arouse the missionary awareness requiring that every baptized person shares the good news with others.

Bishop Kihara said that there has been tremendous formation and increase of Small Christian Communities that were started because the Christians came to understand that without understanding the word of God and sharing it, they will go out to be missionaries without a basis adding that, there has been an initiative to enculturate the Church and the liturgy by incorporating songs and dances with the cultural aspect to make the Church in Kenya livelier. 

He revealed that there have been a lot of successes in vocation promotion when the young people understand that the command of the gospel is to go out and preach the good news. 

“Many embrace family life, priestly life, like we have a good number of seminaries with more than 700 students wanting to become priests of tomorrow, religious sisters and brothers, to respond to the mandate of Christ in the gospel of Mathew chapter 28 go out to the whole world and preach the good news” Bishop Kihara said.

Bishop Kihara who is the Bishop of Marsabit said in the past 25 years, the Church in Kenya has been able to form ‘Fidei Donum’ priests who leave their dioceses and go to the neediest dioceses to witness faith in those areas.

“We have many priests who are born in one diocese and have been sent to another diocese to donate their faith to the most needy,” he said.

He said the Church in Kenya marked the celebration with the children since they are the future generation and to nature them to be able to make informed decisions in their careers when they grow up.

“We should see more missionaries and committed Christians living their faith, doing different activities and helping people.” He said.

He thanked the PMC children who are already doing a lot through prayer and collection of money to help children in other countries during the epidemics adding that, as the children grow aware of the mission of Christ they will become better missionaries.

The Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya (and South Sudan) presided over the Eucharistic celebration on the Friday while John Cardinal Njue of Nairobi Archdiocese was the main celebrant at the concluding mass on Saturday.

The celebrations were organized by PMC office in Kenya under the leadership of the National Director, Father Celestino Bundi.

There were children from 25 diocese of Kenya accompanied by their animators as well as PMC delegates from Uganda, Rwanda and the Vatican.