Church in Ghana Concludes Year of Consecrated Life

CANAA || By Damian Avevor, Ghana || 25 January 2016

The celebration of the Ghana version of the Year of Consecrated Life climaxed with a four-day series of activities at the Christian Village at Kumasi under the theme: Wake up the World with Testimonies of Faith, Holiness and Hope.

Over 500 consecrated men and women from about 60 different Religious Congregations working in Ghana participated in the event to conclude the Year of Consecrated Life (YCL) declared by Pope Francis from November 30, 2014 to February 2, 2016.

YCL was declared to enable members of the Consecrated Life to affirm that the crises that affected the world and the Church also affected them so as to help prepare them to remain full of hope based not on their own powers but on trust in the Lord.

It was also to help the Religious live the present with passion (of Christ), which speaks of being in love, of true friendship, and of profound communion and to help Christian people all over the world to realize and appreciate the beauty of following Christ in the various types of Religious Vocations.

Activities held to mark the year-long celebration in Ghana included: the official launching, Seminars for Formators, Vocation Director and Directresses and those invited to Youth Apostolate; Arch/Diocesan Week of Life Consecrated to Unity and the four-day activities to mark the end of the celebration in Kumasi Archdiocese from January 20 to 23, 2016.

The programme for the YCL conclusion was organized by the Conference of Major Superiors- Ghana with the aim to bring joy to the world, to make Religious life more relevant to the world and take stock of the activities of the Consecrated Men and Women in Ghana.

The opening ceremony at the Christian Village was attended many dignitaries including Most Rev. Emmanuel Kofi Fianu, SVD, Bishop of Ho, who was the Guest Speaker; Most Rev. Gabriel Justice Anokye, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kumasi; Rev. Fr. Dominic Apee, M.Af, President of the Conference of Major Superiors, Ghana, who chaired the opening; and Very Rev. Fr. Dr. Francis Appiah-Kubi, President of National Union of Ghana Diocesan Priests’ Associations (NUGDPA).

Welcoming the Religious, Most Rev. Gabriel Justice Anokye said the theme of the celebration called for concerted effort to handle more effectively the challenges confronting Religious formation and life.

He asked the Religious to bisect and digest the challenges of discerning genuine Vocation, forming good Formators, inculcating a true love for the Religious Vows into the candidates of the consecrated life.

He urged them to ensure that they “possessed solid spiritual human and psychological equilibrium that would position them over and above any form of ambiguity, incongruity and mediocrity.”

The Year of Consecrated Life was closed with a Eucharistic Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church at South Suntreso, presided over by Archbishop Anokye and concelebrated by about 30 Religious and Diocesan Priests including some Superiors General of the various Men Religious Congregations.

In his homily, Archbishop Anokye urged the Religious to lead holy lives according to their Congregational charisms and to be united more to Christ than earthly pleasures.