Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Essence

Back to Tarime today for the thanksgiving Mass of the newly ordained priest, Fr. Alfred Kwene. This time at home. It is a custom in the Diocese of Musoma and elsewhere in the world for a newly ordained priest to say his first official public Mass at home parish, shortly after his ordination. While in Poland we customarily celebrate our first public Mass at home parish church on the Sunday following the ordination day, here in the Diocese of Musoma, newly ordained priest celebrates his first Mass literally at home!


The day before yesterday I posted a report on the ordination Mass of Fr. Kwene. The Ordination Mass was celebrated at on open altar right outside of the parochial church. Today Fr. Alfred celebrated his first public Mass in his home parish – not in the parochial church, but on the veranda (porch) of his family house, at home! This is what is being done here in the diocese, that Thanksgiving Mass right after ordination is being celebrated at home – Holy Mass, speeches, gifts, food, artistic program, everything is prepared and organized at home.


The house of the family of our new priest was totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of people attending the event! Swarms of people in a tiny area. Luckily there is an open space between the house and the neighbors premises, so organizers were able to squeeze tents in between.

 

Everything went very well and smoothly, with a little glitch of half an hour delay of the start of the Holy Mass, but it was not a fault of Fr. Kwene, but his hosts (the parish leadership). Anyway, we started the Mass at 10.40 instead of 10 am, but all the rest was okey, especially a homily which was given by a young priest from Bukoba Diocese, a close friend of Fr. Alfred. The homily was precede by the Gospel procession. The Book of Gospel was brought in a cardboard airplane on the head of one of the dancing ladies with a airline name on the tail reading: AIR VATICAN. People had a good laugh at it!


I was quite happy to hear from an announcer’s mouth that there will be gift presentation right after Mass, then food, then the artistic program. Thanks be to Almighty! So I gave my gift to Fr. Alfred – a statue of Jesus, the King of Mercy, with a bunch of my books on Divine Mercy and others, then I gave Mr. Anthony Giyani a special ebony nicely carved walking cane, to replace the ugly one I saw him with on Thursday. He was very surprised and happy! But I was even more happier as we reconnected after so many years. He is a great guy! I love and respect him! And his family!

Then I took Sr. Winfrida and Mr. Athanas Zakaria I came with as a representation of Kiabakari Parish, went behind and had a quick lunch.

Fr. Pasley, my friend and a Dean of Rorya Deanery, who was ordained in Tarime six years ago and then posted to Musoma as his first assignment, where he worked with me as his parish priest, took us to his family home, where his Mum prepared something extra for us – sweet grilled potatoes, water and beverages. As we have had already eaten lunch at Fr. Kwene’s feast, we just took a few bites, drank water and soda (not me, I can’t) and set off on our journey back to Kiabakari.

I didn’t want t stay to long as our car gave us problems on our way to Tarime. It lost power significantly. I suspect a dirty diesel or maybe even diesel mixed with kerosene as it is a common way to cheat on fuel and ruin our engines along the way. I think I took bad diesel, mixed diesel yesterday evening and today our car had maybe 50% of pulling power. This means going uphil 20-40 kph, going flat 80 kph max, and downhill on neutral /idle much faster. Luckily fuel pump did not fail or got clogged with dirt in the fuel, so we were able to drive slowly to and from Tarime and got homely safely an hour ago. Uffff! Thanks be to God, St. Archangel Raphael, St. Christopher, St. Jude Thaddeus and all my Saint friends in heaven to keep us save and bring us back home safely!

But the prevailing feeling of today’s event was a reminiscence of my own first thanksgiving Mass twenty two years ago, on May 29, 1998, at St. Kazimierz parish in Kraków. Here are a few pictures from that day.


The essence of both events is the same, the packaging, the appearance, the methodology of approach to the event may be different in Tanzania and in Poland, but yet, the essence is simply the same! Coming back to God amidst our own folk at home and saying in public – ‘Thank you, o Lord, for making me who I am now!’Then imparting our first blessing on our beloved, our community which shaped us in a unique way, which contributed immensely to who we have become...

I am happy for Fr. Alfred Kwene, and I am happy for myself. Twenty two years have passed already since that day, but the attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving for everything that is happening in my life remained as strong as it was on the day of my Thanksgiving Mass. Thank you! Dziękuję! Asante!

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