So Sweet

I simply could not withhold a broad smile, when I sat for the first reading of this morning's Holy Mass in Our Lady of Perpetual Help chapel in the shrine. Sister who read the first reading has still some pronunciation issues, as she is Zambian and sometimes swahili gives her troubles and sometimes she simply mixes swahili with her native ki-Bemba vernacular language...


She read the first sentence of the first reading from the Letter to Hebrews: 'Melkisedeki huyo, mfalme wa Salemu, kuhani wa Mungu aliye juu, aliyekutana na Ibrahimu alipokuwa akirudi katika kuwapiga hao wafalme, akambariki...' (Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings and blessed him).

Sister Jennifer - instead of saying 'kuhani wa Mungu' - pronounced: 'kohanye wa Mungu'... Kohanye in Polish (written properly 'kochanie') means - darling, sweethart, my love...

It was so sweet when I heard 'kohanye wa Mungu'...'a sweetheart of God'... And smiling broadly to myself, with people staring at me wondering what's so funny in this reading, I thought of myself and of all priests all over the world that we are indeed 'sweethearts of God', 'darlings of God'...

So sweet and so meaningul...so challenging and encouraging as well...

'Kohanye wa Mungu'...oh yeah... :)