In God's Textile Store

Two Holy Masses 'under my belt' and off I went to Nyamikoma oustation, some 6 kilometers from Kiabakari on the main highway from Musoma to Mwanza. I braced myself for a long Mass in extreme heat in my favorite chapel in the parish, dedicated to the Patron Saint of my ordination class, St. Francis of Assisi... I was about to officiate at the sacrament of marriage of three couples and - before that - to baptize one of the brides, confirm one couple and to baptize four children from three couples. I said to myself with wicked grin - 'no country for old men!' Another day in tough conditions...

No Country For Old Men

When the echo of a final word of the Prayer after Mass of altar servers faded away in the sacristy of our church, I grinned to myself and groaned incomprehensibly - 'no country for old men...' Three and a half hours in sauna temperatures of in fully packed church with zero air circulation. Give me a break! I felt even my teeth sweating in this condition...

'F' Word

An organized chaos. I think this is a proper and accurate description of what was going on today here. I'm too tired by hearing confessions since morning till late evening, to pay any attention to my sense of organization and logic in making things happen - screaming in me in protest to what was happening around me today...

The Rural Death Row

We have just put two convicts on the rural death row. It always happens whenever we are about to celebrate a parochial feast, as we are getting ready to do just that the day after tomorrow, when Bishop Michael Msonganzila will come to celebrate a Holy Mass with the sacrament of Confirmation for some 300 young and old members of the parochial community. There  always is a death sentence accompanying these joyful events. They aren't that joyful to some convicts though. And although we have a prison in Kiabakari, those convicts we put to death on the occasion of our feasts are not from that prison...They are from the green mile a.k.a. the rural death row...