Mission Team 5: Torit 2

We began Day 2 of the Week of Catholic Evangelization in Torit with a program for the 7th and 8th grade students of St. Theresa’s primary school. We used the site of the diocese’s silver jubilee celebration last year as the venue, since it offered a shaded space close to the school big enough to accommodate the group. We began with songs of praise and worship, followed by a skit which portrayed how vices like greed, drunkenness and violence can separate us from Jesus. I preached a message based on Pope John Paul II’s often repeated theme of the Culture of Life and Civilization of Love versus the Culture of Death. I was inspired in part to do so because John Paul expounded that theme at World Youth Day in Denver in 1993 just a few months after visiting Sudan in the same year. The youth were remarkably receptive and prayerful.

After the morning program most of the team walked from the jubilee site into town through the many clusters of tukuls that line the river, passing out invitations to that evening’s program at Mercy House. We began at 4:00 with a larger crowd than the day before. Again the weather was almost miraculous, with a thunder storm stopping just as we were ready to begin and resuming a few minutes after we concluded. Continuing on the theme of “Why Be Catholic?,” Br. Joachim spoke about the Confession and shared his own life-changing experience with that Sacrament, while Br. Cyril focused on the living presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Since it was the feast of the Martyrs of Uganda (June 3), we decided to show a short dramatized documentary about St. Charles Lwanga and companions. By the time the film began there were twice as many people as the night before, 2,000 or more, the great majority of them standing. Since the video was in English and not of the same production quality as the film the night before, I thought that people would begin to leave shortly after it started. But again the crowd only grew as the story unfolded. The audience clapped and cheered when the different martyrs chose Christ and decided to remain faithful to him even at the cost of his lives. In Sudan where polygamy is still practiced even among some Christians the testimony of St. Mathias Kalemba, who had to chose to keep only one of his four wives when he was baptized, was particularly poignant. His example of humility and charity in helping his wife with her chores despite being mocked by other men for doing so also hits close to home here. It was clear at the end of the film that those who witnessed this portrayal of the heroic sacrifice of the martyrs of a neighboring country were deeply moved and inspired.

(Click on the panoramic photo of the crowd at Mercy House to enlarge for full effect)