Christ the King in Torit, Helio and Katire

The new bridge on the road to Katire (above and below).

This past weekend we had the opportunity to celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King in three different locations. On Saturday I went with the lay missionaries, a few youth and Stephen Lugwana, another Ugandan lay missionary who serves in Torit, to the county jail. Stephen has been visiting the jail with a local group of women evangelizers for several months now, and I had been wanting to celebrate Mass there for a while. Although it was Saturday we decided to celebrate Mass for the next day for the prisoners. More than half of the approximately 275 inmates (male and female, and some of the small children of the female prisoners) attended, many of them obviously Catholic. I was very impressed by how open, receptive, responsive and joyful they were. Citing the words of Matthew 25 ("I was in prison and you visited me") I thanked those present for the opportunity of encountering Jesus in their midst. Providentially, the Gospel reading was the crucifixion scene from Luke, which recounts the interaction between Jesus and the "Good Thief" - the first one to receive the gift of salvation from the Lord.

A toddler in Katire.

Sunday we divided up into two "teams," each comprising of a priest friar, a lay missionary and two youth, and celebrated Sunday Mass in both Helio and Katire. Since I had Mass in Helio last weekend, I dropped off Fr. Sylvester, Carol, Hellen and Elizabeth there. They did a special program for the local children before Mass using a cartoon video on the story of Abraham and an activity based on the feast day of Christ the King. After Mass they showed the second half of an excellent film on the life of St. Peter (portrayed by Omar Sharif) for the entire congregation. I continued on to Katire with Joseph, Emmanuel and Adraman. I was pleasantly surprised by a number of things we encountered along the road: five or six staffed and functioning referendum registration centers and a newly constructed bridge spanning a fairly deep ravine. The previous bridge consisted of loose planks resting on old concrete pillars. The new bridge is completely new and will facilitate even more transportation and exchange between the previously isolated Katire and Torit and other towns. Once in Katire we were very happy to learn that on the previous Sunday 42 children had been baptized. With all the prepartions for the sacrament they didn't have time to properly celebrate afterward, so this week there was dancing and a feast that included wild boar.

Drummers and dancers celebrating the baptism of 42 children.

That afternoon after returning from the mountains we showed a film at the House of Mercy on the papacy of Pope John Paul II - such an amazing witness to and citizen of the Kingdom of Christ.

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