Uganda Episcopal Conference

Pope John Paul II arrived in Uganda for a five day visit in 1993. If your lucky to have been around, please share with us your memories of the visit and how it changed your life

Cardinal Wamala remembers 1993 Papal visit

Uganda hosted Pope John Paul II in February 1993. He became the second head of the the Holy see to visit Uganda after Pope Paul VI who visited in 1969. The v...

Today we remember POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, it's his 15th death anniversary.
POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR US ESPECIALLY IN THIS PANDEMIC PERIOD OF COVID 19.

Prayer of the Day
Prayer for Acceptance of Death
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus,
I accept from Your hands whatever kind of death
it may please You to send me this day
with all its pains, penalties and sorrows;
in reparation for all of my sins,
for the souls in Purgatory,
for all those who will die today
and for Your greater glory.
Amen.
A blessed Thursday

POPE FRANCIS
Christian identity is not an identification card saying, 'I'm Christian.' No. It's discipleship. If you remain in the Lord, in the Word of the Lord, in the life of the Lord, you will be a disciple. If you don't remain, you will be someone who sympathizes with the doctrine, who follows Jesus as a man who performs many charitable acts.

Contemplate, pray, give thanks
Christians need to make it a habit of looking at the crucifix “in this light”, in the “light of the redemption” and as a reminder that Jesus did not pretend to suffer and die. Rather, it was the moment of His utter defeat. He was entirely alone with the burden of our sin that He had taken on Himself to the point of annihilation and the feeling of total abandonment by His Father, the Pope said.
“It's not easy to understand this and should we think about it, we'll never arrive at a conclusion. We can only contemplate, pray, and give thanks.”

Prayer of the Day
Guardian Angel Prayer
Angel of God,
My Guardian Dear,
to whom His love commits me here,
ever this day be at my side,
to light and to guard,
to rule and guide.
Amen.
Wishing you a happy Wednesday

May the soul of His Grace rest in eternal peace.

A sombre morning as His Eminence John Cardinal Njue has announced the passing on of His Grace Archbishop Emeritus Raphael Ndingi Mwana a'Nzeki. Let us pray for the repose of his soul.

Prayer of the Day for Tuesday
Prayer for the Home
Visit, we beseech Thee, O Lord, this dwelling, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let Thy holy Angels dwell herein, to preserve us in peace; and let Thy blessing be upon us forever. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Pope at Mass: 'I am thinking of the people who are weeping'
Jesus had friends
Jesus loved everyone, the Pope affirmed. But He did have friends. This included a special relationship with Lazarus, Martha and Mary. “He would stay at their house a lot”, the Pope said.
"Jesus felt pain because of the sickness and death of His friend…. He arrives at the tomb and is profoundly moved and troubled. And Jesus breaks out in tears. Jesus, God, and man, weeps. There is another time in the Gospel that says that Jesus wept: when He wept over Jerusalem. With what tenderness Jesus weeps! He weeps from the heart. He weeps with love. He weeps with His own who weep…. Jesus always weeps out of love, always.

MALAWI: Catholic Clergy Drilled On Covid-19
“We priests are inside the tumult caused by this deadly pandemic for it has not only brought about socio-economic challenges but also spiritual challenges. Hence, the need for priests to have correct and relevant information for their pastoral planning,” said Archbishop Msusa in his speech, adding, “In any case, we have to follow both civil and ecclesiastical directives during this hard time.”

SOUTH SUDAN:
Pope Francis appointed the new Archbishop of Juba Most Rev. Stephen Ameyu Martin Mulla as Apostolic Administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Torit.

Pope Angelus: Take away the stones to new life
During the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis calls on Christians to take away the stones from their hearts, and let the Word of God restore life where there is death.
During his Angelus, on this fifth Sunday of Lent, livestreamed from the Library of the Apostolic Palace, Pope Francis took inspiration from the day’s Gospel; the resurrection of Lazarus.

The Pope recalled the desperation of Martha and Mary who said to Jesus, ‘If you had been here, my brother would not have died’.

Pope Francis reflected that Jesus, according to the Gospel, is moved by the tears of the sisters and cries aloud for Lazarus to come out of the tomb, which he does, wrapped in strips of linen.
God gives life and takes life

The Pontiff noted that in the Gospel passage, “we are able to touch with our hand the fact that God is life and gives life, yet takes on the drama of death.”

“Jesus could have avoided the death of His friend Lazarus”, explained the Pope, “but He wanted to share in our pain for the death of people dear to us, and above all He wished to demonstrate God’s dominion over death.”

In the Gospel, said Pope Francis, “we see that man’s faith and the omnipotence of God’s love seek each other and finally meet.”

Amid grief, continue to have faith

God’s response to the women’s cry of ‘if you had been here’, is not a speech, Pope Francis underlined; it is Jesus saying, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’… have faith.

“Amid grief, continue to have faith, even when it seems that death has won. Take away the stone from your heart! Let the Word of God restore life where there is death”.

Pope at Mass: 'I am thinking of the people who are weeping'
Pope Francis expresses the desire during Mass on Sunday morning at the Casa Santa Marta that this Fifth Sunday of Lent be a Sunday of tears.

“I am thinking of the many people who are weeping”, Pope Francis said, introducing the liturgy for the Fifth Sunday of Lent at the Casa Santa Marta chapel. People who are isolated, in quarantine, the elderly; people who are alone, in the hospital, parents who do not foresee receiving their salary and do not know how they will feed their children, he continued.

“Many people are weeping. We too, from our hearts, accompany them. It wouldn’t do us any harm to weep a bit as our Lord wept for all of His people”.

During his homily, the Pope continued with the theme of weeping, reflecting on the raising of Lazarus (Jn 11:1-45).
Jesus had friends

Jesus loved everyone, the Pope affirmed. But He did have friends. This included a special relationship with Lazarus, Martha and Mary. “He would stay at their house a lot”, the Pope said.

"Jesus felt pain because of the sickness and death of His friend…. He arrives at the tomb and is profoundly moved and troubled. And Jesus breaks out in tears. Jesus, God, and man, weeps. There is another time in the Gospel that says that Jesus wept: when He wept over Jerusalem. With what tenderness Jesus weeps! He weeps from the heart. He weeps with love. He weeps with His own who weep…. Jesus always weeps out of love, always."
Moved with compassion

How many times the Gospel repeats that Jesus “was moved with compassion”, the Pope recalled.

“Jesus could not look at the people and not feel compassion. His eyes are connected to His heart. Jesus sees with His eyes, but He sees with His heart and is capable of weeping.”
Listen to our report
Are we capable of weeping?

With everything that is happening, with all the people who are crying because of the pandemic, the Pope invites us to ask ourselves if we are capable of weeping.

“Am I capable of weeping, as Jesus would certainly have done and does now? Is my heart like Jesus’s? And if it is too hard, [even if] I can speak and do good in order to help, if my heart isn’t entering in and I’m not capable of weeping, ask the Lord for this grace: Lord, that I might weep with You, weep with your people who are suffering right now”.
The Sunday of tears

The Pope then concluded his homily reminding everyone that many people are weeping today. “We ask the grace to weep” with “Jesus who was not ashamed to weep”.

“May today be for everyone like a Sunday of tears”.
Spiritual communion

After the Pope received communion, he invited all those watching or listening to the liturgy to make a spiritual communion. He used the prayer composed by St. Alphonsus di Liguori:

My Jesus, I believe that You are present
in the Most Blessed Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart.
I embrace You as if you were already there,
and I unite myself wholly to You.
Never permit me to be separated from You.

Then followed a brief period of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, after which the Pope gave Benediction with the Blessed Sacrament. The liturgy ended with the intonation of the ancient Marian antiphon Regina Caelorum (Hail, O Queen of Heaven).

Prayer of the Day
Prayer for a Holy Church and Priests
O my Jesus,
I beg You on behalf of the whole Church:
Grant it love and the light of Your Spirit
and give power to the words of priests
so that hardened hearts might be brought to repentance
and return to You, O Lord.

Lord, give us holy priests;
You Yourself maintain them in holiness.
O Divine and Great High Priest,
may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere
and protect them from the devil's traps and snares
which are continually being set for the souls of priests.
May the power of Your mercy, O Lord,
shatter and bring to naught
all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests,
for You can do all things.
I ask You, Jesus,
for a special blessing
and for light for the priests
before whom I will make my confessions throughout my lifetime.
Amen.

Pope’s special Urbi et Orbi blessing: ‘God turns everything to our good’ - Vatican News

vaticannews.va Pope Francis delivers an extraordinary blessing “To the City and to the World” on Friday to pray for an end to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. In ...

Pope’s special Urbi et Orbi blessing: ‘God turns everything to our good’
His cross is our hope
Jesus’ cross, said Pope Francis, is the anchor that has saved us, the rudder that has redeemed us, and our hope, because “by His cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from His redeeming love.”
“In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things,” he said, “let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: He is risen and is living by our side.”
So we embrace His cross in the hardships of the present time, and make room in our hearts “for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring.”
“Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.”

Today's Prayer
Prayer to Serve God Well
Father of Mercy,
forgive my failings,
keep me in Your Grace,
and lead me in the way of salvation.
Give me strength in serving You
as a follower of Christ.
May the Eucharist bring me Your Forgiveness
and give me freedom to serve You all my life.
May it help me to remain faithful
and give me the grace I need in Your service.
May it teach me the way to eternal life.
A blessed Weekend to you ALL.

[03/27/20]   POPE’S FULL HOMILY

“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat... are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.

It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps on soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (v. 40).

Let us try to understand. In what does the lack of the disciples’ faith consist, as contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped believing in him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how they call on him: “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care: they think that Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about them. One of the things that hurts us and our families most when we hear it said is: “Do you not care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and unleashes storms in our hearts. It would have shaken Jesus too. Because he, more than anyone, cares about us. Indeed, once they have called on him, he saves his disciples from their discouragement.

The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.

In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, your word this evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore you: “Wake up, Lord!”.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, you are calling to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you exist, but coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent your call reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look to so many exemplary companions for the journey, who, even though fearful, have reacted by giving their lives. This is the force of the Spirit poured out and fashioned in courageous and generous self-denial. It is the life in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and women and so very many others who have understood that no one reaches salvation by themselves. In the face of so much suffering, where the authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all. Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Faith begins when we realise we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we founder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.

The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites us to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering. The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side. The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.

Embracing his cross means finding the courage to embrace all the hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to create spaces where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to allow new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity. By his cross we have been saved in order to embrace hope and let it strengthen and sustain all measures and all possible avenues for helping us protect ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Dear brothers and sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would like this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea. From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: “Do not be afraid” (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, “cast all our anxieties onto you, for you care about us” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7).