REFLECTIONS OF A KENYAN PRIEST

By Fr. Casmir Odundo, Kibet (St. Veronica Parish Keringet, Nakuru) St. Paul VI with Archbishop Okoth in the Vatican Before the days of Barrack Obama, the African American Community embraced Bill Clinton as the First Black President. “Bill Clinton is the First Black U.S President. White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime,”  c ommented Toni Morrison, in his 1998 article that appeared in the New York Times. Last Sunday’s canonization of Pope Paul VI and six other saints got me thinking a lot about Pope Paul VI and whether despite the fact that he was an European,   we could still ascribe to him the title of “ An African Pope”. Of course we know from Church History that there have been three African Popes already: Pope St. Victor I (189-199), Pope Militiades   (311-314) and Pope Gelasius I (492-496). However, as the dates of their Pontificates alre...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo, Kibet (St. Veronica Parish, Keringet, Nakuru) “ Domine ut Videam, Domina ut Sit !” A young seminarian, Josemaria Escriva, prayed. He was asking for   light to see. Just as the blind man Bartimaeus, in the Gospel of Mark had asked Our Lord. He continued with this aspiration (repeating it innumerable times) for over eleven years, till on that 2 nd October 1928 when he finally SAW. According to the Positio, document presented for the Beatification of Monsignior Josemaria Escriva: " On 2 nd October,1928, while the Servant of God was alone in his room, participating in a retreat in the residence of the Vincentian Fathers of Madrid, on Garcia de Paredes St., God deigned to illuminate him. He SAW Opus Dei, as the Lord wanted it and as it would be, down through the centuries.” He was only 3 years a priest when God granted him this vision.   As Beglar notes in his biography of the saint: “ On that 2 nd October 1928, Escriva's apprenticeship ...