REFLECTIONS OF A KENYAN PRIEST

By Fr. Casmir Odundo Globally in many Christian denominations, there has been an ongoing debate on whether women should be ordained or not.  Recently some mainstream protestant denominations have allowed women to be pastors and even Bishops. Just last week, on 12th September 2021, Mrs. Rose Okeno was installed as Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Bishop of Butere in Western Kenya. Her “ordination” made her the second Kenyan woman and perhaps second woman in East Africa in the Anglican Church to hold such an office. Previously, i n September last year Mrs. Emily Awino made history as she was elected the first woman assistant Bishop of the diocese of Bondo, in Kenya. Despite these trends, the “consecration” of women as Bishops even in the Anglican Church as a whole is still controversial. In 2018 many Anglican Churches including ACK signed the Global Anglican Future Conference Moratorium, which decided to halt the consecration of women as Bishops till such a time there was going to...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo The Church from the earliest times established certain ministries for the proper ordering of worship and for the service of God’s people as need arose. These ministries were entrusted to the lay people. The Church organised a liturgical celebration in which ministries were conferred following a particular rite, in which God’s blessings was invoked and which established the person designated in a special rank or class for the performance of some ecclesial function.  Because some of these functions were closely connected with the liturgy they gradually came to be regarded as preparatory stages in the reception of Sacred Orders. So in the end the church found itself with the offices of Porter, Lector, Exorcist and Acolyte which were called the minor orders while the Subdiaconate, The Diaconate and the Priesthood made the Major orders.  Later on therefore,  as a general rule, these orders were reserved to seminarians to serve as preparatory stages on the ...

  By Fr. Casmir Odundo On a day like today, exactly 166 years ago (8 th December 1854) Pope Pius   IX issued the Apostolic Constitution, Ineffabilis Deus,  in which he pronounced and defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. He stated that, “the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." This means that Mary was given immunity from original sin. She was given sanctifying grace before sin could have taken effect in her soul. Whereas, Original sin is the “General rule” for all of humanity, Mary is thus the singular exemption to that rule. Again, whereas, original sin is removed from the rest of humanity through baptism, Mary was completely excluded from it. Mary was thus depraved of all emotions, passions, and frailties, essentially pertaining to original sin. She was t...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo New Abbot: Rt. Rev. Fr. John Baptist History was made in Kenya today when Rt. Rev. Fr. John Baptist Oese Imai was finally blessed as an abbot. He becomes the first Benedictine Abbot in Kenya. History has it that some years past, we had an abbot in Kipkelion Monastery in Kericho who belonged to the Cistercian order.  His elevation is a consequence of the fact that the Conventual Priory of Prince of Peace, Tigoni Kenya of the Benedictine Missionaries of St. Ottillien was in the month of September elevated to an abbey-the full form of a Benedictine monastery.   The   Benedictine Missionaries were invited to Kenya in 1972 by three Bishops, Servant of God Maurice Micheal Cardinal Otunga then, Archbishop of Nairobi, the Late Bishops Emilio Njeru and John Njenga of Eldoret.  In Nairobi they are basically in Tigoni and Ruaraka, in Nyeri they are in Nanyuki where they run the Bible on the Ground animation and retreat centre and finally in Eldoret the...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo   " The one who has not used the tool, does not know its depth." Remarked Archbishop Emeritus Peter Joseph Kairo as he thanked God for granting him 50 solid years of priestly ministry. The Archbishop Emeritus said this while delivering his homily on the occasion of the ordination of  4 priests and 7 deacons for the Archdiocese of Nyeri and also to celebrate his Golden Jubilee of Priesthood. " There is no life without challenges, even priesthood has its own fair share of challenges ,"continued the Archbishop. He encouraged the 11 men who were to be ordained as deacons and priests  to always follow the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He cautioned the young men not to aspire for the priesthood because of  money or riches. " The Priesthood , " he said, " is a vocation and a life of sacrifice." He thus encouraged the young men, soon to be ordai...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo Yesterday we celebrated the Memoria of St. Barnabas, as apostle and one of the greatest collaborators in the Pauline Ministry. A lot has been said and written about this great man. However, today I would like to reflect on an aspect about him that is often overlooked. The fact that he was a collaborator of St. Paul. Though he calls himself the least of the apostles (1 Cor 15: 9) we know that in certain terms, St. Paul was one of the greatest. His greatness is of course first and foremost the work of the grace of God. For we all know that apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15: 5). Secondly we can account for the greatness of St. Paul from his apostolic zeal for souls. However, his success was also mainly influenced by the fact that he had many collaborators and the Pauline Ministry was largely a collaborative ministry. Pope Benedict XVI summarized it beautifully, “ St. Paul is an eloquent example of a man open to collaboration: he did not want t...

By Fr Casmir Odundo One of the remarkable moments of the Pontificate of Benedict XVI was when he visited Auschwitz, the place of the massive holocaust of the Jews by the Germans. It was difficult for the German Pope to express himself. " To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible - and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a pope from Germany ," the then 79-year-old pontiff said. He went on to utter a spontaneous prayer to God " In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can be only a dread silence, a silence which itself is a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? " It is this same silence of God amid the Covid-19 pandemic that has prompted me to write this reflection.   Why Lord, do you remain Silent? It is now over six months since the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission in China reported the first case of ...