REFLECTIONS OF A KENYAN PRIEST

By Fr. Casmir Odundo Sr. M. Carola Cecchin 'Fiorina' “ Henceforth she shall be called blessed. ” wrote Pope Francis, in the Apostolic Letter declaring that Sr. Maria Carola Cecchin “Fiorina” Blessed, which was read on his behalf by His Eminence, Antoine Cardinal Kambanda, the Archbishop of Kigali, Rwanda. The Cardinal presided over the beatification and the celebration of Mass on behalf of Pope Francis.   Sr. Maria Carola Cecchin was born on 3rd April 1877 at Cittadella, Padua, in Italy. She was baptised the next day and called “Fiorina”.  At a very young age Fiorina felt the desire to offer herself completely to God. At the age of 19 she entered the Little House of Divine Province (Cottolengo Sisters) in Turin. When she became a novice, she took the name Maria Carola . On the Solemnity of Epiphany in 1899 she made her first profession.  After her profession she worked with the poor in Italy, and it was while there that she was inspired by the missionaries who retur...

Today in St. Peter’s at the Vatican Pope Francis will canonize two new Saints. Two more saints. Two additional examples. One of them, a lay person, Atemide Zatti  was a Male nurse who though could not continue with his call to become a priest, devoted himself to the sick in Argentina. The other one is Giovanni Scalabrini, bishop of Piacenza who founded the Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo. He promoted devotion to the Eucharist and the Apostolate of the Catechism.  What does it mean to be a saint? From the etymology, a saint means a holy person.  St. Atemide Zatti Recently, I listened to a homily by His Grace Mario Delphini, the Archbishop of Milan, that he had preached during the feast of St. Josemaria Escriva, this year. I thought it was beautiful, a wonderful exposition on Sanctity, so I translated it into English for my friends who might be interested. While translating I might have omitted or added some words to make sense of the speech.  Archbishop Delp...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo   “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of self-control.” 2. Tim 1: 7 The Priesthood is a great gift and a great mystery. God has a reason why he called men and not angels into the priesthood. A priest is first of all a human being. He is a man. A citizen of a nation, he may even come from an ethnic community. But over and above that he is a man of God. A man of the church and a father of all. Jesus, the model of our priesthood, also belonged to a nation and a tribe. This belonging to a certain community though it may seem like a disadvantage, is a great advantage to the priest and to the life of the church. It means that the priest like Jesus is “incarnated”, fully human and shares the burdens of the people.  The situation in Kenya is quite unique because different dioceses have different demographics and different political dynamics.  Many Kenyans still vote on tribal lines and sometimes that affects how the...

By Fr. Casmir Odundo Today is the second Sunday in Ordinary Time. It is the first Sunday after the Christmas season. As such, it is a custom for the Church to offer us for our reflection, the Gospel pericope on the Wedding at Cana after the Sunday of the Baptism of Our Lord. This reason is simply because this miracle (the changing of water into wine at Cana,) together with what we celebrated last Sunday, (the Baptism of Our Lord) and the feast of the Epiphany form a unit. These three are all Epiphanies, so to speak. Jesus is being revealed to the world, his divinity is made manifest to the Magi (Epiphany) again during his Baptism and at the Wedding at Cana. Now John calls this the first sign that Jesus performed. We know that  John calls miracles that Jesus performed signs. And he elaborates on only seven signs. The first is  the one we reflect on today, (the wedding at Cana) and the last is the restoration of Lazarus. These signs are carefully selected and progressive. Now wa...

They say that beauty will save the world. This is particularly true this Christmas when numerous nativity scenes have adorned our parishes and families. On Christmas eve, I requested some of my brother priests and friends to send me the photos of the different Nativity Scenes from their parishes. At the end of the day I received so many that someone challenged me…" Tell us which is the fairest of them all ." That was a difficult decision because all of them were beautiful and all of them were set in different circumstances. Nativity Scene from Nyumbani Children's Home Kitui So I decided to post them on my facebook account and let the people be the jury. After some long wait we finally had a winner. Well, at the end of it all, it was not a competition but it is all about people sharing the joy of the Incarnation. Despite this, Many more promised to do even better next year. There is always room for improvement. Post Francis in 2019 wrote the Apostolic Letter Admirabile...