Back at Holy Spirit Parish

Sunday, November 23rd

I participated in the 9:30 Mass at Holy Spirit Parish, a church I often helped out at. As I entered the church, a murmur could be heard… is it really him? Is Fr. Rocco back? People jumped for joy (and I did, too) and we had a great celebration of Eucharist. It was a true service of thanksgiving and praise for God’s goodness to us all. Fr. Matthew Lamboi, the pastor, invited me to preside and he preached. It was great.

Emmanuel and I had a long lunch with the new director of the Pastoral Center and our host, Fr. Augustine Berewa. He is also the superior of the Spiritan Missionaries in Sierra Leone. There are some 17 Sierra Leonean Spiritans who now service in Sierra Leone. We were able to fill him in on the various programs that we had at the center during my years. Many of the initiatives he is undertaking follow up some of our work. I promised to send him many of the narratives of programs we held there that got lost during the looting of the center in 1998. Now that there is relative peace, he hopes to get things moving again.

In the evening the Bishop hosted a supper for all priests, sisters, and brothers working in Kenema and the nearby towns at the Center both to welcome me back as well as hear about my work. I gave the same summary that I did at the seminary a few evenings before. The possibility of restorative justice becoming a central piece of our pastoral planning and action stirred a lot of enthusiasm. It was a wonderful evening of good food, fellowship, and challenge.