Monday, July 5, 2010

The Cross

Eighteen years ago, on July 5th, 1992, three weeks before the official blessing of Kiabakari mission headquarters (July 28, 1992 by Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, Apostolic Nuncio in Tanzania that time), we had a special day of the Cross. 

We, joint parishes of Butiama and Kiabakari, had a Holy Mass in Butiama parochial church at 10am, then we carried a huge wooden cross celebrating the Stations of the Way of the Cross on the way from Butiama to Kiabakari. Both parishes took part in the Mass and then in the procession of the Cross, then upon arrival to Kiabakari, we celebrated the second Mass of the installation of the Cross on top of Divine Mercy Hill. I was the main celebrant in Butiama, then late Fr. Karol Szlachta, my first and only parish priest in Tanzania, then a parish priest of Butiama, celebrated and preached the second Mass.


That cross stood outside the existing chapel in Kiabakari on top of the hill till we finished construction of the shrine. Then I dismantled it and used its wood to make a cross surrounding the picture of Divine Mercy in the shrine.


So, whenever I look at the Divine Mercy picture in the shrine in Kiabakari, and see the wooden cross embracing it, I remember that memorable day of July 5, 1992, when we carried the cross from Butiama as a sign of a birth of a new parish out of the 'womb' of Butiama parish, our mother, which in turn was born from Zanaki parish, when the similar cross was carried from Zanaki to Butiama years before, by Fr. Krzysztof Chromy, the then parish priest of Zanaki and Fr. Karol Szlachta, parish priest of the new born Butiama parish.


Ave Crux , spes mea unica!

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