The Goaso Diocesan Catholic Women Association (CWA) celebrated their Annual Feast of the Holy Family in a grand durbar at Kunsu under the theme: “The Responsibilities of Catholic Women towards the Care and Protection of Creation (cf. Laudato Si)” The four days programme was attended by over 2,000 Catholics and Non-Catholics. The Women were taken through a series of Talks on the theme and also had the opportunity to go for confession.
The Bishop, Most Rev. Peter Atuahene, in his address focused on the apostolic encyclical of Pope Francis on care for our common home, “Laudato Si” which means “Praise be to you”. Quoting from the encyclical, “In the words of this beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us, ‘Praise to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruits with coloured flowers and herbs’.” This means that the earth is like our sister and mother and through her we came into this world, it provides our nourishment and in the end of our life we shall enter the same earth. He further observed that unfortunately the mother earth is crying because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We are destroying our mother earth through indiscriminate human activities such as illegal mining, poor sanitation, the widespread of waste in our streets, towns and villages, indiscriminate felling of trees which is destroying our forests and the water bodies an effect contributing to global environmental deterioration.
The Bishop appealed to them to be circumspect in their utterances especially now that we have entered the election year and to advice their children especially the youth to be extra careful in what they do and say. According to him, the aftermath of prolonged war in Rwanda through which thousands of lives were lost, there is a big house full of skull and bones of the victims as tourist site, a compelling sign that war is nothing to wish for. He added that Kigali, the capital of the nation is so neat and clean that one cannot find even a piece of paper on the ground throughout the city all because of their policy on sanitation, warning even visitors in the Aeroplane before landing in the city. He said that “mother earth is hired for us to derive our sustenance hence we would be accountable to God our Creator how we USE or MISUSE it”.
He concluded his address by citing the incident that took place at the time of Jonah when he preached at Nineveh, “When the news reached the king, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes. Then he declared that no human being or animal, shall taste anything. They shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.....When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 2 : 6 – 10). As the Lenten period is approaching, and this year being a Jubilee Year of Mercy, the Bishop encouraged all of us to fast and pray for God’s mercy to enable us obtain mercy from God and be able to protect creation especially the human person.
The Bishop used the occasion and thanked the Almighty God for ushering us into the New Year. He expressed his gratitude to Nana Agyeman Adusei, who had made available his new house to a Religious Community from India to the Parish, doing its apostolate in the Diocese. He also thanked members of the Association for the usual donation of food and other items to support the diocesan obligation of providing food items in the Month of February to St. Gregory Provincial Seminary – Paakoso and appealed to other Society Leaders present to follow suit.
The Official Opening Ceremony was attended by Most Rev. Peter Atuahene, Catholic Bishop of Goaso, Rev. Fr. Stephen Gyau, Financial Administrator and the Diocesan Chaplain of CWA, Rev. Fr. Jonas Gyamfi Bonsu, the Parish Priest, Kunsu, and many Priests, Religious and Lay faithful and Society Leaders from the Diocese. Also in attendance were many dignitaries including Nana Agyeman Adusei, Retired Railways Engineer, Nana Acquah John, Dwantoahene who represented the Chief of Kunsu, Mr D.K Osei, a Retired Educationist and Mr Mensah Godwin who represented the District Chief Executive.
Rev Fr. Martin Yaw Adjei, Chaplain of St Joseph’s College of Education – Bechem, in the keynote address exhorted the participants to memorise the name of the encyclical, “Laudato Si” and to spread its mandate to their family members, pleading that each member in the family could plant a tree during the Abhor Week this year as directed by the encyclical.
Rev. Dr. Augustine Owusu Addo, Lecturer, Catholic University College of Ghana – Fiapre, and the Chairman of the Jubilee Year of Mercy Implementation Committee used the occasion to share the insights of the year of mercy and encouraged all to be merciful as the Lord is showing mercy to us. According to him, we cannot protect the mother earth if we do not have merciful heart.
There were goodwill messages from Mr. Gabriel Nyarko, Chairman of the Diocesan Laity Council, Opanin Theresa Adjei Yeboah, Diocesan President of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Society, Mr. Mensah Godwin from the District Assembly and Nana Acquah John, Dwantoahene, on behalf of Kunsu Chief. The Bishop with some of the dignitaries inspected the food items parish by parish.
Reported by Rev. Fr. Isaac Boansi (Director of DEPSOCOM – Goaso)