Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lilongwe (Agenzia Fides)- “The cross and icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary which Pope John Paul II consigned to young people of the world at the end of the first World Youth Day in 1984 has arrived in Malawi” said Monfort missionary Fr. Piergiorgio Gamba, 30 years on mission in that country 30. “After visiting the dioceses of Tanzania and travelling more than 500 kilometres the cross arrived on the third Sunday of Advent at Mzuzu, diocese of Mangochi where it was welcomed with prayers and festivities.”.
“When the cross arrived, as on the most important church feasts, especially Palm Sunday, the women placed their coloured shawls ‘chitenje’ before it on the ground in sign of deep respect and veneration. This honour is given only on religious feasts, never to a person or an authority” the missionary explained.
“The Croce was welcomed with joyful singing and celebration as only Africans know how to live to the full. Sosola village had never seen such a gathering of people on a Sunday as the cross was slowly erected. It was an extraordinary feeling to be part of a story which touched an African village transforming it from within. The cross of John Paul II continues in time the challenge to young people so often marginalised, but whom the Pope put at the centre of the Church and the world. A story easily unobserved, as one of many stories about poor people only in the news for hunger, drought, floods, or disease, like the poor shepherds at Bethlehem” Fr. Gamba concluded
The cross will go to Zomba, Blantyre, Chikwawa and then back to Dedza and Lilongwe and Mchinji and then it will be handed over to the young Catholics of Zambia in the diocese of Chipata. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 20/12/2006 righe 27 parole 331)
