"…the deacons, priests, and bishops should be like a bridge" the bishop went on. He explained how a bridge is so neutral that Christians were left nodding their heads. The message hit home. A bridge does not discriminate people. It is ready to allow the great and the least, the mighty and the weak to cross over it. It is a conduit between two sides. It is always open to whoever comes, regardless of their features or their background. Any Christian and, more so, any ordained person is supposed to be like that: open hearted, sociable, loving, welcoming and so on. The bishop went on showing how the diaconate (and Christian life in general) is a call to service. After a few more minutes, he concluded his homily calling on all of us and particularly the two young men to learn from Christ the shepherd-servant role.
As you might have guessed, it was a diaconate ordination. The Allamano community was celebrating the diaconate ordination of Lorenzo Sanchez and Daniel Joseph. This was on Saturday 29th November and the bishop was his lordship Antony Mukobo, the bishop of Isiolo. The event was taking place at the compound of Consolata Institute of Philosophy, and it was well attended. The Consolata community and Allamano community had evidently prepared for the event. The adornment of the compound could almost literary tell that Allamano our founder was receiving two sons into the clergy. The Mass, which started at ten, was well animated. There was an Ethiopian choir, a Colombian choir, and a major choir made of both Consolata and Allamano communities and their friends. As you can guess therefore, the music was so vibrant that we could have…. almost competed with the angels who eternally sing before the Lord in heaven.
After his touching, humorous and down to earth homily, the bishop went on to examine the candidates. Having been formed following the policies of Blessed Joseph Allamano it was evident that the Church had found them worthy of the diaconate. The laying of hands and the prayer of consecration opened the way for the investiture of stole and the dalmatic. Giving them the gospel, and demanding that the two believe what they read, teach what they believed and practised that they taught, the bishop and the priests present gave them a kiss of peace prompting an applaud from the assembly.
The Mass then went on normally, with the two newly ordained deacons, Lorenzo Sanchez and Daniel Joseph serving in the Mass with a third deacon, Luke Bett, a Dominican, who happened to be their classmate, but who had been ordained deacon earlier. With the presence of the General Superior of Consolata Missionaries, Fr. Fiorentini, (and of course the Regional Superior Fr. Franco Cellana), the two newly ordained deacons could not hide their joy in their speeches at the end of the Mass. With the Mass ended, we found our way to strategic points in the compound, where delicacies were being served.
It was at three that people began dragging themselves out of the compound. Obviously, I could see that many would have wished the party to go on forever.
