Jesu Ndikukulupirirani

Yes, that is a single word.  It's actually missing an h that should go after one of the k's, and I believe the r's are replaceable with l's.  I spelled it incorrectly because that is the way it is spelled on the huge painting of The Divine Mercy at The Divine Mercy church that just opened in Dwangwa.  Those familiar with The Divine Mercy should know how it translates and those who don't can ask those who do.  Ha HA! What a jerk I am. 

 

Anyways, Fr. Paul from Nkhota Kota invited us to the ceremony and it happened to fall during break so we were able to make it.  It was a small outstation church in the parish and the event was attended not only by the Bishop of Lilongwe, but also the Archbishop of Blantyre which leads me to believe that Fr. Paul is extremely well connected or more persistant than I ever imagined.  They even imported an extra choir from a different town with another Polish guy involved in exporting mushrooms and dried mangoes to Europe...really.  The crowd was big enough that a large portion of people didn't fit inside the church and watched from outside.  I was "lucky" enough to get a seat on the floor in the center aisle.  After the mass we went for lunch with the Bishops, Priests, Council members, donors, and lowly volunteers.  The church is in the same town as the sugar company and a few of the parishoners are managers so the lunch was at the company's country club.  Very nice. 

 

Fr. Paul's connections (or persistance) also meant we were able stay in town for a couple days at the guest house in the sugar company's management community and hang out on the beach down the road.  All the visiting priests were in the house on the first night so we raided the manager's house for mattresses and stayed a while to watch his satellite television.  The guest house was not sattelite equipped, but the Mushroom Guy, John, had his laptop and a few DVDs.  Sometimes this volunteer business can be pretty rough.  Mushroom John needed a few days rest as well so the choir he brought with him hung out on the beach with us.  We would swim for a while and then go over to the fishermen nearby as they pulled in their nets and buy some for lunch.  Once we helped them pull it in, but I don't think we even received a discount.

Clean Feet

My feet have been washed.  Not for the first time, of course, even though it doesn't occur as often as it probably should, but this was the first time by a priest.  For Holy Thursday Mass, Gary and I were among the twelve apostles.  Back home, the people selected to have their feet washed come up front at a certain time during the service, take off their shoes, and the priest goes down the line.  Here, the apostles wear a cassock and sit up by the priest for the entire mass all the while without wearing shoes.  Although, none of twelve or so alter servers they usually have ever wear shoes anyways so it was only a big deal for me.  Luckily, I was on the starting end because by the time the water and towel made it down to Gary on the other end it wasn't looking too pretty.  I think the priests in countries like this have a little more difficult job washing feet.  Being Apostles for Holy Thursday also means participating in the Way of the Cross on Good Friday.  This involved carrying the cross before it was given to the man playing Jesus, following along the way as he carried it through town, and then carrying the cross to the remaining stations after Jesus was nailed to it.  They just tied him on and we hosted it on our shoulders.  It was kind of tricky for us, but it must have been really uncomfortable for Jesus, who is also our plumber by the way.

Global Domination

I think this is interesting even if no one else does.  The billboards in Blantyre and Lilongwe (the big cities) are owned by Clear Channel.

The Mass

Here I am, a Catholic Missionary, in Malawi for well over a year and have mentioned very little, if anything about the actual mass.  One of the great things about the Mass is that anywhere you go, whether it's in the U.S., Italy, or Malawi, it is always recognizeable.  The parts, the order, and the responses are all there.  So anywhere you are in the world there is a celebration that is immediately familiar.  This might seem boring, but each culture adds something to the mass making it uniquely theirs while still sharing in the worldwide celebration.  A few practices here might be considered a little old fashioned.  It is observed more in the outstations, but there is a seperation between men and women.  Men are on one side and women on the other.  When possible, space permitting, people kneel in a row at the front to receive communion while the minister walks down the line.

 

The major cultural contributions to the mass here in Malawi are the singing and dancing.  The songs accompanied by an organ, drums, and a tamborine-like instrument are sung at every opportunity contributing to another characteristic of Malawian masses: length.  If we get out in less than two hours, it's a short mass.  This is also affected by the substantial length of the homily.  The Christmas Eve homily wasn't too much longer than others, but being at night, a kid sitting across the aisle from me lost his personally battle against sleep and fell right of the pew.  Many other kids didn't even attempt to fight it and were sprawled out on the floor...with parents.  They can't afford to print bulletins for eveyone so after every mass the catechist reads all the church announcements however long the list might be.  At the youth Mass on Sundays and on feast days, a group of girls dance up during the entrance and exit processions.    A group of about 20 people dance up the aisle for the offertory, giving things like bread, sugar, corn, cases of soda, chickens, and even goats.  For Palm Sunday Mass, we started at the school next door and processed  to the church waving the palms.  It was such a big crowd that it broke into about 3 seperate groups singing different songs.  A group of women laid chitenji (material used as skirts or head wraps, etc.) down in front of the priest playing the role of Jesus as he walked the entire distance to the church.  As soon as he passed by they would grap the chitenji and throw it to the front to be laid out again.  From a distance, all you could see was a big group of women slowly moving along with material continually flying in the air.