A Memorable Pentecost Sunday Evening

No ambience beats St. Austin’s at reminding me of my school days. Tonight, on the birthday of the church it outdid itself on several counts.

The girls who took the reading chaperoned by someone well known to me for starters. As high schoolers the chaperone and I would have received our instructions on how to take the readings at the ambo in St. Joseph’s catholic church Limuru together. How nice!

The cantor chanted the Sequence in Latin. As she ended the first stanza I could distinctly hear my dad’s voice singing Tantum Ergo Sacramentum and how after Mass the elderly who had not bought into the entire Christianity affair would chide them that the priest, at the end of each prayer, was chanting wadawida mfoghe mfoghe msighe wazungu (taitas die and leave the white people) to which they were mindlessly echoing in unison hee nikokoni (and so be it)!

I couldn’t stop wondering what all that Veni, pater pauperum, veni, dator munerum, veni, lumen cordium really meant and when I saw dulce refrigerium I wondered what the Spirit of God had to do with a refrigerator. How far off I was from the mark in my Latin translation! See the Golden Sequence in Latin and English here.

The architecture of the church reminds me of many of my youthful days’ churches too, particularly Our Lady of Good Hope, Bura Mission where I received my confirmation and St. Joseph’s catholic church in Limuru. All these churches have one thing in common; they were built by the Holy Ghost Fathers – the spiritans, no wonder then that they should resemble in so many ways.

I have reason to believe that the church in Bura Mission is the first inland church as opposed to what I have heard many claim that the first inland church is St. Austins Msongari (our teachers would call it Misongari). I bet church historians have a good explanation why these historically incorrect claims have been made for they certainly know of the existence of Our Lady of God Hope up in the hills of Taita and that it was built before any other inland church.

Be it as it may, as far as the birthing of the catholic faith in Kenya is concerned, the Holy Ghost fathers did a lot of work and our celebrant himself a member of the Holy Ghost congregation reminded us that this was a day for a triple celebration. The birthday of the universal church, his congregation and the planting of the catholic faith in the country by members of the said congregation.

I took part in a small celebration at the church hall after Mass that served to cement all the wonderful remembering. The many rehearsals we held in our school hall on many evenings back in the day. The memories were beautifully wrapped in the cloak of friendship with two Catherines who were both my classmates. Their children had led us in song during Mass, and they had hosted a little tea party for them thereafter.

I accidentally bumped into one of the Catherines as I walked into church for Mass and got myself invited to the party, pure serendipity! Thank you Catherine Musakali and Catherine Nzioka for a lovely evening that served as a great reminder of younger days.