Easter Monday Pilgrimage: Namugongo (Part 1)

Uganda is such a beautiful country with a beautiful history of the beginning of the Catholic Church. It is a country from which the natives easily embraced Christianity. They consecrated and dedicated their lives to discipleship; to following of the Christ. Easter Monday became a second opportunity for me to go and bend low in this Holy shrine, the root of the Catholic Church in my country and it was the first opportunity for some of my brothers. 

Fr. Peter Reilly guiding the group

We were being guided by Fr. Peter Reilly M.Afr. a man of wide experience in Uganda. Their story animates our own story as Christians walking the same way of faith and as disciples responding to God’s question; whom shall I send? What touched me from Peter’s sharing about the Uganda Martyrs was their way of life, it was a journey that made their Catholic faith a story of wonder in history; the way they lived is what matters, death was simply the consequence of that way of living. The second important thing significant of the martyrs is that each and every martyr had a choice: they were free to choose to live by denouncing their faith. Humanly speaking, many of us would choose to live for fear of death.

This story of the martyrs seems to be mysterious. However, we are also capable of emulating this by our way of life and by making quality choices in the pilgrim journey. Namugongo thus has become a holy ground for the church in Uganda and many are inspired by this place. At Namugongo spot, Caroli Lwanga and 13 others were murdered. He was the leader of this group. He was taken apart in order to breakdown the moral of the others. The other 9 were killed in Mityana and around Kampala. In memory of their blood, a basilica has been built with 22 poles each representing one of the martyrs. We also had the opportunity to look at the altar which is right at the Centre, tradition has it that it was the spot where Caroli Lwanga was killed. So far 2 Popes have visited this country, Paul VI and St. Pope John Paul II in 1969 and 1993 respectively.

When the first missionaries arrived in Uganda, they found that God was already ahead of them. “It will be wrong to think that Lourdel brought God to Uganda; it was God who brought Lourdel to Uganda such that when Mapeera started to preach, he found the word of God already existing in the hearts of Ugandans. They had words such as Kubanga, Katonda, Ruhanga”, said Fr. Peter. This reflected divine reality. They only turned the Old Testament in the hearts of our ancestors into the New Testament of love, they taught them to call God, ‘Father’. These united them to the point of death. In this Easter season and throughout our lives, may we live by the example of the Uganda Martyrs by our way of life and by the daily choices we make. May whatever we do be guided by God’s will. It was such an enriching experience!

Longoli Michael