It's about a lived experience in
apostolate at the central prison in Goma called Munzenze during my basic
formation in 2014. Our apostolate was going always on Sunday; it was in the
prison that we participate even in the mass. Our apostolate group consisted of
Joseph CIRHAHONGERWA who is currently in Kimbondo, Germain KAYARI and Valère
MUTOO with whom I am currently at La Ruzizi. Our experience is therefore not
very current; it is more or less a year. In fact, I class the present
experiment among those that impressed and helped me to advance and understand
what I want to get involved: an apostolic life, of closeness to the people.
Throughout our apostolate, the prisoners
demonstrated the importance of our presence in their midst by their openness
towards us: very often, they were asking us to pray for them and they shared
their experiences in prison for they had put their confidence in us. It is by
this fact that I became aware of the importance of intercessory prayer: this
was so for me an inquiry, that of presenting to God the misery and misfortune
of others.
During the mass, their attitude is not to
leave unnoticed: they really look to pray; they keep absolute silence and
coordinate very well the liturgy more than in our different parishes. In their
intentions, they are not selfish: they pray for themselves but also for
everyone. Here is the beginning of their famous intention: “Let’s pray for
prisoners of body and heart ...”. This explains one of their experience that
they have shared in which they told us that it was not only them who are
prisoners, but there are others among those who think they are free; they said
that it is their prison which is ordered, because it has standards that govern
it, compared to other forms of prisons: they are aware of their situation.
The day that has marked me the most was
the missionary Sunday, the day of profession of Christian faith. The priest
asked the prisoners to attend them as evangelization starting “their society”:
the prison. I can say that those prisoners really involved in evangelism, as
ordered by the priest, because they have a group of catechists who help those
who arrived in prison already Christian to deepen their faith and initiate
those who need to become Christian to Christian life by giving them sacramental
instructions. So during our apostolate there were twenty-four prisoners who
have been baptized.
As in our country the Democratic Republic
of Congo where it is free to belong to such or such other religious
denomination, in prison there are Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and others.
It is important to point out that it is with Catholics that we did our
apostolate.
To do not say more about those prisoners,
I end up giving my noticing about them. Catholic prisoners have a deep faith. I
can explain the assertion above by the experience that the head of the Catholic
prisoners shared us: when nobody has helped those prisoners with food for
example, a temptation arises on the part of non-Catholic prisoners who have
money or food, to give sufficient food for one night only to those who lack on
condition that they abandon their religious denomination to join one of theirs.
According to the head of the Catholic prisoners, quite a number of
prisoners give in to this temptation, but there has been no Catholic who gave
to this. Unlike the others, Catholics are so aware of what they believe, a free
and very personal faith which should be rewarded by person other than God.
Maybe could one or the other such
temptation mentioned above occur us also; that’s why we are asking the Lord to
grant us a firm faith for overcoming such situations.
By Romain
BULONZA
Missionary of Africa candidate in La Ruzizi