Missionary Experience

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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

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