When Martine Nakpil arrived in Montgomery County, Maryland from Burkina Faso seven years ago she and her family began looking for a faith community. “When you are in a new place, all you’re looking for is your place,” she recalled about her search for a parish.
Nakpil and her three teenage sons found that home at Mother Seton Parish where they recently participated in the eighth annual Africa Day Celebration featuring Mass, a community gathering and a luncheon.
Pausing from her plate of African cuisine – all prepared and served by parishioners – Nakpil said she brought her sons, who are altar servers to “learn that when you go to church it’s not just one country.” In addition to worship, diversity and hospitality, Nakpil found comfort at the parish this past year after the boys’ father passed away in January. “It’s a family. If you want to cry – cry here; if you want to laugh – laugh here.”
Plenty of laughter, applause, music, singing, dancing and praying marked the Aug. 14 Africa Day Celebration held in the Germantown parish. Many parishioners wore beautiful clothes stitched with the bright colors and bold patterns of their homelands and several processed waving flags from some of Africa’s 55 countries before the multilingual liturgy began. During the Mass, participants spoke and heard English, French, Swahili, Igbo, Twi, Amharic, Yoruba, and Kikuyu in prayers and songs.
Additional cultural rituals found in their native countries were included and parishioners later sampled the foods representing those countries of their original home.
“Your diversity is splendid. Your hope is secure. And your gifts are priceless,” Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory said during the homily. He joined Father Lee Fangmeyer, pastor; Father Casmir Onyegwara, Father Frederick Nnebue, Father Antonio Koffi, Father John Prosper Yaga, and Father Ebuka Mbanude to celebrate the Mass.
“The faithful people of our great mother continent of Africa have known both challenge and conflict – division and poverty,” Cardinal Gregory said. “Yet even in the face of such trials your vibrant and jubilant faith in Christ has triumphed. You still sing and you dance in God’s presence – even when you must endure anguish.”
The cardinal acknowledged the many nations, cultures, traditions, races and languages of the people participating in Mass, and reminded them, “we are one family. We are God’s family.”
The cardinal also noted the difficult Scripture readings for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary time when Jesus speaks of division of families, pitting father against son and mother against daughter. The prelate said the Christian life involves both comfort and tension. “Those divisions are not the final point that we should take from today’s lessons. The message of the Gospel is that we must not lose heart even in the face of such painful conflicts.”
He urged the faithful to imagine the life for immigrant African Catholics arriving at a strange land without speaking English or French, perhaps clinging to a tribal tongue. “You continued to face bigotry because of your race, your cultures, your religious heritages and your foreign origins,” Cardinal Gregory said. “In short, life was hard, but your faith has been more enduring.”
Through Jesus’s demanding words, the Gospel teaches perseverance over challenges, and to faith conquering the most difficult problem, Cardinal Gregory added. These are the “treasures to be found in even those tough lessons. Christ invites us to that same type of fidelity today in our own world.”
Following the Mass, parishioners gathered in the parish hall for a brief keynote address by Father Ebuka Mbanude, before lining up to sample the dishes from around Africa. In his remarks, Father Mbanude, parochial vicar at St. Mary’s Parish in Landover Hills, spoke about St. Josephine Bakita. A native of western Sudan, St. Josephine Bakita was only 8 years old when she was captured and sold into slavery in the 1870’s. Passed from slave owner to slave owner and severely tortured and beaten, St. Josephine Bakita eventually gained her freedom while in Italy. She experienced God and converted to Catholicism with the help of the Canossian Sisters whom she joined and spent 40 years in service to God. Father Mbanude said St. Josephine Bakita “became a missionary – an evangelizer.” He said all immigrants from Africa carry their faith with them to the United States and “are called to be missionaries in this country. Let the fire that the Lord gave to Bakita burn inside ourselves.”
Father Fangmeyer, the pastor of Mother Seton Church since November 2013, said he was happy to see many people from Africa at the event and sharing their lives in the parish. The African Catholics “enhance the entire parish,” adding, “I’m really moved by their heartfelt expressions and witness of their faith.”
Each year the priest also receives a different traditional African robe for the celebration that he dons for the luncheon. This year’s black and red checkered robe and decorative beads represented East Africa and is commonly worn by shepherds in Tanzania. Father Fangmeyer later explained that the idea for the Africa Day Celebration came from a group of parishioners eight years ago and has grown to include a brand-new choir made up of members of the Mother Seton community.
In the past, the parish has hired a choir to provide the traditional African hymns and songs of praise, noted Shirley Uyakonwu, the chair of the planning committee who also sang in the choir.
Uyakonwu said the Africa Union 55 Executive Committee met for 12 months to plan the event with additional meetings for the new choir - two times a week since July to prepare for the Mass. A native of Nigeria, Uyakonwu said the Africa Day Celebration is just one way “to make our African brothers and sisters feel welcome when they come to our parish.” She said the committee also created a page on the parish’s web site to publicize ways her parish community can assist immigrants and new residents of the area around Mother Seton parish. “Because of our faith, the Church is the first place they go,” Uyakonwu added.
Tchata Koubonou, said it was great the event was growing. A native of Togo, Koubonou said the celebration helps show the younger parishioners the types of dress and celebration rituals their parents learned. “In Africa there are many countries, many tribes – when we come together like this it is easy to collaborate for faith,” he said. Koubonou, a Mother Seton parishioner for the past 10 years served as the vice chair of the committee and credited Father Fangmeyer for supporting the celebration and the planning efforts. “You gave us a community where we can be ourselves,” Koubonou told the pastor.
Nneka Alagbe said she remembered attending the first Africa Day Celebration when she was a parishioner at Mother Seton. Although she and her husband Dapo Alagbe have since moved from to Frederick, Md. they return with their three young children for Africa Day and are so happy to hear their native language in the liturgy. “I’m glad they are still doing it,” Nneka Alagbe said.
Sister Joanna Okereke, Director of Pastoral Care for Migrants, Refugees and Travelers at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said she attended the event “to rejoice and celebrate with African Catholics.” A native of Nigeria and member of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus, Sister Joanna said when newcomers recognize their tradition and songs it helps move their faith up, “knowing that they are accepted when they hear their song – it motivates them.” This type of celebration should be done more, Sister Joanna said. “I was singing, I was dancing – my spirits just went to heaven.”
Bernadette Opon, president of the African Catholic Association of the Archdiocese of Washington and a parishioner of St. Camillus in Silver Spring described the Mass as “wonderful – so vibrant – it reminds me of Mass at home.”
For longtime parishioner Mirtha Montoya, the Africa Day Celebration is one of her favorite events at the church. “This community is very spiritual,” Montoya said, adding when the parishioners from African nations come together – “they lift everyone up.” Joining her neighbors at the Mass is one way “everybody prays to God together and we don’t have any limitations.”
