Consecrated Day

Theme: Helping Children Seek Jesus from Discovery to Discipleship

On the 3^rd March, 2024, the religious and consecrated persons in the Archdiocese of Accra converged in our numbers at St. Ignatius of Loyola parish, Baatsona – Accra, to celebrate our day.  The day commenced @ 9:30 a.m. with a talk by Rev. Fr. Mark Eshun SDB.  The theme for the celebration was: Help children find Jesus from discovery to discipleship.

The speaker began his delivery by explaining to us who a child is.  He said a child is docile, calm and obedient in spirit. A child is anyone below the age of 18, innocent and vulnerable.  Furthermore, that a child is someone who looks up to another for help, a child needs guidance and looks up to an adult to help him or her to grow.

After the definition of who a child is, he delved into the topic by saying that, we as priests and religious have encountered children in diverse ways in our ministries such as in our schools, in Catechism classes, hospitals, Sunday school service, in pastoral work etc. He asked how many of us have been able to accompany these children to know Christ? He said that one of the things the Church gave us through which the children will know Christ is the Bible, the Catechism of the CCC etc. how many of us are helping children to know the Bible or even involved in catechesis in our parishes?

Again, that how many of us have been able to attract vocations in our apostolates by our way of life and by our relationship with the children.  Some of us are rather people that the children will see and start running away from us.  This clearly shows that we don’t have time for children or we don’t like them.

He emphasized the fact that the book of Proverbs 22:6 talks about that aspect of giving training to a child in a way that he or she will not go wayward even when he or she grows old.  For instance: ‘Trains up a child in the way he should go; even when he or she is old will not depart from it’ Prov. 22:6.

He said that our encounter with, and education of the children should create an atmosphere where they feel at home with us and with others. This is because we as religious serve as witnesses in propagating the Good News through our ministries.  If we fail to do this, it means we are not true witnesses of the Gospel.  Let us become formators to the children in our work places and our encounter with them even before they think of joining the religious life or the priesthood for that formation.  But on the contrary, some of us have become enemies to children thus, a child cannot just run around in front of us and if he/she does, we chase them away.  Some of us will threaten to beat them and call them all kinds of names. So, with this kind of attitude that we show in our respective apostolates, how do we teach our charism to the young ones? Do we think these young ones will grow to desire to live the life we are living? Do we even know that we are supposed to lead the young ones to follow Christ and as a result, to search from discovery to discipleship?  What kind of witness are we giving to the youth? Are we really teaching them to become followers of Christ? These are questions each one of us should ponder over and answer ourselves.  After all, each one of us know very well our relationship with people especially the children we come in contact with in our diverse

apostolates.