Martin Jumbam

“Master the digital media to spread the Gospel,” the Holy Father challenges priests.

Over forty years ago, in May 1967, the Servant of God, Pope Paul VI, instituted the first World Communications Day as a way of promoting the role of the media in the Catholic Church. Paul VI is on record as saying that the Church would feel guilty before the Lord if she did not utilize the powerful social means of communication to spread the Gospel. His successors, John Paul II, and now Benedict XVI, who inherited a Church that is facing an increasingly more electronically-complex and complicated world, have continued the laudable tradition of sending each year, in the month of May, a message, challenging Catholic media men and women to take advantage of the ever rapid means of social communications at their disposal to spread Christ’s message of hope to an increasingly secular world.

Defend the Catholic faith, but don’t attack others

By Martin Jumbam 

Attacks against the Catholic Church that is in Cameroon from other Christian denominations in this country, especially those of the Pentecostal persuasion, are nothing new.  New, however, is the increasing tendency certain Catholic circles now have to take the battle of abuses and threats to the doorsteps of their attackers.  But is that the right thing to do? The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI says No! Defend your faith, he tells us, but don’t attack others!

 

 

Keep not only the processions at Mass short, but the homily as well.

By Martin Jumbam

Many a Catholic Community in Cameroon has adopted what is generally referred to as the “Lectionary Procession”. As an introduction to the Liturgy of the Word, Lectionary is brought to the President of the Liturgical Assembly in a colourful procession, very often marked by song and dance. While the general populace delights in the singing and dancing that accompany this procession, some Christians find it too time-consuming and loudly call for such processions to be either tightly controlled or banned altogether.  To know more, we asked Reverend Father Zephyrinus Mbuh, SD, a liturgical expert (liturgist) of the Diocese of Kumbo in the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province of Cameroon (picture below), to throw more light on this issue. 

 

Hasten up lectionary processions, please!

By Martin Jumbam

During important events in Catholic churches in just about every diocese of Cameroon -- for example, at Christmas, Easter, parish feast days, pastoral visits of the local bishop, etc, -- the Lectionary, that is the book from the where the Word of God is proclaimed to the assembly, is usually brought to the Altar in a procession. Women groups generally lead the procession, which can take various forms. The most common is for two members of the lectionary procession team to walk the whole length of the church, from the entrance to the Altar, one of them striking a gong at regular intervals, and the other announcing to the congregation that the Word of God is about to make its way into the church. At times, two members, each bearing a peace plant, walk in silence from the entrance to the Altar and back to the entrance where the others are waiting.