A Letter from
Father George.....Easter Greetings
In my last letter, I talked about
Palm Sunday and the Chrism Mass, which was on Wednesday. All the Holy Week
services were very rich. As it turned out, we had almost a glut of Jesuit
priests in
Accra. We had two Jesuits staying with us who
were not expected to be there, but ended up with us due to changes of plans and
visa problems. These were Johnny Gansah, director of formation here in the
Northwest
Africa
Province, and Isidore Bonabom. (Not sure on the
spellings, but close.) So, it worked out very well. We formed two teams of
two, with pastor Matt Cassidy as a third one-man team, and rotated through the
three churches over the four days. I had the pleasure of being teamed up with
Isidore, a Ghanaian Jesuit whose regular work is in
London. In fact, I will probably be staying with
him and his community in
London for a couple of days in July, on my way
back from tertianship.
What I described on
Palm Sunday set the tone for the entire week for me. All the services were very
lively, lots of music, very long in duration, and very hot. It was a privilege
to be able to celebrate Holy Week in a culture where people express themselves
so freely with music, drumming, and dance, whether they are celebrating a
liturgy, a funeral, or a soccer game. At the same time, I have to say that for
me it was something of an endurance test as well. I am just not used to masses
that are that long, in such heat—around 90 degrees, apparently—especially with
all the vestments. Of course, there was no AC, just fans. (And yes, I know
that you are suffering an exceptionally brutal winter back in
Ohio,
Indiana, and
Michigan, so I shouldn’t complain.)
We had two services on
Good Friday, at all three churches. We had stations of the cross at
7:30 AM. These were not inside the
church, but actually a pilgrimage through the entire neighborhood, similar to
what we did on Palm Sunday, which lasted a couple of hours, with lots of Lenten
hymns. I am amazed at the repertoire of songs that they know here. They know
all the traditional English language Catholic hymns we know (and some we don’t
even know), all the traditional American Protestant hymns, plus they have a full
repertoire of hymns in their native languages, mostly Twi and Fanti. ! And
everyone sings! Later, at
3 PM, we had the regular Good Friday
service, which is pretty similar to what we would do in the
US. So, Good Friday was a long day.
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This picture shows a man wearing
traditional West African garb, which they simply call “cloth,” I believe.
The men’s cloth always has one shoulder bare. Note that the cloth is black,
for Good Friday. On Easter, most people wear white.
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However, I should
interject here that we did not just participate in the Catholic services. We
were also involuntary listeners to a big evangelical three-day service in the
park a couple of blocks away, where they had a big loudspeaker. In fact, it
sounded like it was coming right from our own parish grounds, it was so loud.
And it started at
5 AM or so on Good Friday. It did not go
on continually. There were breaks, but it almost seemed as if it were
non-stop. What was particularly annoying was all the “alleluia’s” on Good
Friday. As you may know, a lot of evangelical churches have no real sense of a
liturgical calendar, so the whole weekend was Easter to them. (The whole year
is, I guess.)
By the way, here in
Ghana, Easter weekend is a much bigger
holiday than in the
US. Good Friday and Easter Monday are
both national holidays. Monday especially is a day to go to the beach, or
whatever.
The Easter Vigil was
most notable for the fact that they make huge bonfires. I have a couple of
photos, one of an unlit fire, and another after it was lit. (They are actually
two different bonfires pictured, from two different churches.) However, we
could not light the Easter candle outside. Just couldn’t keep the wick lit.
So, we had to light it inside the church, which was somewhat disappointing and
frustrating.
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The Easter Vigil
bonfire is built and lit.
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This is an Easter
Vigil baptism.
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The high-energy Easter Vigil
offertory procession is shown in this picture.
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Perhaps the most
unusual thing I saw on Easter Sunday were what are called the “masquerades.” As
Isidore and I pulled up to a major Accra intersection on our way back from mass,
our car was approached by three children in very bizarre robes, wearing a sort
of mask over their faces. It looked like something that we might see at
Halloween. They were beggars, essentially. But Isidore explained to me that
this is something that goes way back in West African tradition. (I understand
that in
Nigeria, they go by another, native
name, which I don’t remember.) These masquerades show up on major
holidays. They can be adults too. They sometimes represent spirits,
and can sometimes behave in strange ways, although the ones we saw were quite
tame. But these are just ordinary people who dress up on these major
holidays. This, by the way, was one of several times that I wished that I
had had my camera with me, but did not. It would have been worth it to me
to give them a buck and take their picture, but I had decided on Easter not to
bother with my camera that day.
Regards,
Father George, S.J.