A Letter from Father George.....Holy Week
We are just about to get into the Sacred Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil) here at the Jesuit parish of St. Anthony of Padua in the capital of Accra.  I will have more to say after the high holy days, but I wanted to give you some impressions so far, and some photos.  I’ve been here a week now, and will be returning to my regular community in Cape Coast on Tuesday.

The parish is very modest, and serves what I would take to be ordinary Ghanaians.  Here in the capital city, people are from every part of the country, and every tribe.  As a result, people speak English here much more than around Cape Coast, which makes it easier for me.  (There, everyone is Fanti, and speaks Fanti.)  Our church has no steeple, and is not even identifiable as a church until you step inside.  It’s on a dirt road a few blocks off the main highway in a section of Accra called Nungua, or sometimes Teshie-Nungua.

St. Anthony-Nungua is not officially recognized as a full-fledged parish by the diocese, for reasons that are not at all clear to me.  Even though it is not a parish, it has two “outstation” or “mission” churches attached to it, which are each a half hour drive away, called Our Lady of Perpetual Help (or OLAPH, as they say), and St. Ignatius.  Our young New York Jesuit pastor Matt Cassidy gets a kick out of it when I refer to the outstations as “outposts.”  By the way, driving here in Accra is a real adventure.  It often takes hours to get from one part of the city to another, because there are no four lane roads.  Anyway, the two outstations are a major reason why Fr. Cassidy wanted my help during Holy Week, since we want to offer services each day of the Triduum at each “outpost.”

So, here are some of my observations:

-Fr. Cassidy has a dog Inigo, named after St. Ignatius.  This friendly creature likes to insert himself into the liturgical life of the parish.  We usually hear confessions outside, sitting in simple chairs in the little courtyard of the parish.  Frequently, Inigo will come over and stand right between me and the penitent.  I felt sorry for one little boy who is afraid of dogs.  The dog is clearly harmless, but I could not get him to go away.  Inigo also plopped himself down right in the middle of everyone during an informal weekday mass, when the entire congregation sits in the little sanctuary.  Fr. Cassidy keeps him out of the church on Sundays and more formal liturgies.

-On the Friday before Holy Week, I did Stations of the Cross at St. Ignatius mission.  I thought I was going to collapse three times like Jesus, just from the heat, and the alb, which is not very light.  The heat here in Accra seems to be much greater than it is in Cape Coast. 

-Palm Sunday is interesting here, for a couple of reasons.  First, we don’t have palms shipped in like in Cleveland or Detroit.  We pick them right off the trees in the neighborhood.  I had the pleasure of being able to watch this being done, and it is interesting.  I discovered that there are really two different kinds of palms on the same tree, and we use both.  Most of the tree is big leafy branches, which are woven in an attractive way and used to decorate the doors and other parts of the church.  (See photos.)  But way at the top of the tree in four or five little tufts grow the palms like the ones that are shipped to churches all over the world, that grow in flat ribbons, and people hold in their hands.  Those palms are not as plentiful, and we had to do some scouting and begging to get our hands on enough for all our parishioners.  The boys have to climb the trees and hack them with a machete, which they enjoy doing.

Palm Sunday itself was quite interesting.  The congregation gathers about a mile or maybe a kilometer from the church, alongside the highway, for the opening reading and blessing of palms.  Then we process, mostly along the back roads, the dirt roads, singing hymns, until we get into the church, which takes about 45 minutes.  The whole service from beginning to end took a full three and a half hours.  (It was really four hours, since we actually gathered at the highway a half hour early.  Obviously, there’s just one mass at each venue.)  Besides the big palm procession, there were three other processions during mass:  for communion, of course, as well as at the offertory, and another second-collection procession, almost as elaborate, after communion for “welfare” as they call it.  (For the poor.)

Both of these offering processions are major events, and took almost a half hour each.  Everyone processes up—dances up, really--to make their offering, such as is done in African-American churches, to very lively music, which people really get into.  The whole church is rocking, and I almost expected to see someone doing handsprings down the aisle like the church scene in the movie Blues Brothers.  After everyone has made their monetary donations, they process up with donations of food, mainly for the pastors.  There were loaves of bread, eggs from the local chickens, fruits and vegetables, and plenty of rolls of toilet paper, which I found amusing, but obviously they think perfectly normal.  Then, only after all of that, comes the Eucharistic offerings of bread and wine.

The homily and the announcements took another half hour each, and were given in English and another language, Twi, I think.  (There was no bulletin, so all the announcements were oral.)  And of course, we had the reading of the passion, which was pretty straightforward.  And the intercessions, preface, and sanctus were all sung quite elaborately.  (So, if you were wondering how a mass can take 3.5 hours, that’s how you do it!)

-On Wednesday morning, the archdiocese of Accra had its chrism mass (blessing of sacred oils) with the archbishop, which I went to with Fr. Cassidy and his associate, newly ordained Jesuit, Fr. Ubong.   The most noteworthy thing about that mass, to those of you who are interested in such things, was the prominent promotion of the upcoming Divine Mercy devotion on the first Sunday after Easter.  This was done in an announcement by one of the priests after communion, and was followed up by a few supportive words from the Archbishop himself.  (As some of you know, this devotion is not always promoted by priests or dioceses in the US, because many priests feel that the theme of divine mercy is already quite prominent in the Sacred Triduum that we just celebrated.  So, it is quite optional, but here, they are really into those sorts of devotions.)

-You will also see in my photos Gesu and St. Maron’s parishioner Blanche Salwan, who is making her first visit here in Accra in fifty years.  She is visiting her brothers Maurice (pictured) and Antoine (who is recuperating from a serious illness and could not get out of the house.)  Maurice, Antoine, and Blanche were all born in Lebanon, but Maurice and Antoine have lived most of their lives in Accra, while Blanche has lived hers in Cleveland, in the Gesu neighborhood.  Those  pictures were taken in front of St. Maroun Maronite church in Accra.  Also pictured is Maurice’s Ghanaian daughter-in-law Becky.  (I think daughter in law is correct.)  Anyway, I spent most of Monday with the three of them, had a great time, and we had a great Lebanese meal, among other things.

So, that’s all for now.  Have a happy Easter.

Fr. Mark George, a.k.a. Fr. Kwesi