Dear Parishioners,

We have celebrated the Sacred Paschal Triduum. The three Sacred days of Holy Week started with the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday and reached its climax in the Easter Vigil On Holy Saturday. It closes with Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday. So the Celebration of these three days is the high point in the entire Liturgical year.

As Sunday culminated the entire Week, Easter culminates the entire Liturgical year. Today we celebrate Easter Sunday. “Alleluia, The Lord has risen as He said, “We praise God for his wonders and mysteries that he carries out for the conversion and salvation of humanity.

Church Reconstruction Update

Welcome back from the desert namely the Lenten season which prepared us for Holy Week and Easter. We wish you a very Blessed Easter celebration and a graceful Easter season. During the Lenten season, we made special sacrifices for the construction of our church which is near completion but still requires much effort to raise the remaining funds.

Our second collection throughout the season of Lent beginning from Ash Wednesday has been one of the methods used to raise these funds. Meanwhile, there are several members of the community who have come to the office of the Parish Priest and made very generous donations towards our church construction project. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. With the generosity of Christ the King parish community, we will complete this gigantic project.

The project had two phases: – the Priests’ house including offices and the church itself. The first phase was more or less completed. The original plan was to renovate and extend the church, but we have ended up constructing a new church in its totality and hence the huge sums of money that we are mobilizing.

The figures moved from 8.8 billion Ugandan Shillings to a provisional figure of a little above 18 billion Ugandan Shillings. So far we have paid approximately 11 billion. Your continued support is going to bring a successful end to this project, thank you.

We are planning to have a final push by a fundraising function within the church itself on the 28th of July 2022. Meanwhile, we continue to raise the funds through all the available orthodox methods we have used so far.

Reflection on Easter liturgical readings
Set your eyes on things that are above not on things on earth.

The Easter message is that our life on earth should be guided by the Risen Lord who is above. The earthly end is the tomb (grave). Jesus descended into the tomb but he rose from the earthly tomb to life that is above – set your eyes, therefore, on things that are above.

In the Gospel text, we see Mary Magdalene was still setting her eyes on things that are on earth! She went to the tomb while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Mary was concentrating her attention on the wrong place namely the tomb. It was time now to set her eyes on the things above.

Even the two disciples, Peter and John still set their eyes on the tomb. They did not realize that their eyes were supposed to focus elsewhere. The Gospel, however, intriguingly points out that when John (the disciple) saw, He moved a step away from earth and focused on the things above – HE BELIEVED. It is this message of FAITH that later, St. Peter proclaimed to the onlookers. He gives the history of the Ministry of Christ while he was on earth including his DEATH but God raised Him on the third day and manifested Him to his Witnesses after he left the tomb. The focus is on the things above.

So the Mission of the Church is to preach the Risen Lord so that people may not focus on earthly things, but believe in Him to receive forgiveness of their sins through Him who was no longer in the tomb but had risen to the life above.

So ALLELUIA, THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED AS HE SAID HE WOULD. ALLELUIA!

Msgr. Gerard Kalumba
Parish Priest