<\/p>\n
By Benjamin Msowoya<\/p>\n
\u201cSmall Christian Community is a new way of participating in the Church\u2019<\/p>\n
Bishop Martin Mtumbuka has proclaimed 2017-18 liturgical year as \u201cThe Year of My Small Christian Community\u201d for the Diocese of Karonga with a call on the faithful to seriously reflect on the significance of their Small Christian Community (SCC) as a new way of participating in their Church.<\/p>\n
The Bishop made the proclamation at St Joseph the Worker Cathedral on 25th<\/sup> November 2017, when he presided over the annual Thanksgiving Mass.\u00a0 This is an annual event celebrated on the Solemnity of Christ the King during which the faithful bring their contributions to the Diocesan budget for the following year. For pastoral reasons the Thanksgiving Mass takes place on a Saturday before the Solemnity.<\/p>\n On this year\u2019s occasion, the faithful contributed up to K7 million to the budget of the Diocese. There has been a steady increase in the donations from Christians to the Diocese from K3,195,000 in 2015, to \u00a0K4,340,255.00 in 2016. This year\u2019s contribution represents an increase of 161% from last year\u2019s and surpasses the set target of K5 million.<\/p>\n In his response to the generous support of the faithful towards the running of the Diocese, Bishop Martin Mtumbuka said the generous donation from the faithful was a big and demanding call to be at their service.<\/p>\n \u201cWe see the outpouring generosity of the faithful as a confirmation of our efforts to be at their service,\u201d said the Bishop.<\/p>\n The Thanksgiving Mass also marked the end of the themed liturgical year of \u201cMy Father\u2019s House\u201d. From 27th<\/sup> November 2016 to 25th<\/sup> November 2017, the faithful of the Diocese reflected on the sanctity of houses of prayer or church buildings and took deliberate steps to treat them with respect and dignity they deserve as houses of God on earth. The faithful also responded to the call to purify their hearts which are \u201cTemples of the Holy Spirit\u201d (1 Corinthians 3:16<\/a>).<\/p>\n As the Year of My Father\u2019s House came to a close, the Bishop gave another theme to guide the Diocese of Karonga during the next liturgical year.<\/p>\n During the same ceremony, the Bishop officially received into the Diocese Marianist Sisters who are working at St Mary\u2019s Karonga Girls Secondary School as missionaries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Benjamin Msowoya \u201cSmall Christian Community is a new way of participating in the Church\u2019 Bishop Martin Mtumbuka has proclaimed 2017-18 liturgical year as \u201cThe Year of My Small Christian Community\u201d for the Diocese of Karonga with a call on the faithful to seriously reflect on the significance of their Small Christian Community (SCC) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"iawp_total_views":14,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karongadiocese.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}