Fr Victor MAMPUYA of Vice-Province of Matadi has just published, “Pastoral experiences initiated by the Redemptorists in DR. Congo”.
What should we still remember (…)?
Father Victor, the author of the work “The Redemptorist Missionary time in Congo”, is one of the first Congolese Redemptorists, who graduated from the “Lumen Vitae” University in Belgium. Among his credits we can cite several books and articles from the above-named magazine and in different local editions: Manianga help yourself and heaven will help you, Evangelize yesterday and today, Popular missions and other pastoral forms among the Redemptorists (2007), Missionary team of the Congolese Redemptorists (2016), The missionary work of the Redemptorists in DR. Congo… (2019).
He has preached several missions and many times, he was responsible for our parish missions. The current publication presents with a keen vision of his concern to see the pastoral care of proximity taken advantage of the flight, if not taken root always and truly in the heart of the life of the Church of our time. It means that the proclamation of the Good News in our current society is subject to multiple changes requiring from the pastor a high and sharp sense of things, and abnegation to leave ones’ comfort zones to meet the abandoned and left behind.
As a good son of Saint Alphonsus, our founder, Father Victor pleads for a clear demarcation to be made facing a pastoral life based on theories and principles. However, it gives place and priority to a pastoral work based on the scrutiny of concrete realities in real and effective proximity to the life of the people to evangelize and to be evangelized: the poor, abandoned and wounded in every aspect, men and women of the current situation in a world at the pace of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This work is a directory of methods and facts constituting a reference heritage for current and future generations. It is prefaced by the vice-provincial superior, Jean-Robert DIYABANZA, and has had the important contribution of Fr Clément MAKIOBO.
Fr Roger CSsR
