Elders of Africa | “Mercy lived out” according to Fr. Piumatti
Elders of Africa | “Mercy lived out” according to Fr. Piumatti
From the diaries of Fr. Piumatti, fd of Pinerolo and missionary in North Kivu for 50 years. Telling Africa and giving it back its word is a gesture of mercy toward it
For the past few days Luisa and Gerard have been pressing me, with African gentleness, but with tenacity: also African. There is a sick old man in the village, actually two: his wife is a bit more spry, but exhausted as well.
I’m a priest, they’re catechists: is it normal that…? In short they want the sacrament of the “oil of the sick.” Inside me so many problems pop up–my own.
I feel and love my being a priest. But I don’t like being a Catholic witch doctor: and here, unfortunately, it is not so unlikely to play that role, with the complicity of many…
Anyway, having done all due preparation, I set off; it’s seven in the morning, fresh air and a day with sunshine. A nice walk. We had to go up the hill in front of the mission and now we go down to the four huts, there at the end, where some family and friends are already waiting.
We will have a short liturgy in the courtyard, with about 20 people.
– Munalamuka ? the voice comes to us from the bottom of the small field, there on the right.
Simafrosa is hoeing energetically and laughing, laughing as always.
It is today that she has to eat, she and the family, so there she is: everything has to jump out of that field, even the wood that will boil the water in the saucepan.
She knows we are going to Célestin and Genoveva, to pray together and offer them the comfort of the sacrament.
She leaves her hoe on the ground, straps her kikwembe to her side, and there she is with us, serene as the easter, natural as spring water: genuine faith hers.
We spend a good three-quarters of an hour: we pray, we reflect, from the gospel we draw light and hope; I sprinkle a little oil on the foreheads, on that the wrinkled hands, worn bodies: bodies that God will know how to renew and remake as beautiful as they were a few years ago; when the time comes.
And then, Simafrosa goes to get her hoe back. She is content. Life goes on. She, her Dieudonné, her children-they will eat today.
There is time for everything in Africa
Source
- Father Giovanni Piumatti, Fiori selvaggi… profumo d’Africa, pp. 40-41