January 6 Get-Together Of Mbaise Priests And Religious Every Year

On January 6 every year, all priests and religious from Mbaise return home for a grand reunion. it is usually called a get-together which is a kind of Home-coming for priests and religious who have been away for so long. The gathering is usually a time to re-acquaint oneself and catch up with brothers and sisters one has not seen in a long time.

It was initiated by the premier bishop of the diocese, Bishop Victor Chikwe of blessed memory. The date, January 6, was chosen by the bishop to mark the date of his episcopal ordination at St Peter's Basilica Rome, on January 6, 1988. During his lifetime as the bishop of Ahiara Diocese, Bishop Chikwe always called back his sons and daughters from Mbaise from far and near to come home on January 6 in order to celebrate with him his great episcopal anniversary and to review with him the progress and accomplishment of the young and rural diocese that is their own in their homeland of Mbaise.

As a result, priests and religious of Mbaise land always looked forward to that date and many kept it religiously. That day was usually the best day for the late Bishop Chikwe throughout the year. He relished playing the father figure to all priests and religious from Mbaise land. The January 6 Get-Together gave him a great opportunity to meet and greet as many priests and religious from Mbaise as possible.

People came home solely to participate in the January 6 Get-Together from all over the world. It was a time of a great celebration to entertain priests and religious and to help them take pride in their diocese. At the celebration proper, priests and sisters danced to the cultural beats such as Abigbo Cultural Dance, Ekereavu, Ekpe, Agbachaa-e-kuru-nwa and Omurunwa cultural dances.

Comedians were usually on display to provide rib-cracking entertainments with all sorts of newsworthy materials that they had. There were lots of food and lots of take-aways too. The bishop and the committee organizing the program always made sure everything that could make participants happy and cause them to long for a repeat of it the following year was there in abundance.

Since the death of Bishop Chikwe, the initiator of the Get-Together, the diocese has been struggling to keep the flag of the much cherished Get-Together flying. Though it does not feel the same again without the initiator present, the Get-Together finds a way to continue serving the purpose for which it was created, namely, to help the returning priests and religious take pride in their homestead.

The Get-Together helps priests and religious re-acquaint themselves with their kith and kit they had not seen in a long time. It is usually a very happy moment for everybody. Everybody looks forward to it every year as a day to reminisce and deliberate on the history and future of Catholicism in Mbaise land.

The get-together usually starts around ten O'clock with a con-celebrated mass in which the chief celebrant and the homilist try to enunciate the theme and purpose of the celebration. But since the bishopric crisis engulfed our diocese, the celebration has provided an additional occasion to give account of what is happening to the diocese and proffer a way forward for the embattled diocese of Ahiara, Mbaise.

Here the editor is catching up with two of his sisters he had not seen in a long time.