Thousands of people trek to this remote area called Paimol every 20th of October to honor the Acholi Martyrs, Blesseds Daudi Okello and Jildo Irwa, teenage catechists who were killed there for their
faith in 1918.
This year Marion accompanied a bus of catechists and others who went up the day before. There are no accommodations, not even a trading center but only a few vendors and open-air tents put up by the planning committee. Just as she was leaving, someone offered her the loan of a tent! Having settled in and after a wonderful supper of liver and fries prepared by Catechist Elisabeth, the group walked to the small shrine on the site of the original grave. In this sacred space they prayed heart-felt prayers of thanksgiving and petition including a prayer for Lynne Cooper, friend of the CSJ's and friend of Uganda, who recently learned she has pancreatic cancer.
Conversations ebbed and flowed all night as people were too cold to really sleep. In the morning the people dressed up and polished their shoes! Marion had come in her old clothes and scuffed sneakers. Oh well! She added a fringed scarf, changed out of the shirt she slept in to a real jacket and greeted the morning. Somewhere Elisabeth found a fried egg to stuff into her stash of chapati's and some tea!
Marion took picures while the catechists helped to arrange the space and then took their seats in a special section--ordinarily they are not acknowledged, but today was different. By Mass time at 10:00 there must have been about 3,000 people. Catechists were now so crowded some of the people Marion came with stood throughout the three hours. The Archbishop of Kampala had the Mass.
So what does Pilgrimage really mean?
It's casting your lot with people moving in a direction in search of holy
ground to deepen their faith and pour out their needs before God;
it's knowing this particular story of these two young catechists who are
shining stars for a people who have suffered unspeakable violence and
whose children have lost their innocence;
Pilgrimage is a recovery of a sense of the living God who literally walks
with us, feeding, protecting, and loving us along the way;
Pilgrimage is the mingling of the festive celebration of the Mass with the
dance, dress, music and uulations of the Acholi people.
It's the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in a church with the back half
full of the mats of the pilgrims;
it's the voices of excited children staying up late and the exhaustion of
people trying to sleep wrapped up against the mosquitoes and cold;
These martyrs are very special--both of the Acholi tribe but one from the Payira Clan and one from the Labongo Clan. These clans had a history of fighting and killing one another. Yet, these two young catechists lived, worked, and died together giving us a compelling testimony in the power of the Spirit of Jesus to establish a kingdom of love, justice and peace here and now.
So we came to slip in between the memorial of this 1918 event and our own everyday lives. None of us are exactly the same. What reconciliation, blending, witnessing are we being called to? What mystery has God deepened in us?
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