Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Balaka (Fides Service) – “The year of the Rosary is certainly helping the Church in Malawi to live a new springtime after celebrating its first centenary of evangelisation in 2001. The faith is taking deeper root in society like leaven…the means of communication, press and radio are making a valuable contribution in this field”, Father Piergiorgio Gamba, Monfort missionary in Balaka tells Fides Service. Father Gamba is editor of The Lamp periodical.
In his apostolic exhortation on the Rosary Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II stressed the importance of reading and meditating on a scripture passage for each mystery, moreover the new Mysteries of the Light, are very biblical and this has been helpful for ecumenical dialogue. “The Year of the Rosary and the addition of these Mysteries inspired by the Gospel – Fr Gamba says – helps us to present the Rosary to other Christians, who first heard of it in 1992 when the Catholic Bishops in Malawi took a stand against the dictatorship and gathered Christians of all confessions to pray the Rosary, as a symbol of social and political commitment and promotion of the dignity of all peoples”.
The Monfort Media Centre at Balaka, directed by Father Gamba, has printed a series of special Year of the Rosary posters in the local language Chichewa, which is the same as Chinyanja in Zambia and Zimbabwe, spoken by more than 15 million Africans in different African countries as well as in Malawi where it is the national language with English. The posters, of which 15,000 have been printed, portray the 20 mysteries of the Rosary, (joyful, sorrowful, glorious and the new mysteries of the light). SL (Fides Service 1/7/2003 EM lines 21 Words: 288)
