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| H.E. Most Rev. Bert Van Megan, Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan During Eucharistic Celebrations at Hekima University College with Heads of Catholic High Education Institutions from AMECEA |
By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News
H.E. Most Rev. Bert Van Megen, the Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan has challenged Catholic University Vice Chancellors together with heads of Catholic Tertiary Colleges in AMECEA Region to be both teachers and spiritual masters, who assist and guide students, not only in their studies, but also in their youthful quest for the deeper questions of life such as the sense of one’s life, the sense of creation with all its suffering and also the question many young people grapple with about the existence of God.
The nuncio said this in his homily during the Eucharistic Celebrations to close the second Academic Conference of Heads of AMECEA Catholic Universities and Colleges held at Hekima University College in Nairobi on Friday November 22.
“Our teaching at the universities of the Church in many ways are like teaching in the temple. They are places where students hope to acquire a keen understanding about the world and its creator. Our educational institutes therefore are not only places of empirical knowledge, but they want to challenge the student to go deeper, duc in altum: that is to know about the depth and the breadth of the reality that surrounds us. A reality that is so profound that it touches by its very nature upon the existence of God,” Archbishop Van Megen expressed.
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| Participants of the Conference with Apostolic Nuncio to Kenya and South Sudan |
He observed that these existential questions are the real struggles for most of the students and that young adults, still in a process of growth, intellectually as well as spiritually, find themselves struggling with these basic questions.
“Many of them are desperately looking for answers and it would be a failure of the university if it would not pay attention to those basic questions. Questions we all struggle with. Questions which are integral part of our human existence.”
Referring to the Readings of the Day (November 22) in particular the First Reading, Maccabees 4:36-37.52-59, the Nuncio observed that in many ways our times are similar to the time of the Maccabees where the culture of hedonism, materialism and relativism has a profound influence on our youth, much more than many of us would think.
“The prevailing culture is in many ways foreign to Christianity. It is day and night propagated through the media and through the internet. 24/7 we are bombarded with messages, directly or indirectly, that are contrary to the values of our faith. In many ways has the temple of God been polluted through the onslaught of a culture which aggressively seeks to undermine the Christian understanding of creation and of humanity.”
He advised that the students in Catholic Universities and colleges therefore needs to be necessary instruments in order for them to stand strong in their Christian identity by being able to resist the many voices fill their heads day and night. The voices the Nuncio likens to the whispers of the snake, which convinced our first parents to eat from the forbidden tree.
Quoting the Holy Father Pope Francis, the Nuncio recommended that the best way to do this is “Not through apologetic but evangelizing. At the centre is evangelizing, which is not the same thing as proselytizing. In dialogue with cultures and religions, the Church announces the Good News of Jesus and the practice of evangelical love…Dialogue is above all a method of discernment and proclamation of the Word of love which is addressed to each person and which wants to take up residence in the heart of each person. Only in listening to this Word and in the experience of love that it communicates can one discern the relevance of Kerygma Dialogue, understood in this way, is a form of welcoming”.
He added that students need to be accompanied just like once Jesus was a companion to the disciples of Emmaus. “We need to walk with them, listen to their questions, which at times may be foreign or shocking to our ears. We need to walk with them, open the scriptures for them and help them in their discernment of the presence of God in their life.”