Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
The Local Ordinary of South Sudan’s Catholic diocese of Tombura-Yambio, Bishop Edward Hiiboro Kussala has declared nine days of prayer for all the faithful to ask for God’s intervention for COVID-19 to come to an end as the Catholic Church begins days of preparation for the feast of Pentecost.
“The Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio invokes a novena to the Holy Spirit to pray for the descent of God’s Holy Spirit on the Republic of South Sudan and on the world for God to heal the world of the fear, confusion and difficulties the Coronavirus has brought upon us,” Bishop Hiiboro told AMECEA onlinein an audio clip Thursday, May 21.
“We take upon ourselves nine good days to pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Diocese of Tombura-Yambio with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit to help us respond to the challenges, the difficulties, the worries and the pains caused by Coronavirus,” the Bishop highlighted.
For the nine days of prayer scheduled from May 22 to May 30, there are prayers composed with specific themes for each day where Christians will pray for solidarity, charity, mercy, support for the poor, peace, reconciliation, upholding the dignity of work, Laudato Si’ protection of environment our Mother Earth and holiness of life.
The novena also has a general prayer to the Holy Spirit that will be recited by everybody. By receiving the Holy Spirit, with all its seven gifts, the Prelate said, “we will be able to stand strong in faith, in God and in the face of Coronavirus challenges.”
The Bishop encouraged all the faithful in his Diocese that, “God supersedes all the pain caused by Coronavirus, God heals, God cures, God fulfils all the human desires (and) we must get our hearts prepared, our minds prepared, our attitude prepared and let ourselves be open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”
Reminding the people that even though there are no testing machines in the country, and there are no proper hospitals and other Personal Protective Equipment’s (PPE) required to handle the deadly disease, the Prelate said, “Our hospital is God himself, the facilities we need is God himself and therefore we need to reinforce our faith in him and follow his instructions.”
In his audio clip, the South Sudanese Church leader encouraged solidarity during this period of pandemic so that people should care and protect one another from contracting the virus.
The Bishop further said that “We become instruments of God during this period of Coronavirus to heal this world by helping each other follow those simple and important instructions that we have been repeating.”
Following reports that South Sudan’s Vice President Riek Machar and his wife tested positive of COVID-19, the Bishop anticipated increased fear among citizens in the nation and urged the government to implement rigorous measures to curb the spread of the virus.
“For this I want to call on the government to continue reinforcing all those measures that need to be done to prevent the spread of the virus to the villages,” he underscored.
He further gave hope to the South Sudanese that “so many Nations have strongly fought the Coronavirus and have subdued it” and so South Sudan could also fight the same way.
Meanwhile the Prelate has encouraged the Catholic faithful to enlighten the people that the virus exists in the country and COVID-19 is a killer disease which can only be contained by following the fundamental regulations issued by the government and the World Health Organization (WHO).
“I also encourage all the people that as we pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit we may make use of the resources we have. I still encourage the use of herbal medicine and since the virus does not have cure yet, let us use anything that we know that can be of control of this virus,” the Bishop concluded.
By Thursday, May 21, South Sudan had recorded a total of 481 confirmed cases of COVID-19 including four deaths and four recoveries.