Handmaids Of Christ The Priest Bid Farewell To Ga-Rankuwa Church

“Goodbye is not forever. It is not the end,” observed a longtime parishioner of the Holy Cross Church in Ga-Rankuwa yesterday. He uttered this observation at a function to bid farewell to the Handmaids of Christ the Priest congregation of nuns. The event was held Sunday 29th January at the parish.

The Handmaids of Christ the Priest congregation of nuns had been part of the Holy Cross Church for fifty-two years, from 1970 up to 2023. The order was founded by the Canadian Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) priest Fr Andre Blais in 1958.  After the congregation’s establishment in Pretoria, it spread to several other parts of South Africa, and as far as Lesotho, where it gained a good foothold. Founder Fr Blais was devoted to fostering vocations and creating seminaries, helped by his irresistible influence on young people.

For quite a number of years, there have been only two nuns of the congregation present at the Holy Cross parish convent. They are Sr Teresa Pepenene and Sr Agatha Tsaeng. It was felt by the congregation, together with the Stigmatine Fathers that, given the low number of resident nuns, the time had come to replace the convent with another purpose in line with the church’s future plans. The church was founded by the Stigmatine Fathers in 1969.

During a Mass service attended by all three parishes of Ga-Rankuwa, several speakers came forth to convey their messages for the nuns. Mr Monageng, a long-time parishioner of the Holy Cross Church, gave a brief background of the early presence of the Handmaids Sisters of Christ the Priest at the church from 1970.

“It was hard for priests in any township to run a parish effectively due to the curfews that were put in place by the apartheid government. A priest couldn’t be at his congregation before six in the morning, and after six in the evening. This made it difficult for our priests to have effective communication with us parishioners during the week, as we’d be at work during working hours in the daytime,” he said.

In the midst of this dilemma, it was decided by the congregation to make a request to Fr Alexander Di Tullio, the church’s founding priest, to find a nun congregation that would act as an intermediary between the priest and the congregation.

“Fr Di Tullio duly accepted the request, and invited the Handmaids of Christ the Priest nuns`s congregation to come and establish a presence at our church. That’s how our Sisters became part of the Holy Cross Church,” he explained.

Mr R Nkome, the Holy Cross Church Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) chairperson recounted how for many years both Sr Theresa and Sr Agatha ensured that preparations for Mass services were always smooth-running.

He thanked the two nuns for their dedication and commitment for this, and the many other roles they’d spearheaded at the parish.

Sr Gladness Ntaopane, the current Mother-General of the Handmaids of Christ the Priest nun`s congregation thanked the congregation of the Holy Cross Church, and the greater Garankuwa parishes for the love and the kindness that they had given to Sr Theresa and Sr Agatha, and to all the congregation’s nuns who had been part of the church.

She made an appeal for new vocations, “not only for nuns, but for the priesthood as well. Our congregations are in dire need of new vocations to carry forth the duty entrusted to all of us by Jesus Christ to be the face of His mission for the world,” she pointed out.

Mr S Lekwape, the chairperson of the Ga-Rankuwa cluster comprising the three parishes, thanked the congregation for their long years of service in the cluster. He also praised the nuns for their willingness to respond positively to the challenges they faced in their time at the Holy Cross Church, and wished them all of the best in their next endeavours.

In his homily, parish priest of the three Ga-Rankuwa parishes Fr Harrison Mulenga CSS reiterated the mother-general`s appeal for new vocations.

“It’s on occasions such as these that a new generation of nuns would be gracing this farewell function, and they would be expressing gratitude to the departing nuns for the inspiration they’d given them to follow their path to also become nuns.

Unfortunately, in fifty-two years we haven’t been able to produce nuns from our township. Many made the first step, but due to a number of reasons they did not see their vocations to completion. We are still hoping for a turnaround to this situation,” he said.

He encouraged the Ga-Rankuwa parishes not to despair, and to bring Christ more into their families to “help our children see that they too can become the hands of Christ in a meaningful way,” he said.

Speaking to the Southern Cross on the sidelines of the event, Holy Cross Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) member Melissa Sima expressed her gratitude to both Sr Teresa and Sr Agatha for their presence at the parish. “They are very humble individuals. Through this I learned from them that to be peaceful is one of the greatest assets that one can have in one`s life,” she observed.

She expressed her thankfulness especially to Sr Teresa for her long years of dedication to the parish Holy Communion classes at the parish.

“She would ensure that all the candidates attended all the classes. If you couldn`t make it to a class on Sunday, you were expected to catch up with a lesson during the week. I thank both of them for guiding us through our becoming and who we`ve become as kids growing up under their eyes” she said.

After the Mass service, lunch was served to all those in attendance. A cake, depicting pictures of both Sr Theresa and Sr Agatha, was officially cut in celebration of the fifty-two years of commitment, devotion and dedication demonstrated and positively lived by the Handmaids of Christ the Priest congregation of nuns at the Holy Cross Church.