Penitential Service: Be Merciful Just As Your Father Is Merciful

Friday 28^th October saw worshipers gather in the church from all works of life just like the hundred and forty – four thousand sealed, out of every tribe of the sons of Israel who gathered before the throne of mercy in Revelation  7:2 – 14.

There was inevitably this new feeling of reverence for the holy mass, the ambiance seemed heavenly, the church was most unusually quiet as people, focused on the mass, filed out one after the other to go for confession.

I personally have never come across the word ‘penitential’ before in the dictionary, or maybe because I haven’t looked it up before today. But judging from what I felt on that day and the feedback gotten from other parishioners, surly the word penitential would have ‘solemn – God –filled – service’ written all over it.

To view the video of this penitential service, visit our chaplaincy Facebook page on www.facebook.com/saccakoka or @saccakoka.

Fr. Bertrand Ujunwa too was very exact when he delivered his reflection (not homily because it was a special type of mass). The theme of his reflection was ‘Be merciful just as your Heavenly Father is merciful’.

‘Any life short of mercy is a sinful one. God invites us today because we are all in need of His mercy’, he said.

He went on to use the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11 - 32 to enlighten the congregation on what it takes to make a firm decision to ‘go back’ to the Lord.

Just as the son who after suffering shame and regret in a foreign land, made a ‘decision’ to head back to his father, we also were urged to take advantage of the sacrament of penance to retrace our steps back to our Heavenly Father.

The penitential service was celebrated in line with the extraordinary jubilee Year of Mercy commissioned by the Holy Father Pope Francis which has been running from December 8^th 2015 to close in November 20^th, 2016.

At about 6.50pm, confessions started as 7 other priests from Yaba Deanery came to assist the chaplain, Rev. Fr. Wisdom Chikezie.

“Come back to me disloyal children and I shall frown on you no more.”