Episcope for Mangochi Diocese, His Grace Montfort Sitima on Easter Sunday condemned male dominance, emphasizing that it needs to have no room in modern society.
Bishop Sitima was speaking during celebration of an Easter Sunday mass at St. Louis Catholic Parish in Mangochi.
In his sermon, Sitima insinuated that from the beginning of time God has always regarded men and women from same grounds without favour or segregation, as such it is important that humans should accept God’s will and start regarding women and men equally.
“During Jesus’ time, among the Jews men were regarded as more important than women as the Gospel reveals time and again, such as on Luke Chapter 10 where of all the people that Jesus fed out of two bread loaves, only men were counted; however at the same time when Jesus was crucified and resurrected, He chose women to be the first ones to know he had risen and women were the first to send the message home about His resurrection as taught on Mark 16: 1-8,” said Sitima.
He explained that this was a clear indication of how Jesus regarded women as important even though He was born and raised in a society that was completely male-dominated.
The Bishop added that it was sad to notice how such unfruitful domination continues to reign in current society despite all the lessons and efforts put by the church, governments and organizations aimed at bridging the gap between men and women.
On encouraging women to stand up for themselves, Bishop Sitima expressed disappointment in the way some women look down on themselves, advising them to stop accepting subjection to inferiority.
“So many times women accept their failure by declaring themselves weak, as such they give room for society to abuse them and make them even weaker: You can agree with me that sometimes you hear women say things like, we will not start eating because there are no men. I say that is not helping in the fight for women empowerment,” said the Bishop.
Commenting on the sermon, Chairperson for Catholic Women’s Organization (CWO) at St. Louis Parish Mrs. Irene Silumbu called upon fellow women to be more prayerful and to serve God with all their strength.
“The Holy Gospel gives us a classic example of how our fellow women passionately served Jesus even after He was in the tomb; they still wanted to be at His service and show Him how much they loved Him. We too need to have such love and passion for God’s service,” said Silumbu.
Christians across the world believe that Jesus was crucified on Friday, and He resurrected on a Sunday that followed; a period which is widely known as Easter.
