My Dear People of God
Ordinations
It is an undeniable fact that God, in His own pleasure, has blessed us with good vocations to this sacred ministry.
Many of the people we are ordaining are holy and faithful to God and His Church. They come timidly, looking forward to serviung God and His Holy Church with good intent and purpose. They come seeking for the face of God and wanting to please His heart and serve God with all their hearts, might and mind without fear all the days of their lives.
My plea to the Diocese is that do not manipulate or corrupt the ones whom we believe have been called by God to serve Him and Him alone, not our petty personal interests. It is not us …. to benefit from these ordinations. It is God. He must increase in them and let them decrease in themselves. Ordination does not make a person greater and bigger than the ordination. Ordination makes people who are ordained smaller in themselves and humbler in the eyes of God and His church.
Once you start singing litanies of praise to the ordained, know that you are the greatest enemy of the person you give accolades. If you are praised for whatever you have done, take that praise immediately in prayer and supplication to God, and say with the Psalmist, "not unto me Oh Lord, not unto me but to you all praise and honour." Do not listen to the death knell. Ordinations are making servants of God and His people.
I am happy that most of you stopped the bad habit of celebrating the ordination event. If you are called to the ordained ministry or your relative has been called, or you hear that there is going to be an ordination, know that God is increasing the number of His Martyrs. In the ordained ministry we are counted as sheep for slaughter. We die every day. If to some of you are singing honours, to some are singing choruses of insults, of course when we are called we always remember that the Church is both a Community of Saints and Sinners. Those of us who are being killed every day for this cause of God should remember that the one who calls is still the one who defends and nurtures that calling.
My wife joins me in wishing you a fulfilling Advent, a blessed Christmas and a prosperous New year.
Grace and peace be with all and warm greetings in the blessed name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Yours affectionately in Christ.
+Sitembele Mthatha
