Life in the Submarine - The Mill Hill Missionaries

introduced at the time, became the signature tune of the Bilenge ya Mwinda.Having the founder and chief initiator of this striking pastoral initiative at thehelm of the diocese exercised a huge attraction young people all around. Manyof the students at Bonkita, where I was teaching, also got involved. Iexperienced this development as a real gift of the Spirit and was grateful forthe opportunity it afforded to acquaint the youth with the Gospel message in alanguage and a manner they could understand and relate to. Regularly everyyear bishop Matondo would write an extensive letter in the form of a brochureto the Bilenge ya Mwinda all over the country. It took a while to fully appropriatethe thoroughly African process of initiation which lay at the roots of the methodproposed by bishop Matondo. The fact that most young people had noawareness or experience of traditional tribal initiation also did not help. But atleast everyone could recognise the approach as truly African.Africa has a rich oral tradition. In Central Africa there are no written sourcespredating the colonial period. Important historical events were handed on byword of mouth and committed to memory with amazing accuracy. A well-knownBelgian scholar, Jan Vansina, has been able to trace back the lineage of theKings of the Bakuba Kingdom in Congo to the sixteenth century using oralsources. David van Reybrouck in recent his history of Congo, published tocoincide with the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence, makesextensive use of informants.Similarly Bishop Matondo was conscious of being heir to a culture centredaround ‘le Verbe’, as the French expression goes. “And the Word was madeflesh”. He was an excellent orator. His sermons and conferences were alwayswell prepared. I often saw him walking up and down the veranda of hisresidence’ thinking ‘aloud’ to test and develop the flow of an sermon or a talk.His lively sermons in true African style would be peppered with proverbs,stories, an occasional song and plenty of rhetorical questions to which theaudience would respond instantly as they would at a village gathering. Oftenhe would be carried away by his own enthusiasm, sweating profusely andgesticulating wildly to the point of almost losing his mitre (bishops wear theirmitre when they preach!). African oratory is generous in its use of time too. AEuropean style ten minute sermon leaves most Congolese ‘hungry’. AEucharist celebrated in the Zaïrean rite typically lasts two hours or more – thesermon taking half an hour at least. The art of exuberant celebration – religioncan be fun! – is one of Africa’s most precious contributions to the universalChurch, in my estimation. The longest celebration I ever attended was anEaster Vigil at Basankusu Cathedral which started at 8 pm and finished wellpast midnight! Some inveterate smokers among my fellow missionaries would