Nairobi Archdiocese’s Weeklong Missionary Youth Movement Workshop on “seven aspects of life” Concludes with Annual Mass

Nairobi, 19 April, 2024 / 10:39 PM

Members of Missionary Youth Movement (MYM) in Kenya’s Catholic Archdiocese of Nairobi (ADN) are set to conclude their weeklong workshop with Holy Mass on Saturday, April 20, an annual celebration that brings together thousands of representatives from the 120 Parishes on the Kenyan Metropolitan See.

In an interview with ACI Africa, the ADN Youth Chaplain, Fr. Victor Mbuthia, said that the MYM workshop focused on “seven aspects of life”, which included personal identity, relationships, purpose, health, words, time, and eternity.

The Parish-based workshop was organized under the theme, “What to carry like a tray of eggs”, Fr. Mbuthia said during the Tuesday, April 16 interview. 

He explained, “Imagine holding a tray of fragile eggs, each one symbolizing a vital aspect of life. Our goal is to guide the youths through seven key elements among the many others that they might need to carry or take care of, each akin to an egg.”

The seven aspects of life, the member of the Clergy of the ADN went on to say, “are delicate, and just like eggs, they require our attention, protection, and nurturing.”

The workshop had the objective to encourage MYM members to a “thoughtful reflection” of the highlighted seven aspects of life, “and empower them to make intentional choices as they navigate their journey as well as determine their identity,” Fr. Mbuthia told ACI Africa.

Each day was assigned a topic, he said, adding that MYM members were guided in discussions and activities that helped them come to an understanding of the significance and fragility associated with each of the seven aspects of life.

“The Saturday (April 20) Mass can only achieve about 20 percent impact, but the weeklong activities will achieve about 80 percent impact even at the individual and contextual level,” the Kenyan Catholic Priest said about the Eucharistic celebration to be presided over by Bishop Wallace Ng’ang’a, an Auxiliary Bishop of the ADN.

He continued, “Each Parish should be able to contextualize the impact for example if it is having suicidal issues, so they can contextualize such topics to their situation.”

“By the time they will be coming for mass on Saturday, it will be a crowning for this formation,” Fr. Mbuthia said, adding that everyone who attended the workshop at the parish level would have a picture of what “to carry like a tray of eggs”.

While personal identity, relationships, purpose, health, words, and time were the focus during six days, the aspect of eternity is to be addressed at the culmination of the weeklong event, he said, and added, “The topic will be presented on the ground just before the Holy Mass on Saturday.”

“The topic will take about one hour and we shall talk about how to carry eternity like a tray of eggs, how can we ensure that all of us achieve (and that) we don’t lose our eternity by some of the things we do here on earth,” Fr. Mbuthia said about the April 20 activity to be held at St. Mary’s Msongari School grounds in Westlands, Nairobi, with some 15,000 MYM members expected to participate.