Sumbe, 25 July, 2023 / 9:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Bishop Firmino David, the newly Consecrated Bishop of Angola’s Sumbe Diocese will need to foster “service and not honor” during his Episcopal ministry.
In his homily during the Consecration event on July 23, Archbishop Zeferino Zeca Martins said the Universal Church and the people of God in Sumbe Diocese expect a lot from their new shepherd, and underscored the need for Catholic Bishops to imitate Jesus Christ who “devoted himself to his people”.
“Episcopacy means service and not honor because the Bishop is to serve rather than to rule according to the commandment of the Master. Whoever is the greatest among you, let him be a servant to others,” Archbishop Zeca of Angola’s Huambo Archdiocese said during the event held at John Paul II Square in Sumbe.
He added, “The Church, because it knows you, expects a lot from you. Your deep faith rooted in the word and solidified in culture, your knowledge of the law, and your passion for history give you this freedom of an always open and dialoguing gaze that will greatly contribute, so that the Church, especially the Church of Sumbe, continues to find the way of the mission.”
“The Bishop is the one whose service continues in the Church or Apostolic Ministry; he is first of the disciples, of those who left everything to follow Jesus, fulfilling his mission to the end, even to the gift of his own life,” the Angolan member of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) said.
