St. John’s Catholic Church, Gidan Kurma is one of the indigenous Hausa parish communities in Sokoto diocese. With the exception of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Funtua and a fraction of St. Vincent Ferrer’s Catholic Church Malunfashi. Malunfashi deanery is composed predominately of Hausa speaking communities. It is one of the homes of the Maguzawas.
A large crowd of Catholics welcomed His Lordship, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah on his arrival at St John’s Catholic Church Gidan Kurma, Malunfashi Deanery, Katsina State, for the continuation of 2019 Cathedraticum which had begun earlier in the week in Birnin Kebbi. His Lordship, in his sermon, encouraged the Christian faithful to be strong and steadfast in their faith. In the words of St. Paul, he emphasizes that as Christians “our hope is based on things we do not see, it is based on faith and faith is about things that we do not see.” As boldly expressed in his Lenten message, His Lordship reminds the Christian faithful that this is an opportunity for us to encourage ourselves. As the Church teaches us, it is a time for fasting, a time for almsgiving, a time for prayer and a time for us to abstain. Indeed we can abstain from anything. People abstain from different things but we do not abstain just for these forty days, rather that we may train our bodies so that after the forty days things will be different. We are encouraged to fast in order for us to symbolically discipline our body because there will come a time, when circumstances may put us in situations where we are not able to find food. Irrespective of the trials we are going through in Nigeria, we should be encouraged with the reality that this trial will not last forever.
Elucidating on the importance of Cathedraticum, His Lordship noted that “what we are celebrating today through Cathedraticum is the sense that we are a family, you have all come from different village communities, and every priest working around is here. This is evidence of our unity and family identity; so that is what we are celebrating.” He did not fail to call to the mind of his congregation that every family has its trials. “We are gathered here because we are a community, otherwise we would have stayed in our villages. Our Priests would just have stayed in their different parishes and merely send us their donations of cows. I would have told you to take your cows back. So we are not measuring the joy of today by the materials we have, we are measuring it by your physical presence and sacrifice and for this I thank you very much.”
He concluded by expressing his heartfelt gratitude to all the pious organizations for their love and contributions towards the church, reassuring the community of his efforts to address their complaints and worries towards developmental projects within the denary. A total of forty cows were presented to the Bishop, from all the parishes and Mass centers in Malunfashi deanery. Within the liturgical celebration of the Mass, the Bishop administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to 116 catechumens.
