Visit Report 2017
[Source: Fr Louis Darrant]
The following article appeared in the St Paul’s Knightsbridge Weekly Newsheet for 9 July 2017.
This evening Christians from across the Diocese of London will gather in our cathedral with friends visiting from the Diocese of Lebombo in Mozambique to celebrate ALMA Sunday and to give thanks to God for our commitment to each other. ALMA stands for the Angola London and Mozambique Association and was founded in 1998 as an expression of our shared mission. Alma is a Portuguese word meaning ‘soul’ and consequently ‘has become part of the soul of all four partner dioceses. We share our joys and sorrows, learn from each other, acknowledge the differences in our economic contexts, the call to be good news to the poor and to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.’
A group of around twenty pilgrims are currently visiting London and St Paul’s Knightsbridge was privileged to host the group on Tuesday for Evening Prayer and supper in the Vicarage garden. After celebrating Evening Prayer our friends from Mozambique sang songs from their own worship tradition and the tapping of feet and gentle swaying could be witnessed in the choir stalls … not something you often see in SPK!
Bishop Carlos spoke of his vision for the partnership – primarily one in which we are committed to praying for each and learning from our very different contexts. At the diocesan level we have supported the efforts for the raising of funds to build a new theological college properly equipped to train a new generation of priests. We will share information about its progress in due course. At the parochial level we have our link with Fr Alfredo and the people of All Saints’ Nhamavila, who Bianca Dally, our ALMA rep, Phil our churchwarden and myself visited last July). We are currently working to fly Fr Alfredo and Ivan Macie (Bishop Carlos’s ALMA link officer) to London in the Autumn to meet us all and deepen the friendship we have already established. St Paul’s Knightsbridge is committing to exploring how we can make a real contribution to each of our communities.
Part of the beauty of ALMA is its capacity to unite Christians of different traditions from across the diocese. We can learn from their experience as we seek to know what it means to love our neighbour on the global stage.
Fr Louis