The Sunday News
Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
MORE than 4 000 Roman Catholic men are set to converge in Bulawayo from different parts of the world, for the St Joseph’s Association National Congress and are calling upon the business community to take advantage of the gathering and partner with the church for next week.
Mr Danisa Nkomo, Archdiocesan chairman for St. Joseph Association said the event would be held from 4 to 7 April.
“This year’s National Congress will be held in the Archdiocese of Bulawayo, at St Augustine’s College in Sunnyside from 4 to 7 April 2024, under the theme, ‘St Josephs’ enlarging the space of the tent’.
“The theme is derived from Isaiah 54:2. This speaks to St Joseph embracing all men and other members of the human family as partners in the journey of faith. A total of 4 000 Catholic men from across the country and beyond our borders (South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and the United Kingdom) are expected to grace this congress,” said Mr Nkomo.
The chairman said an event of that magnitude generally has inherent challenges, mainly to do with providing adequate logistical facilities to expected standards and called on businesses to take advantage of the event and market their products and services before and during the event.
“Ideally for an event of this magnitude, one would expect the business community to take advantage and showcase their services and products, but the Bulawayo business community has been very slow to respond to the invitation to take advantage of this potential market. Support has been received from the police and Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services, St John’s Ambulance Association and the local authority,” he said.
As the hosting Archdiocese, Mr Nkomo said they were expecting a very good attendance and to deliver the best congress, tapping into the hospitality of the people of Bulawayo, counting on the support of the local businesses and individual well-wishers to leave an indelible mark on those deserving local communities that have been identified for support by the National Congress.
Part of the delegates to the National Congress include captains of industry, lawyers, bankers, businessmen, marketing executives, shareholders of companies, political leaders, civic leaders, doctors, nurses, civil servants, entrepreneurs, academics, and company chief executives to name a few.
He said St Joseph’s Guild was an association of men within the Catholic Church.
It derives its name from St Joseph, the husband of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ and his foster father.
“In the Archdiocese of Bulawayo, the guild was established in the early 1960s as the Catholic Men’s Society (CMS). It was altered in the mid-1990s when it was noted that the guild did not have a patron saint the members could learn from. In the Catholic Church, all guilds have a patron saint whose life, virtues, and model the members strive to emulate and also live by,” said Mr Nkomo.
He said for men, as heads, providers, and protectors of families, it was noted that St Joseph would be a perfect patron of the association since God chose him to be the head of the Holy Family of Nazareth.
St Joseph was then chosen to be the patron saint of the men’s guild whom they could emulate and from whom they could learn the holiness of life, nurturing and protecting their families according to the Church’s teaching and God’s will and plan.
This would in turn mould them to be good leaders not only of their families but for the society as a whole. @NyembeziMu
