Question 1.11

1.11 Once again we can see the importance of the Holy Ghost Fathers in your life. How would you describe the spirituality that they passed on to you?

I believe that what impressed me most profoundly, since I was very young, even before my years of catechism classes, was the regularity of their prayer life. I will never forget the spiritual rigor of their daily routine.

The days of the Spiritans were ordered like those of monks. Very early in the morning, they were in church to pray together and individually. Then each one celebrated Mass at his altar, assisted by a server. After breakfast, they saw to their work. At noon, they met again in the church for midday prayer and the Angelus. As soon as they finished their meal, they returned once again to the church for thanksgiving and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. After a rest period, I used to watch with curiosity as they prayed individually, at around four in the afternoon, while reading from a little book. As you may guess, it was the recitation of the breviary. . . At the end of the day, around 7 P.M., came evening prayer with everyone, and then dinner. At 9 P.M., around the great cross, one of the Fathers would gladly come spend time with us, answering our questions and trying to introduce us to the Christian life, spiritual values, and sacred history. We always finished our vigil with a song. I still remember the one that usually ended our days, entitled “Before Going to Sleep beneath the Stars”. This song prepared us to get down on our knees humbly before God to receive his forgiveness and protection during the night. The melody is still alive today in my heart.

Ourous was home to great and holy missionaries; they were completely consumed by the fire of God’s love. They had exceptional human, intellectual, and spiritual qualities, but all died very young.

As I already told you, Father Firmin Montels, the founder, breathed his last on September 2, 1912, only six months after founding the parish. At the moment when he died, he was singing “O Salutaris Hostia, quae caeli pandis ostium. Bella praemunt hostilia, da robur, fer auxilium” (O Saving Victim, opening wide the gate of heav’n to us below! Our foes press on from every side; Your aid supply, Your strength bestow). This priest was a great artist and, according to many accounts, a saint. His days were quite full, with four hours dedicated to teaching catechism each day. He compelled himself to make the Way of the Cross every day and to spend several hours in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament each week. Not to mention the daily work of learning the local language.

When I look back at the past and the early days of the mission, or at Guinea in general, when I consider one by one the exceptional gifts from Providence, I know that God truly guided and adopted us. I remember how enthralled I was when I saw the Holy Ghost Fathers walking every afternoon while reading their breviaries. … I never tired of watching them, with a sense of awe. This may seem naïve fifty years later, but I do not deny what God made known to me.

Every day, the Holy Ghost Fathers lived by the rhythm of the Divine Office, Mass, work, and the rosary, and they never shirked their duties as men of God. As a small child, I told myself that if the Fathers went to church so regularly, it must be because they were certain to encounter someone there and to speak to him with complete confidence. Obviously, my ambition was to be able to encounter Christ, too. When I entered the seminary, I was able to accept the difficulties because of my certainty that one day I would encounter Jesus in prayer, just like the missionaries.

How many times I was profoundly gripped by the silence that reigned in the church during the Fathers’ prayers! At first, settled in the back of the building, I watched these men and wondered what they were doing, kneeling or sitting in the half-light, not saying anything. … But they seemed to be listening and conversing with someone in the semi-darkness of the church, lit by candles. I was truly fascinated by their practice of prayer and the peaceful atmosphere it engendered. I think that it is fair to say that there is a true heroism, greatness, and nobility in this life of regular prayer. Man is great only when he is on his knees before God.

Of course they were not perfect. These men had their moods, their human limitations, but I want to pay tribute to these religious men for their generous gift of their lives, their asceticism, and their humility. In all the seminaries run by the missionaries, like the one in Sebikhotane for example, I found this desire to seek Christ deeply in this daily intimate conversation. The way they established contact with the local people was a model of tact and practical thinking. Without this intimacy with heaven, their missionary work could not have been fruitful.

The sufferings they endured were not in vain. My parish, the most remote in the country, was the one that produced the greatest number of vocations in Guinea! This confirms the prophetic words that Father Orcel wrote to his bishop on August 15, 1925, thirteen years after the founding of Saint Rose mission: “I would not be at all surprised to see vocations take shape among our children. As for me, I think that vocations are the reward for serious training in the family and in the mission.”

The Holy Ghost Fathers had a profound impact on Guinean Catholicism. How could we forget the way these priests took care of everyone, even the most wretched lepers? They touched them and treated them, even though the patients gave off an unbearable smell. They taught them the catechism, considering that the sick, too, had the right to be instructed in the mysteries of the faith and to receive Christ’s sacraments.

Despite the political sufferings that accompanied Sékou Touré’s Marxist dictatorship, the Church in Guinea stood fast, for she was founded on the rock, on the sacrifices of missionaries, and on the joy of the Gospel. Communist doctrine never got the better of the priests who traveled on foot to the smallest villages, accompanied by a few catechists, carrying their suitcase-chapel on their heads! The humility of the Spiritans’ faith was the strongest defense against the egalitarian aberrations of the revolutionary Marxist ideology of the State Party in Guinea. A handful of zealous and courageous Guinean priests kept the flame of the Gospel burning.