With the aim of bringing the People of God together to enable them walk forward in fulfilment of their Synodality, the Catholic Professional Guilds (CPG) in collaboration with the Accra Archdiocesan Catholic Laity Council is organising another edition of their flagship programme dubbed: “May Day Games and Business Fair” scheduled to take place at the El-Wak Stadium on Monday, May 2, 2022.
“The idea is to have one major annual event of gathering together of Catholics in the Accra Archdiocese for fun and entertainment in fulfilment of our Synodality,” Mr. Edward Kwame Ayem, Coordinator of the CPG told newswatchgh.com in an interview on March 31.
He said, “The May Day event will bring us all together, thereby creating an atmosphere for uniting us and helping to create the kind of rapport that is necessary for us to journey together in faith,” adding, “This will go a long way to ensure that our Synodality is enhanced.”
Synodality enables the entire People of God to walk forward together, listening to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, to participate in the mission of the Church in the communion that Christ establishes between them.
In April 2021, Pope Francis initiated a Synodal journey of the whole People of God, to begin in October 2021 in each local Church and culminating in October 2023 in the Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
Pope Francis invited the entire Church to reflect on a theme that is decisive for its life and mission: “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission.”
As part of the Synodal journey, the May Day Games and Business Fair, one of the largest gathering of Catholics in the Catholic Archdiocese of Accra, will therefore be an opportunity to have various groups and societies in the Church engage in fun games whilst socialization on the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.
Enlightened by the Word of God and united in prayer, the May Day event is expected to also enable Catholics especially Professionals in the Church discern the processes to seek God’s will and pursue the pathways to which God calls them towards deeper communion, fuller participation, and greater openness to fulfilling our mission in the world.
The May Day Fun Games and Business Fair which the Accra Laity Council and CPG are espousing as part of the Synodal journey, is expected to be attended by the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra, all the Clergy and thousands of lay faithful.
With barely a month to the event at the El-Wak Stadium, Mr. Ayem told newswatcgh.com, “This will be a major occasion after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions to unite the Church and enable networking that will promote beneficial partnerships and fuel wealth creation. This will be the mother of all the fairs to be organized as an Archdiocesan event.”
“It will also be an opportunity to have the various groups and societies in the Church engage each other in fun games whilst socializing on the feast of St. Joseph the Worker the Patron of Workers, he added.
Some of the fun games will include volleyball, football, table tennis, tug of war, Athletics, Sack Race, Lime and Spoon, Draft, Scrabble and Inter Deanery Children Bible Quiz that will be competed by the Professional Guilds, Deanery Youth and Groups/Societies.
The societal competitors will be Catholic Women Association (CWA), Christian Mothers Association (CMA), Knights and Ladies of Marshall, Knights of St. John International and Ladies Auxiliaries, St Theresa of the Child Jesus, Young Christian Workers (YCW), Catholic Charismatic Renewal, St. Anthony’s Guild, Legion of Mary, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Perpetual Help Confraternity, Catechists Association, COSRA and the Youth Groups.
According to Mr. Ayem, “It is a time we break the barriers and walls our various groups and societies put up which divide and separate us and come together only as Catholics to have fun, network, and build strong personal and business ties through the day’s activities.
Highlighting the events of the day, the CPG Coordinator said “The setup will be in such a way that, any individual who comes to the place will have to go through each and every stall at the venue and get to interact with every business owner and also play at least a game or two.”
The May Day Games started by the CPG in 2016 at the St. Thomas Aquinas School, Cantonments has the blessing and patronage of the former Archbishop of Accra, the Most Rev. Charles Gabriel Palmer-Buckle and the current Archbishop of Accra, the Most Rev. John Bonaventure Kwofie.
The event was moved from the St. Thomas Aquinas to the Mary Mother of Good Counsel Catholic Church at Airport West in 2019 during which the Priests of the Archdiocese of Accra won the football match. They scored the Catholic Association of Media Practitioners four goals to one (4-1) to grab the coveted Trophy. The Priests also won the Volleyball and Tag of Peace.
Last year 2021, as a result of the COVID-19 restrictions, May Day Games and Business Fair took a different dimension where Professional Guilds had the opportunity to make strong proposals to the Catholic Archdiocese of Accra regarding how the Guilds can make impact in the Church. The event was hosted by St. Bakhita Catholic Church at Community 20, Lashibi.
On his part, Mr. Timothy Sowah, the Chairman of the Accra Archdiocesan Catholic Laity Council was emphatic about the role of the laity referring to the Vatican document, “Apostolicam Actuositatem”, which states, “The whole Church must work vigorously in order that men may become capable of rectifying the distortion of the temporal order and directing it to God through Christ.”
He added, “The laity must take up the renewal of the temporal order as their own special obligation. Led by the light of the Gospel and the mind of the Church and motivated by Christian charity, they must act directly and in a definite way in the temporal sphere.”
Touching on the Business Fair, which is part of the May Day event, he noted that the Accra Archdiocesan Laity Council, in a bid to empower the Laity who are also Catholic professionals, has made as part of its annual programme, to create a platform to consciously and actively promote Catholic owned businesses.
The Business Fair, he pointed out, “will not only provide Catholic Professionals the opportunity to showcase their products and services to the larger Catholic family in an atmosphere of fun and networking to catch the attention of patrons and to give the business owners enough exposure but will also offer professional support to these businesses to better position them.”
He stated that businesses, especially start-ups and those going through difficulties would be offered professional help by way of the engagement of professional business development experts from the Business, Management and Finance Professionals Guild to coach such businesses with the view to putting them on a better pedestal.
By Damian Avevor
