Hundreds of Catholics in Accra including the Clergy, Religious, youth, women and children thronged the El-Wak Stadium to participate in the 2022 May Day Games and business affair which was organised by the Accra Archdiocesan catholic laity Council and the Catholic Professional Guilds under the auspices of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra.
The May Day Games and Business Fair is one of the activities put in place to bring together all the laity and Catholic Professionals in the Accra Archdiocese to understand their roles and to make their presence in the Church count.
The May 2 at El-Wak event begun with a Mass presided over by the Most Rev. John Bonaventure Kwofie, CSSp, the Chief Shepherded of Accra and concelebrated by scores of Priests including Very Rev. Fr. John Kobina Louis, Vicar General of Accra and Very Fr. Newman Tetteyfio, Financial Administrator of Accra.
Prior to the event, the Archbishop through a video message had extended an Episcopal invitation to all Priests, Religious and lay faithful saying “I will be there and so I will like to see Priests with their parishioners who have dressed up to play football, volley ball and other games.”
Adding, the Chief Shepherd said in his invitation, “I will be there and I pray you will come to support this initiative…”
The expectation of the organisers was to gather about 10,000 out of the over 300,000 lay faithful of Accra to participate in the annual event which was aimed at also fulfilling the Archdiocesan Synodality.
However, not all parishes and groups in the Archdiocese were able to gather their parishioners and members respectively to participate in this annual event as some had their programmes and activities scheduled on same day.
At the Mass at the El-Wak Stadium which preceded the Games and Business Fair, Archbishop Kwofie espoused the role of St. Joseph the Worker and urged Catholic Workers and Ghanaians in general to continue the works of God’s creation in humility.
Archbishop Kwofie commended the organisers for the initiative of bringing all the laity and clergy together through fun games and exhibitions.
In his homily, Fr. Louis admonished workers to emulate the life of St. Joseph the Worker, reminding them that God always look for quality and righteous of people when choosing them and not their qualification or work experience.
He, therefore, appealed to Catholic Workers to be just and righteous in keeping God’s law at their various work places or where ever they found themselves.
“All Catholics should be people who are just; all workers must be obedient to God’s law,” Fr. Louis stated, adding that Catholic Professionals must be people of integrity and people who should not make money the ultimate though it is needed for survival.
The Vicar General cautioned Catholic Workers not to desire extra money to influence the decisions they make in their professional work.
The 2022 May Day and Business Fair was aimed to show appreciation for the gift of workers and to showcase the beauty of work that workers contribute to the growth and development of the nation. The programme also offered the opportunity to Catholics in Business to showcase their products and services.
The Deaneries in the Accra Archdiocese participated in various games including Soccer, Volleyball, and Table Tennis with participating Deaneries as Kaneshie, Madina, Mamprobi, Osu, Kpehe, Tema, Ashaiman and Battor-Ada.
Some of the fun games included volleyball, football, table tennis, tug of war, Athletics, Sack Race, Lime and Spoon, Draft, Scrabble and Inter Deanery Children Bible Quiz competed by the various Deaneries.
In the soccer competition, Ashaiman Deanery won the football with Mamprobi, Osu and Kaneshie Deaneries taking the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions respectively.
For the volleyball, Ashaiman Deanery won with Mamprobi, Madina and Osu Deaneries taking the 2nd, 3rd and 4th positions while the quiz competition for children was won by the Mamprobi Deanery with Osu and Battor-Ada Deaneries taking the 2nd and 3rd positions.
