The Priests and Religious of the Catholic Diocese of Keta-Akatsi gathered at the Diocesan Pastoral Centre at Torve on Saturday, March 29, 2025, for a recollection aimed at deepening their faith and spiritual renewal.
It provided an opportunity for introspection, prayer, and reflection as they journey through the Lenten season.
The spiritual exercise fostered an atmosphere of unity and renewed commitment among the participants, strengthening their resolve to serve their congregations and communities with renewed zeal and devotion, to guide their communities through the sacred journey of Lent towards the celebration of Easter.
It was a reminder of the Church’s mission in calling its faithful to deeper communion with God through prayer, penance, and acts of charity.
The Recollection commenced with the recitation of the Holy Rosary, a sacred tradition that allows participants to meditate on the life, passion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ led by Rev. Fr. Wisdom Amegble, an Associate Priest of St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, Denu.
A key highlight of the gathering was a thought-provoking talk delivered by Fr. Reuben Adzakey, the Former Secretary to the Bishop on the theme: A Call to Repentance: A Path to Spiritual Renewal.
Emphasising the importance of repentance, personal conversion, and recommitment to the Gospel, Fr. Adzakey defined Repentance as bringing the act of bringing the mind of humanity into harmony with the mind of God; adding that going astray from the mind of God is what we call sin.
He urged the Clergy and Religious in the Diocese to embrace the Lenten season as a time of spiritual growth and transformation, calling for sincere self-examination and a return to God’s mercy.
“As Christians in the first place, we are called to repent,” he affirmed.
Fr. Adzakey enumerated four obstacles to repentance, which are the failure to see our sins as they truly are, where “we compare others’ attitudes to ours and say ours is better, and pride or arrogance, where we seem to be self-sufficient and not needing others.”
This, he stated, made one fail to apologize when we wronged other people, especially those under us and indicated that the denial attitude, which hinders us from accepting our faults, thinking that when you accept your fault, then you are weak and the feeling of always being a victim, seeing the other person as being at fault, and not us.
He challenged the Priests and Religious to portray a great forgiveness, comfort the people they serve, and not to victimize them, quoting 2 Corinthians 1:4.
Fr. Adzakey urged the Clergy and Religious to be people of prayer and true repentance for a fruitful Christian life and be ambassadors of same. “The grace of God is useless in human situations of sin, if we fail to realize the need for us to repent”.
The Recollection was graced by the Most Rev. Gabriel Edoe Kumordji, SVD, the Bishop of the Keta-Akatsi Diocese, and the Most Rev. Anthony Kwami Adanuty, Bishop Emeritus.
By Sr. Agnes Mercy Nyatsoe, SMMC (Sr. Communicator)
