Who’s who

Fr Michael Ezenwammadu, Parish Priest

I am obsessed with bringing people together through kindness and relationship. My great passion is creating safe spaces and opportunities that bridge gaps, enable trust and unite diverse people. In my former parishes, I helped individuals, especially young people and elderly people, to see the amazing goodness that they possess and encouraged them to use it to break barriers and strengthen their relationship with other people. I was born in Nigeria into a large family of seven and grew up in the ghettoes of the famous and deprived market town of Onitsha. My mother, a primary school teacher, influenced my life and vocation to the priesthood with her prayerful disposition and care for the poor. Prayer and helping other were not optional in our house but imposed with her maternal highhandedness. I joined the Holy Ghost Fathers (The Spiritans) to train as a priest from the age of ten and have been stuck with them since. I have worked as a missionary in Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, I have worked as a care assistant in our retirement home for sick and housebound missionaries, parish priest, hospital chaplain, school chaplain and currently, the Regional Superior of the London Region. I support Chelsea football club.

Fr Bonaventure Ssebyanzi, Curate

According to St. Luke, Jesus started his public ministry by announcing, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and new sight to the blind; to free the oppressed and announce the Lord’s year of favour” (Lk 4:18-19). This same quotation is used by the book that guides the life of Spiritan Missionaries, Spiritan Rule of Life (SRL) as a summary of the vocation of our congregation (SRL 4). In that respect, these words are the driving force of my life as a Christian and as a Spiritan confrere.

When I first met Spiritans in their parish of Mulago, Kampala (Uganda), Christians were very proud of their ministry. Apart from the parish pastoral work, they also do chaplaincy in the Mulago National Referral Hospital which is a demanding ministry. During the first stage of our training to be Spiritan missionaries, we used to go to that hospital on Sundays to visit and pray for patients. When we would be ending our visits due to time, some of the patients would bitterly complain for not reaching them yet the hospital is too big to cover in a single visit. That is when I realized the reality of the Spiritan vocation rooted in Lk 4:18-19.

Concerning my background, I grew up with a desire to serve the Lord. My daddy used to help as a liturgy leader in our local church. This made us to be always in church and be close to priests which consequently inspired us to serve the Lord. After primary school, I and my twin brother did an interview to join the seminary but we were not successful. Therefore, I only joined the seminary after the first level of my professional training. The East African territory of Spiritans i.e. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia share Formation Houses of Philosophy and Novitiate in Tanzania, and Theology at Nairobi, Kenya. Those are the places where I also studied from. On finishing those formation stages, I first served in a parish at Nairobi and later moved to Uganda where I have done ministry since 2008. I have been involved in parish pastoral work, school ministry, and for a longer time in formation work (training of future missionaries). Along with these ministries, I continued doing more professional training in Education Administration and Management. My engagement in education has had a special focus on serving learners with Special Needs and I have done some researches on the management of this type of education and its challenges especially in developing countries. Learners with Special Needs are members of a set of the oppressed and marginalized (Lk 4:18-19) whose only hope lies in those the spirit anoints to be the Voice of the Voiceless (African Synod, 1995).

The life of ministry has taught me to appreciate the contribution of every member of a given team as we all strive together to achieve the set goals. As Spiritan missionaries, our motto is COR UNUM ET ANIMA UNA – with one heart and one soul, which was the spirit that guided the first Christian community (Act 4:32).  I, thus, eagerly look forward to such experiences as we journey together in building God’s Kingdom in our parish.