• Letters play a big role in society as sources of inspiration and fortitude
Dominica Dipio: Letters of the Founder: Missionary Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church. Marianum Press, 2020. ISBN 9789970445820. PP 138
There exists a famous poem called ‘Stanley Meets Mutesa’ penned by Prof David Rubadiri from Malawi, who taught Ngugi wa Thiong’o at Makerere in the 1960s. It was provoked by a historical encounter that led to the Christianisation of Uganda 143 years ago.
19th Century journalist Henry Morton Stanley of Kenyan history textbooks visited the King of Buganda, called Kabaka Mutesa Kayiira, in 1875. The latter expressed interest in Christianity. So on November 15, 1875, The Daily Telegraph in London published HM Stanley’s written plea for Christian missionaries to come with alacrity to this kingdom at the equator.
The rest is history. Mutesa welcomed the Anglicans and later the Catholic Church. Today, his great-great grandson Ronald Mutebi is the current Kabaka and an Anglican. Reverend CT Wilson and Lieutenant G Shergold Smith, who were welcomed by his forefather, planted the seed of Christianity in Uganda.
Our western neighbour’s history of Christianity is a mirror to that of the entire region. The evolution of modern Uganda from historical times of Kabaka Mutesa to the era of Yoweri Museveni bears Christian marks, from education to health; from politics to democracy; from tangible heritage like the Namirembe Shrine to intangibles ones like liturgical literature.
Last week, a book was published in Uganda celebrating one such intangible heritage of service, learning and spirituality. Entitled, Letters of the Founder: Dearly Beloved (2020), the book is a beautiful anthology of rare epistles of the late Bishop Ceasar Asili.
He is the founder of the Institute of Missionary Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church (MSMMC). Befittingly, it is edited by Prof Sr Mary Dominica Dipio, one of the nuns who belong to the institute in terms of their call to faith.
Prof Dipio is one of the prominent scholars of African film studies. She is a former head of the famous Department of Literature at Makerere University, where Ngugi and other luminaries of East African literature were trained.
Kenyans recall that the late Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa was a Makerere-trained poet. His poetry and prose were published by Ngugi’s teachers David Cook and David Rubadiri in the same legendary department where Prof Dipio is the seniormost don today.
The book carefully collects 18 elegant letters, offering the reader revelations into the inner life, thoughts and lessons of Bishop Caesar Asili. They lay out selfless visions he had when establishing the MSMMC Institute. Indeed, the epistolary form is closely associated with the foundation of Christianity. Major books of the New Testament in the Bible are epistles to early Christians.
Throughout history, various apostles used this mode to commune with mankind. Some classics of colonial literature in East Africa are 19th Century letters of early missionaries, such as David Livingstone while in Tanzania and Ludwig Krapf while in Kenya.
The new Ugandan book draws from this lineage of non-fiction prose with sturdy roots in the 19th Century: like that of Christianity. Bishop Asili established the institute for sisters of the faith in 1970. 2020 is its Golden Jubilee. His main mission was to create a citadel of faith, progress and service to mankind.
Through it, he congregated and raised a battalion of young women, whose mark of service in various domains of life in Uganda is evident in the career heights of Prof Dipio herself. The Bishop penned these poems as encouragement accolades to his daughters of the faith to be the light to others.
Speaking to the Star, Prof Dipio said she seized this time of Covid-19 to collect and edit these inspirational missives for a wider readership to enjoy. The ecclesiastical wisdom from the Bible that a time for everything exists comes out clearly in her case.
She observed that just like other genres of non-fiction prose, such as memoirs, letters play a big role in society as sources of inspiration and fortitude. Through the lives of leading lights of our lifetime, we learn to rise and shine, even in the darkest of days.
These 18 letters offer life lessons based on religious teachings of one faith but appeal to the moral and ethical depths of all mankind. They are dialogues with the divine that invite readers to moments of meditation in this age of precarity. They cajole souls to seek serenity by retreat into realms of prayer. To me, this book offers itself as a three-in-one offering.
It is the literary effort of a seasoned scholar of literary arts to memorialise a mentor of many. It is also a milestone in the rich heritage of the epistolary form in East African literature. But most importantly, it is a trove of sacrifice lessons embodied by those who leave their lives to live a life of service to others, the enduring theme in all books of life.
The book is available in major bookshops across the region and can be ordered directly from the editor at [email protected]