4th Annual African Day Celebrations at St Elizabeth’s Church Coventry. 8th August 2010.

Coventry under African Sun

On Sunday the 8th August the parishioners of St Elizabeth’s church invited everyone to join them for their African Day Mass.  The Mass was concelebrated by Rev. Paul Johnson (Christ the King Church), Rev. Sam Arul, Rev, Theolophilus, Rev. Moses Pitya (St Elizabeth’s Church) and Rev. Deacon Gerry O’Reilly (Christ the King).  The main celebrant was Rev. Timothy Menezes from St Thomas More Church.  The singing was led by the Coventry Catholic Choral Group.  Members of the African community acted as escort for the Gospel and offertory processions.

This Mass marked the launch of the St Elizabeth’s Church Sudan Appeal which is being coordinated by the Parish’s Justice and Peace group.  The Appeal is twofold.  The first stage is to try and raise money to help orphans and other children that have been affected by the war with their schooling.  The second stage is to run a project to help Fr Moses’ village with clean water, reusable fuel and building facilities.


The Mass celebrated the diversity of the people of Africa as well as their unity in Christ.  The bidding prayers were offered in a verity of languages.  Rev. Timothy gave his greeting in Swahili then talked about us all being members of one global village. During his homily Rev. Timothy talked about St Elizabeth’s appeal for sponsors for some of the children from the Redeemer Home in Uganda who will soon be moving onto boarding school.


For the celebrations after the mass, which took place in the parish gardens and hall, we were joined by other local clergy.  They included Cannon Tom Farrell (Christ the King) and Fr Jimmy together with the Sister from St Mary’s and St Benedict’s.  

Some of the young people dressed in traditional clothes sung to the crowd in the garden to start the celebrations.

 A small group of parishioners have been working hard to prepare a new garden and grotto next to the parish hall.  Fr Moses blessed them after the 8:30 a.m. Mass and welcomed people to use it as a place of prayer and meditation.







A DVD of photographs of the Mass as well as some of the celebrations in the garden is on sale in aid of the children of the Redeemer Home in Uganda and other orphan or destitute children in the war torn South Sudan: cost £10.  For more information please contact Fr Moses at St Elizabeth’s Church in Coventry.

Photographs taken by Lens Art Ltd
Copyright Lens Art Ltd