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Ivory Coast - Adiapodoume, Sep 29, 2013

At the end of the day ...

Friday, September 27, Fr. Omer’s funeral was celebrated . We would like to share with you a message about the funeral of Fr Omer sent in by Fr Laurent Bacho, the master of the Scholastics in Adiapodoumé:

Fr Omer Koutouan Nanghy scj

"Beloved,

Here we are at the end of this day in which we laid to rest the body of Omer Koutouan scj , along with that of Anatole , who died in 1996. They were respectively  30 and 35 years! The mystery of life and death.
We lived for eight days in deep solidarity and surrounded by the prayer of the parishioners. Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday vigil of adoration from 6 pm to 7.30 pm with a hundred people in our chapel . Wednesday night vigil at Anono in Abidjan: the whole community was present  and a large crowd of people and many priests joined . Thursday at 5  pm we went to the morgue of Yopougon to pick up the body and to move it to the Church of Saint Bernard, where we celebrated vespers for the dead and 200 people joined the prayer. In the evening, from 8 to 10.30 Fr Sylvain conducted a prayer vigil and gave a beautiful homily enriched by several meaningful witnesses (...) . At midnight we brought the body into the community chapel where all the brothers prayed throughout the night with thirty people. Then in the morning the body was moved back to the church of Saint Bernard for the morning prayer for the dead. Then the procession led by the brass band of Anono followed by the blessing by the family. (…)
At 10 am we celebrated the Funeral Mass . There were two bishops , Bishop Coadjutor of Yopougon and the Bishop of Katiola, 180 priests and about 1,800 people. Then the burial in the community compound ( ... ) .
(...) We are living this period of severe trial as a family, with faith, hoping that this seed will bring forth good fruits. All this is happening at a time of great fragility of the Vicariate. It is the favorable time to rely more on God and surrender to His will. We felt a great solidarity around us and this was of great help. Now we are beginning a new year. The scholastics started the academic year last Monday.
Fr François is leaving for France on October 1 and  Fr Arsène will probably  follow him around October 20; Fr Marius will leave for Central Africa on October 10.
This is a first echo of the funeral (...) .
(...) We felt the solidarity of the whole congregation. A real sign of it was the last visit Fr Gaspar paid to Fr Omer on his way to the airport. Omer left us a few hours later . Another sign to show that we are truly a family. We express our gratitude to all of you who prayed for Omer !

Fr. Laurent Bacho scj

If you want to read the two homilies for the funeral click here below:

Vigil (26/09/2013), homily of Fr Sylvain Dansou scj

Mass (27/09/2013), homily of Fr Laurent Bacho scj

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Nef is the official bulletin of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Betharram.
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