By Rev.Fr Anthony Musaala
THE ORIGINAL PHOTO AT RUBAGA
Allow me to narrate the story of some baffling photographs one of which is posted below and which are connected to the story about my ministry in the preceding post.
The first picture is what the statue of Mary in front of Rubaga Cathedral normally looks like . Mary is holding a globe representing the world, the field of evangelization with the Word.
The second picture with me standing to the right at the base of the statue, was taken in 1989 by Alex Byarugaba with a film camera. I call it “Our Lady of Light” and find it inspirational rather miraculous.
It is one of the three remaining photographs (two are lost)which show the statue of Mary apparently being progressively shrouded by light.
In the pictures which were lost ( as Alex can verify ) there is an interesting sequence. In the first one taken the “light” was seen shrouding just the head of the figure.
The second picture taken showed the “light” shrouding the entire upper body, from the waist upwards.
The final picture shown here has the “light” completely obliterating the statue of Mary from view.
Interestingly (at least to me) the total obliteration of the Marian figure appears as a result of some suffusion and diffusion of the unexplained light from ‘within’ the figure, rather than from a bombardment of light from outside it.
I wonder if this light is a symbol of the Holy Spirit by whom Mary is to be “overshadowed” foretold by the angel Gabriel in Luke 1:35?
After all this overshadowing is what leads directly to the conception of Jesus who declares himself to be the “light of the world” in John 8:12 and John 9:5.
This Jesus Son of Mary,says to his followers including me, “You are the light of the world” Matthew 5:14.
And finally, the now Saint Pope John Paul II exhorted us Ugandans to “let your light shine” when he visited Uganda in 1993, the year I was ordained a deacon by Cardinal Basil Hume in Fulham London.
That is the mission I feel is entrusted to me as a christian pursuing the “new evangelisation” today wherever I may go.
Mary who is a great model and the “Star of Evangelization,” is always with us in this mission.
LUMEN DEI,LUMEN CHRISTI, DEO GRATIAS.