Dear Friends,

I have just returned from a very fulfilling three-month sabbatical, for which I am deeply grateful to God and to you, my dear parishioners, for your prayers, love, and support that sustained me throughout those months. I am very happy to be back home and once again among you, ready to serve.

I have so much to share with you about my sabbatical experience, and hope to do so in the weeks and months ahead. But let me begin with one incident that has profoundly stayed with me and deepened my appreciation of the power of the Cross of Christ.

My sabbatical began with a deeply inspiring week-long silent retreat at the Franciscan Capuchin Monastery in Kampala. In the peaceful atmosphere of the monastery, surrounded by silence and occasionally serenaded by the gentle humming of birds from the nearby forest, I experienced God's presence in a very profound way. I felt an extraordinary peace.

Looking back, that experience reminds me of Jesus after His baptism. Immediately after the Father revealed His beloved Son at the Jordan, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, where He was severely tested by the evil one. The experience of God's presence, affirmation, and peace was followed by a time of trial.

Something similar happened to me.

On July 14th I set out to officially open our annual E3 Africa-sponsored Global Peace Convention at St. Thomas Aquinas College and later that same week to celebrate the 35th anniversary of my priestly ordination. The journey began beautifully. We prayed before setting off, commending ourselves and our journey to God's protection.

But just as everything seemed to be progressing smoothly, we were involved in a terrible accident.

A speeding vehicle lost control and crashed into the vehicle in which we were traveling with such force that our vehicle was lifted off the ground and flipped upside down. The only sound I remember hearing, apart from the deafening crash, was our driver screaming, "Oh my God!" For a moment I genuinely thought we were going to die. It was terrifying!

When I regained my composure, I managed to squeeze myself out of the overturned vehicle through a window. Our driver followed, and together we helped pull the other three passengers to safety.

When we looked at the vehicle afterward, its extensive damage made it almost impossible to believe that anyone could have survived such a crash. Yet, by the grace of God, all five of us survived. More remarkably, we sustained only minor injuries.

There was another extraordinary detail that has remained etched in my heart. The accident happened only a few feet from a Catholic church. At that very moment of the crash, Holy Mass was being celebrated inside the church. Father Jude, who was celebrating Mass, told us that immediately after Mass, he rushed to the scene of the accident when he heard what had happened.

Was it merely coincidence that we were so close to a church at the very moment our lives were in such danger? I leave that question for each of us to ponder.

But what happened next has become, for me, an even more powerful testimony.

After I had helped everyone out of the vehicle, my nephew noticed that my left middle finger was bleeding. On that finger I wear a ring bearing the image of Jesus crucified on the Cross, with His Blessed Mother Mary and the beloved disciple John standing at the foot of the Cross.

The ring was completely covered in dripping blood. Naturally, everyone became concerned. My companions momentarily forgot about their own injuries and immediately got water to wash the blood from my finger. But when we washed it and I removed the ring to examine the extent of the wound, something astonishing became apparent. There was no wound, no cut, no scratch-nothing on that finger.

In fact, there was no visible injury anywhere on my body that could explain where the blood had come from. To this day I still cannot explain it.

I do not claim to know precisely what happened; nor do I want to turn an extraordinary experience into something it may not be. But as a priest and as a believer, I cannot ignore what that moment stirred in my heart. For me it became a powerful reminder of the Precious Blood of Jesus and the saving power of His Cross.

(Continued next week!)

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