When the Apostles gathered in the upper room awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit, Mary was with them. On Saturday, in Ho-Kpevele, her spiritual daughters, the Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church (SMMC), kept the same watch.
The Sisters were present in prayer as eyewitnesses at the St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church, where the Most Rev. Emmanuel Kofi Fianu, SVD, Bishop of Ho, ordained their sons, Rev. Fr. Edmund Elorm Ackuaku and Rev. Fr. Jude Tachie, to the priesthood.
For the Sisters, the two are not only sons of the Church but close friends, some of whom they befriended and stayed alongside throughout their years of seminary formation.
Priestly formation is a long road, and the two men did not walk it alone. Some of the Sisters journeyed with them through those years, sharing the friendship, encouragement and companionship that sustain a seminarian from the first day of formation to the day of ordination.
The Bishop’s homily on the Good Shepherd carried a message to the Sisters too. By virtue of their consecration, and living under the maternity of Mary, they too are shepherds to the people they serve in their places of apostolate.
The image is a fitting one. Mary shepherded Jesus from his infancy through childhood and into his public ministry, and she continues to shepherd the Church through her prayers.
The Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church carry on that maternal task in their own way. They feed, they protect, and they seek the welfare of those in their care.
Through teaching, healing, and social and pastoral apostolates, they respond to the needs of the Church, and each of these is, in its own way, an act of shepherding.
For the Sisters, the celebration did not end at the altar rail. They accompanied the two Priests to their respective Parishes (The Immaculate Conception Parish, Kpando and St. Augustine Parish, Hohoe) and witnessed their first solemn Masses on September 20, 2026.
It was a fitting echo of the Bishop’s homily, which reminded the newly ordained that the good shepherd stands by his flock.
In walking with Fr. Ackuaku and Fr. Tachie from ordination to their first Masses, the Sisters showed what that means in practice.
At the ordination of two Priests, the Church saw two new shepherds. Standing beside them, as Mary once stood with the Apostles, were women who have spent their own lives learning what shepherding costs.
By: Sr. Angela Amoatwo, SMMC
Catholic Sister Communicators Network-Ghana (CASCON-GH)
