SVD family in Ghana-Liberia urged to carry founder’s fire at 150th anniversary pilgrimage

Kpando, Daniel Orlando –Members of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), Ghana-Liberia Province, have been challenged to carry the “fire of the founder, not the ashes,” as the congregation celebrates 150 years of missionary witness and service around the world.

Preaching during a special commemorative Mass in Kpando, Rev. Fr. Andrew Anumu Quaye-Foli, SVD, called on members of the SVD family to resist the temptation of empty tradition and instead rekindle the living spirit that inspired their founder, St. Arnold Janssen.

“The spirit of the founder lives in people,” Fr. Quaye-Foli reminded the congregation, stressing that true fidelity to the SVD mission is found not in archives or history books, but in the lives of those who embody the founder’s zeal and vision today. “We are not called to keep the ashes of the founder. We are called to keep the fire of the founder burning.”

Fr. Quaye-Foli drew a stark warning from Scripture, referencing the rise of a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph. This forgetting, he explained, is what happens when communities lose their identity and fail to transmit their spiritual heritage: “The spirit of the founder is lost when people are lost; when people go away from the mission.”

Fr. Quaye-Foli made the call on Wednesday, July 16, at St. Raphael Quasi Parish in Kpando, during a Mass that followed a prayerful pilgrimage to the Our Lady of Lourdes Grotto in Agbenorxoe, Kpando in the Volta Region of Ghana.

Drawing on the story of Moses and the burning bush, Fr. Quaye-Foli challenged the faithful to “remove their sandals,” a symbol, he explained, of letting go of spiritual pride, laziness, and indifference. “Holiness begins in ordinary places, not in temples or sanctuaries. If you cannot find holiness in your home, you will not find it in the church either.”

He reminded the congregation that Moses was not shaped in Pharaoh’s palace, but in the desert — with sheep and silence. So too, he said, God forms missionaries not in comfort but through trials. “We must not be the generation that buries the mission. We must not be the generation that loses the fire.”

The Mass ended with a moving invocation: “May the Lord pour out His Spirit upon us again… the same Spirit that lived in the founder and the co-founders… May the Lord put the fire of the founder in our hearts. And may we carry not ashes, but fire.”

Watch the homily below