My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I would like to thank the organizers of this Conference for my presence here this morning. I deem it a great honour and a privilege to be given the opportunity to deliver this address to you on the occasion of the 9th Ashanti Central Regional Annual Conference of the Knights and Ladies of Marshall comprising Councils and Courts from Offinso, Kumasi, Mamponteng and Mampong, taking place here at the Divine Providence Centre, Jamasi. Let me begin by wishing you all the best for this important Regional Conference. It is my prayer that it will be a success.
The Theme of the Conference
The theme of the Conference is “Examining the Significance of Spirituality and Religion in the Life of the Marshallan”.
The Marshallan
Before examining the significance of spirituality and religion in the life of the Marshallan, it is important to establish who the Marshallan is. The Marshallan is a Catholic man or woman who has joined the Noble Order of the Knights and Ladies of Marshall in the hope of living by the aspirations and example of Sir James Marshall (1829-1889), the patron of the Noble Order. Sir James Marshall was a Scottish Anglican clergyman who converted to Roman Catholicism and became Chief Justice of the Gold Coast, now Ghana. He believed that the Gold Coast, after the departure of the Portuguese missionaries, offered a very favourable environment for the return of Roman Catholic missionaries. In 1879, he asked the Office of the Propagation of Faith in Rome to provide missionaries. This led to the Society of African Missions transferring in 1880 the pioneer French priests, Auguste Moreau and Eugene Murat, from the Island of St. Helene station to establish the Catholic Mission in the Gold Coast at Elmina and the creation of the Roman Catholic Church’s Apostolic Prefecture of the Gold Coast. Many years later, a group of Catholic young men, with their zealous leaders, Brothers J. Brookman-Amissah and J.A. Kwesi-Aaba, decided to establish a fraternal society that would immortalize the memory of Sir James Marshall. The First Council of the Knights of Marshall was inaugurated and consecrated in Sekondi on 18 November, 1926.
The Marshallan is also a knight or dame who champions the values of knighthood. Knights of the medieval era were asked to protect the weak, the defenceless, the helpless, and to fight for the general welfare of all. Their commitment to the Church was so great that they took part in the Crusades, i.e., the military expeditions beginning in the late 11th century that were organized by Western Christians to check the spread of Islam, to retake control of the Holy Land, to conquer pagan areas and to recapture formerly Christian territories. As modern knights and dames, you will not be required to fight wars like those of the past, but you should be ready at all times to defend and protect the church in other ways. This is symbolized by the swords and spears that you carry as Knights and Ladies of the Noble Order.
The Marshallan as a Practitioner of the Christian Religion
The Marshallan must by definition be a practitioner of the Christian religion, or more specifically the Catholic expression of the Christian religion. The Marshallan is someone who has embraced the Catholic faith and is a practising member of the Church. The Marshallan must be one who gives “free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed” (CCC 150), especially belief in the Trinity, i.e., God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This belief in the Trinity is the basis of all other articles of faith. If one is a Marshallan, one must embrace the Catholic faith as expounded by the teaching authority of the Church.
The Marshallan must seek to understand the faith that he or she professes. St. Anselm of Canterbury speaks of “faith in search of understanding” (fides quaerens intellectum). As Christians, we start with expressing faith in God and faith in the teachings of the Church. But then we must endeavour to understand the faith that we profess, the articles of faith that we hold. We do this by reading the Bible and writings on theological matters.
Marshallans must also be spiritual persons. They must show in their lives that they are people who are not enslaved to material things but rather occupy themselves with spiritual matters. They do this primarily through prayer, meditation and self-detachment. In doing this, Marshallans must have as their model Our Lord Jesus Christ whose life was characterized by prayer and self-detachment. We are told time and again in the gospels that Jesus left the multitudes and went to a lonely place where he could be by himself, and there he prayed. It is important for Marshallans to cultivate the habit of prayer, learning from the example of Jesus and his followers in the early church. We communicate and commune with God through prayer, especially personal prayer. The need to pray is stressed in the Bible: 1 Thess 5:16 says, “Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”. In prayer, we place ourselves in God’s presence and cultivate a sense of dependence on him with humility. Like Mary, the sister of Martha, we should learn to sit quietly at the feet of the Lord to listen to what he has to tell us.
Amid the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, we must find time to pray. We must learn to withdraw from time to time to a lonely place to pray. We should follow the example of Christ who, as we have seen, often did this. The classic example was when he fasted and prayed for forty days in the wilderness. The example of Christ inspired the Christians of the early Church, and so we learn from church history that quite a few people sought “the desert ideal” by withdrawing to the desert to embrace the life of the hermit.
In our own time, some people have also sought “the desert ideal”. One of such people is a man called Carlo Carretto (1910-1988), an Italian mystic who was a member of a group known as the Little Brothers of Jesus. These people lived as hermits in the Sahara Desert. Their founder was a desert contemplative called Charles de Foucauld. Carlo Carretto wrote a book entitled Letters from the Desert. In this book, he tells us that we do not need to go to the Sahara Desert or the desert of Judea in order to have a track of desert in our lives. We can find it everywhere – in our homes, in our work places, in the marketplace, etc. He also says that we need to cultivate the habit of contemplation in the streets and to seek solitude. We need to reserve a minute, an hour, a morning, a day, a week, or whatever period of time we can afford in order to commune with God. One day a month or a few days in the year, we need to leave everyone and everything to be with God in solitude. It is in such prayerful and meditative solitude that we can be close to God.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the spirituality that we seek through a life of prayer and contemplation must be accompanied by listening to God’s Word, obeying his commandments and participating in the various sacraments and whatever else we do in church.
The spirituality that we profess must lead us to live in unity and fraternity with our brothers and sisters. This means that we have to be able to live in peace together and follow the biblical model proposed by Psalm 133:1, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down upon the beard, upon the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion!”
In the interests of unity and fraternity, we need to be on good terms not only with God but also with our fellow human beings. There is the need for reconciliation between us and God and between us and our fellow human beings. By the sacrificial death of Christ on the Cross and by his resurrection from the dead, Christ reconciled us with God his Father and us with one another. As St. Paul says,
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation…We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:18-21).
Since Christ has reconciled us to God, we need to be reconciled to each other if we are to live in unity and fraternity. The need for reconciliation with our brothers and sisters is also stated in Mt 5:23-24: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift”. According to the passage, before one seeks forgiveness from God, one must seek forgiveness from one’s brother or sister.
In Ephesians 2:14, Paul says that Christ is “our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility”. Here the stress is on breaking down a wall that separated Jews and Gentiles. In the Jewish Temple, Gentiles were not allowed to go to the inner courts. Paul is saying that through reconciliation Jews and Gentiles become “one new person” and “one body” (Eph. 2:15, 16), being created into a third entity, a body without ethnic boundaries.
Our life of spirituality must lead us to eschew factionalism of which Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 3:3-4. He says, “For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men? For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’ are you not merely men?” As Marshallans, we need to avoid divisions and factions in the Noble Order.
The need for reconciliation is also stressed by the Didache, a document from the end of the first century A.D. It says, “On the Lord’s Day, gather in community to break bread and offer thanks. But confess your sins first, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. No one who has a quarrel with his brother may join your gathering; not until they are reconciled. Your sacrifice must not be made unholy”.
As Knights and Ladies of Marshall, we belong to families. We are husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. What about our marital duties or responsibilities? If we are men, have we been harsh to our wives? Have we been insulting them, or have we even been beating them? Are wives submissive to their husbands? Are wives sometimes rebellious and non-submissive because they have more money and better jobs than their husbands? Even though we have contracted matrimony with our spouses, are we faithful to our marriage vows? Do we have girlfriends or boyfriends in addition to our spouses? Are we breaking the hearts of our spouses by our extramarital affairs? Are we insensitive to the complaints made by our spouses in relation to the affairs we are having? What efforts are we making to end these illegal and immoral extramarital relationships? Where is the spirituality of married couples when they are not faithful to one another but cause heartache to their spouses by acts of infidelity and even ruin their marriages in the process? All this will not make for unity and peace in the home.
Are we perhaps having an affair with some of the sisters and brothers of this Noble Order? In this connection, let me remind you of one of the rules of the fraternity: “No Lady shall debauch, entice or have carnal knowledge of the husband, son or servant of any of her Sisters”. For the men, we can say, “No brother shall debauch, entice or have carnal knowledge of the wife, daughter or maid of any of his Brothers”. Such relations inevitably bring strained relationships and disunity in the Noble Order.
In spite of our different talents and charisms, we form one family, and we should use our different gifts for the good of the Church. As Paul says in Romans, “For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:4-5). We form one family in Christ, no matter our sex, ethnic background, status in society, political affiliation, etc. We must try to be like Christ who was no respecter of persons; he did not discriminate and he offered salvation to all people. In the Noble Order, we should all feel at home, in spite of our different ethnic, social, family and political backgrounds. We become one family through the baptism that we all received. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit”. Again, as Paul says in Gal. 3:27-28, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.
On the basis of these passages, let us ask ourselves the following questions: Do we discriminate against people because they come from a different ethnic group or tribe? Do we show partiality to people on the basis that they come from our ethnic group? Do we give employment to people on the basis that they come from our ethnic group? During elections in the Noble Order or in the country or in church do we vote for candidates just because they come from our ethnic group or because of their competence? Do we discriminate against people because they are poor? Do we discriminate against people because of their gender? What is our attitude to the servants and maids in our homes? Do we treat them with respect and dignity, as they are also created in God’s image? Do we treat them as inferior to our own children? Is the food that we give them as good as what we give to our own children? Do we show preferential treatment to the rich in our churches even when their moral lives leave a lot to be desired? Do they get the best seats in church just because of the big donations they make? Do we discriminate against the poor in our churches? As Knights and Ladies of Marshall, we should see all in the Noble Order as brothers and sisters and treat them as such. There should be no room for discrimination on the basis of sex, social status, political affiliation and ethnicity.
The Marshallan and the Call to Charity
During a court meeting, the following words are addressed to the Sisters:
Sisters, do not go to Almighty God with malice in your hearts. If you are inharmonious in your conscience or have ill-will towards any Sister or any person on earth, then do not go to God under any circumstances. All Christians denounce malice, grudge, vindictive-ness or revengefulness. Such inharmonious conditions belong to the devil and they consequently have the power to destroy mankind. Therefore, Sisters, keep this warning always.
This indeed is a call to love and to avoid evil. Before the giving of the Sign of Embrace, the Noble Lady says, “Beloved, let us love”. She then asks, “What is the meaning of the Sign of Embrace?”, to which the Sisters respond, “Love your neighbour as yourself”. It is clear from all this that the very ritual used the court or council meeting sees the importance of love.
Our Marshallan spirituality should urge us to keep the law of love or charity that Christ commanded. In John 13:34-35 Christ says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, so should you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”. In 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Paul says:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; 5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. …13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
In this passage, Paul speaks of the supreme and incomparable importance of love. St. Augustine says in connection with love, “Love and do what you want”. Our lives as Christians should thus be governed and controlled by love. In this connection, let us ask ourselves the following questions. Do we love God above everything in this world? Does God occupy the centre of our lives, or do we push him to the periphery? Are we on good terms with our neighbours? With the members of our family? With our spouses? With our children? With our work colleagues? What about the members of our church? The members of the Noble Order? Are we able to demonstrate the good qualities of love mentioned in the passage, namely, patience, kindness, endurance? Do we try to do away with the bad qualities mentioned in the passage, namely, insisting on one’s way, jealousy, boastfulness, arrogance, rudeness, irritability, resentfulness?
The Marshallan and the Call to Service
Marshallans must not only have faith but they must also express that faith in concrete action and in good works in relation to other people. In this connection, St. James says,
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill”, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead (James 2:14-17).
St James makes it clear that if we claim to have faith, we must demonstrate that faith concretely by coming to the aid of people in need. We need, for example, to come to the aid of those in need of clothing and food. If we fail to do this, then we can be sure that the faith we profess is dead. It is the same point being made by Christ in the passage from the Gospel of Matthew where Christ says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Mt 25:35‑36). As Marshallan Christians, we shall be judged by the Son of Man on the basis of the concrete acts of goodness that we performed or failed to perform for those in need. The faith that we profess must be articulated in concrete works such as those mentioned in the passage from the Gospel of Matthew.
In the light of all this, let us try to answer the following questions for ourselves: How do we relate to the poor people in our neighbourhoods? How do we relate to the poor people that we worship with? How do we respond to the needs of the poor people in our towns and villages? What about the members of our extended family? Do we see Christ in the poor people whom we encounter? What are our motives for coming to the aid of those in need? Is it to be praised for our benevolence? As an Order, are we doing enough for the poor in our midst?
In this connection, we may want to meditate on these words of St. John Chrysostom: (quoted by Tissa Balasuriya, Eucharist and Human Liberation, p. 25).
Do you wish to honour the Body of Christ? Do not despise him when he is naked. Do not honour him here in the church building with silks, only to neglect him outside, when he is suffering from cold and from nakedness. For he who said, ‘This is my Body’ is the same who said, ‘You saw Me – a hungry man and you did not give me to eat’. Of what use is it to load the Table of Christ? Feed the hungry and then come and decorate the Table. You are making a golden chalice and you do not give a cup of cold water? The Temple of your Brother’s body is more precious than this Temple (the church). The Body of Christ becomes for you an altar. It is more holy than the altar of stone on which you celebrate the holy sacrifice. You are able to contemplate this altar everywhere, in the street and in the open squares.
The Marshallan and Social Justice
Being spiritual entails that Marshallans should champion the cause of justice. They cannot close their eyes to injustice. Justice is necessary not only in our judicial system but also in our dealings with our fellow human beings. There is the need for justice in the secular world in which we live, in the church and in the Noble Order. As Marshallans, we need to denounce injustices vehemently in the tradition and spirit of the Old Testament prophets like Amos and Jeremiah. In Amos 5:21‑24, God says,
“I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever‑flowing stream”.
In Jeremiah 22:3, we read,
“Thus says the LORD: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place”.
In the passage from Amos, God says he is not pleased with the sacrifices of the Jews because they are not concerned with justice. The passage from Jeremiah also stresses the need to promote social justice. These two Old Testament prophets ask us to articulate our faith in God concretely by seeing to the needs of our brothers and sisters.
In the light of what these two prophets are saying, let us try to answer the following questions: How do I attend to the social needs of those I come into contact with? How do we as an Order attend to the needs of the poor and deprived in our society? Do we do enough for such people? Can we do more individually and collectively for such people?
The Marshallan and Morality
Our spirituality should lead us to take good care of our children. There are many young people who are taking all kinds of drugs like wee, cocaine and, these days, tramadol or tramore. Where is our spirituality as Christian parents if we are not able to form our children to keep the temples of their bodies holy but destroy them with these drugs? Where is the spirituality of adult Marshallans when they destroy their own bodies with all kinds of very strong alcoholic drinks including the so-called bitters, some of which are Adonko Bitters, Biegya Bitters, Agya Appiah Bitters, Obuasi and many others?
Where is spirituality in our lives when our work ethic is very bad, when we go to work late and laze about in the workplace, spend the time gossipping, reading newspapers and playing lotto instead of working? What kind of spirituality are we practising when, instead of going to work, we are in church praying from morning till evening on weekdays? For those of us who work, where is our spirituality when as Christians we refuse to work hard but then collect our salaries at the end of the month? When we do that, we are committing a social sin, a sin against Mother Ghana.
We cannot claim to be spiritual when we do not have the spirit of forgiveness and take part in the practice of invoking curses at shrines like that of Antoa in this diocese or of Nogokpo in the Volta Region to kill those who have wronged us. Where is our spirituality if we wish our brother or sister dead just because he or she has wronged us? This must stop if we claim to be Christians. We must be prepared to forgive those who wrong us, not seven times but seventy times seven times.
In line with the spirituality that we profess, we also have to tackle the canker of corruption in our country. Spirituality is incompatible with bribery and corruption which is endemic in our country. If we are Christian judges, we should know that our duty is to interpret the laws of the land fairly and impartially. The law should not be a respecter of persons, as all people should be treated equally before it. This implies that Christian judges, and all judges for that matter, should not be influenced in their judgment by monetary considerations. However, this is not always the case in our country where some judges are known to have taken bribes, with the result that there is no justice.
We cannot claim to be spiritual Catholic policemen and women if we stand by the roadside and take money from drivers, if we accept bribes in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest. We cannot claim to be spiritual as policemen and women when, instead of convicting offending drivers, we let such people go for a fee. Spirituality has no place in the workplace because of bribery and corruption. There are people working in offices who want bribes before they offer their services to those who go there seeking assistance. In senior high schools, some male tutors are running after female students who are as old as their own children. In universities and other tertiary institutions, some male lecturers give inflated grades or marks to female students in exchange for sex. If a young and beautiful woman goes to look for a job, she may be lucky to be offered the job without being asked for sexual favours or ending up in bed with the potential male employer.
Many of our traders cannot claim to be spiritual because of the presence of corruption in the marketplace. Corruption takes place when pharmacists and others sell fake drugs on the market; when they intentionally sell expired drugs; when market women selling tomatoes in the market or by the roadside put the rotten ones at the bottom of the basket and the good ones on top, creating the impression that all the tomatoes are good. Corruption takes place at the filling stations when petrol or diesel mixed with kerosene or some other stuff is sold to unsuspecting customers, leading to the destruction of the engines of their cars. Corruption takes place when certain types of traditional medicines that claim to be a panacea or a cure for all illnesses are sold to a gullible and ignorant public, damaging the health of people.
There is also bribery and corruption among media practitioners. Some of them take money from some people or a political party to disseminate news that is untrue and which even has the potential to heighten tensions in the country.
Spirituality is also missing in sports because of bribery and corruption. If the allegations against some people in high places of the Ghana Football Association and the allegations of the bribing of referees and players in our local football competitions are true, then they are good examples of corruption that is destroying sports in our country.
On the political front, the picture is not better. During electioneering campaigns, some politicians bribe the electorate with all kinds of things so that they vote for them. Christian politicians should avoid such practices and should indeed do politics in a spiritual and holy manner, a manner that will be pleasing to God. The electorate on their part should not allow themselves to be bribed.
I do not know if some of our Marshallan brothers are traditional rulers but if some of them are, then their spirituality is questionable. Chieftaincy is indeed a sacred and revered institution in our country, and our chiefs are considered custodians and repositories of traditional wisdom. However, some traditional rulers, some of them Christians, are of late bringing the chieftaincy institution into disrepute by their excessive love of money. Some of them can sell the same plot of land to two or more people, and this often results in endless litigation. Such a practice constitutes corruption and Christian traditional rulers, especially Marshallan ones, should not associated with it.
Still on the moral front, it is our duty as Marshallans to speak out and condemn practices that go against the practice of Christianity. There are many of these. For instance, we are confronted today with the phenomenon of same sex marriage. Some ten years ago, following the passage of the same sex marriage legislation into law in Britain, the former British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron, expressed the desire to export same sex marriage around the world so that other countries could follow suit. I must commend the Noble Order for the Press Statement that it issued in Accra in February 2013 condemning Homosexuality and Lesbianism. Currently, the draft bill on the “Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values 2021” will hopefully soon be passed into law. I think the Noble Order should commend our parliamentarians on a good job done when the Bill becomes Law. At the same time, the Noble Order should challenge the President of the Republic to make known his position on the subject of same sex marriage, just as one Bishop Joseph Osei-Bonsu of the Konongo-Mampong Diocese did in his “Open Letter to the President” of 3 April 2023.
The Marshallan and Political Life
The spirituality of Marshallans should challenge them to try to transform the world of politics. Marshallans should infuse Christian values into politics. Individual members of the Church are citizens of two worlds, as it were – the Church and the nation. They should, therefore, “render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and unto God what belongs to God”. As citizens of the nation, Marshallans have every right to be involved in the political life of the country. They should be actively involved in politics. They should join political parties, take part in voting, seek key positions in political parties, in government, district assemblies, etc. They should strive to become members of Parliament, president, etc. If they refuse to vote, or show indifference to political issues, other people will vote and take decisions which will affect them, for good or for ill.
In the light of what has been said above, let us answer the following questions: Am I convinced that as a Marshallan I have an obligation to be involved in the politics of my nation? Do I take an active part in politics? Do I make my expertise available to the nation in political matters? If I am actively involved in politics, do I do “clean” politics? Am I involved in corrupt political practices?
In this connection, it will be good for us to reflect on what Vatican II says in Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on The Church in the Modern World):
Those who are suited or can become suited should prepare themselves for the difficult, but at the same time, the very noble art of politics, and should seek to practise this art without regard for their own interests or for material advantages. With integrity and wisdom, they must take action against any form of injustice and tyranny, against arbitrary domination by an individual or a political party and any intolerance (no.75).
On the Christian’s political responsibility, we may also want to reflect on what is said in the Post-Synodal Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa:
On the political front, the arduous process of building national unity encounters particular problems in the Continent where most of the States are relatively young political entities. To reconcile profound differences, overcome longstanding ethnic animosities and become integrated into international life demands a high degree of competence in the art of governing. That is why the Synod prayed fervently to the Lord that there would arise in Africa holy politicians — both men and women — and that there would be saintly Heads of State, who profoundly love their own people and wish to serve rather than be served (par. 111).
I will expect the Noble Order to speak out occasionally on political matters. All too often, we know that politically things are not going well in our country, but we fail to speak out. We fear for our skin. We need to have the courage to speak out when necessary. As Marshallans, we wield swords to symbolize our role as defenders of the Church and its hierarchy. But if we are afraid to speak out when the Church and innocent people are attacked, then what is the justification for carrying swords and escorting bishops and priests to and from church?
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in order to attain the spirituality required of us, we should take our religion seriously and avoid whatever militates against spirituality. We should apply the teachings of Christianity to our daily lives so that we can lead morally good lives and be good citizens. Our religion should transform us and make us have a good impact on our society. We should live in such a way that, in the words of St Paul, we become “children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). We should behave in such a way that we can again say with St. Paul, “… if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I would like to conclude by saying that in being Christians who are spiritual, we Marshallans will need to take up the challenges thrown to us in this talk and effect a critical transformation of ourselves and of our country. Failure to do this will make people continue to live with the impression that the Noble Order is only an association in which men and women dress beautifully, carry swords and spears to make an impression, attend the funerals of members, give big donations at these funerals, hold periodical parties at which beer, Guinness, kebab and good food are in big trouble and for the rest nothing is done! You and I know that this is not the correct impression of the Noble Order, but what are you doing to correct this mistaken impression? If we can take up and implement some of the challenges thrown to us in this talk, then we can be sure that we are transforming ourselves and contributing to the life of the nation. When we do this, we may proudly call ourselves Marshallans and worthy members of the Noble Order. Thank you and may God bless you!
A talk given on the occasion of the 9th Ashanti Central Regional Annual Conference of the Knights and Ladies of Marshall on 5 August 2023 at the Divine Providence Centre, Jamasi.
By Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu, Bishop of Konongo-Mampong and Supreme Spiritual Director of the Knights and Ladies of Marshall