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Saint Columba Catholic Church is a community whose vision focuses on African American spirituality. This simply means that the community worships and serves God by means of African American traditions.
One essential African American tradition is the appropriation and use of African symbols. Therefore, in its rituals and decors, the Saint Columba community uses symbols of the Akan people of Ghana in West Africa.
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Adinkra
In Twi, one of their major dialects, the Akan people call their symbols Adinkra, which means “saying good-bye.” Tradition has it that these symbols carry messages that people exchanged when parting – wisdom for the road. Hence, the meanings of Adinkra symbols seek to encourage, sustain, educate, inspire, protect, guide, guard, direct, etc., while people are apart, and until they meet again.
The following are the meanings of the four Adinkra symbols on Saint Columba Church’s main doors. We
provide each symbol’s name, literal meaning, significance and our appropriation, and its relation to a text
in Christian scripture._____________________________________
We hope you take the time to assimilate the knowledge these symbols offer and explain them to others who may ask and that the symbols act as inspiration and guides as we journey through life together.
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sankofa
Literally: Go back and take it! Our elders say, “It is not forbidden to return and take what you forget.” Remembering the past, from where we come, helps to know the future, where we’re going; both the past and the future determine the present, where we stand and who we are, now.
Significance: Sánkófá is the symbol of positive and active remembering.
We enter these doors to celebrate the memorial of our liberator, Jesus. We do as he commanded: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24, 25).
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ese ne tekrema
Literally: teeth and tongue. Our ancestors draw a lesson from how the teeth, hard and sharp as they are, collaborate with the most delicate, soft, and vulnerable tongue. Their peaceful and productive existence in the mouth is a testimony that different people could live together.
Significance: Èsé né tèkrèmá is the symbol of friendship and interdependence.
We hope all who enter through these doors experience the friendship of Jesus in our fellowship. Jesus says, “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from [the Creator] I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
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gye nyame
Literally: Gye Nyame means “Except God.” This symbol is found on the inside door leading to our Mother Lydia [side] Chapel. The middle part of the symbol represents the backbone of a person. Akans see God as the backbone without whom the physical human structure would neither stand nor be productive.
Just as the Israelites experienced God as “the pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night” (Exodus 13:22), so we hope to experience God as our backbone when we enter our Church to worship.
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Akoko nan
Literally: feet of the mother hen. A proverb from the elders says, “The mother hen’s feet step on the chickens without killing them.” This kind of stepping – of the mother hen – rather protects and nurtures life.
Significance: Àkókónán is the symbol of nurturing.
Again, when we enter through these doors we are reminded of what God has in stock for us. We find nourishment for our weary souls, spirits and bodies. Like a mother hen Jesus asks us to flock to him and find rest under his yoke (Matthew 11:28, 29).
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aya
Literally: the name for the “fern” plant. The fern is the most notorious shrub that grows in the tropical rain forest. Its plastic-like nature makes it hard to eradicate or to clear from your farm or land.
Significance: Àyá is symbol of defiance, persistence and perseverance.
We hope all who enter our Church through these doors may learn to be persistent in following Christ: persevering in faith and hope, and untiring in love. This is the lesson Jesus teaches in the passage about the needy friend at midnight (Luke 11:8).
Symbols of St. Columba
→ PDF Flyer
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Adinkra Symbols and Meanings
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