Communion Antiphon, Ps 116 (115):15: How precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his holy ones, alleluia. Today, together with the whole Church, we honor Charles Lwanga, and twenty-one other Ugandan martyrs. They are the first martyrs of Sub-Saharan Africa and true witnesses of the Christian faith. Charles Lwanga, a catechist and a young leader, was martyred in 1886 with a group of Catholic and Anglican royal pages, some of whom were not yet baptized. King Mwanga, who despised the Christian religion, gave orders that all the Christian pages in his service be laid upon a mat, bound, placed onto a pyre and burnt. This took place at Namugongo, just outside Kampala.