HOMILY
AT THE OPENING MASS OF THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE OF NIGERIA IN ABUJA,
1.3.2020, BY ARCHBISHOP IGNATIUS A. KAIGAMA
On behalf of all of us in the Catholic
Archdiocese of Abuja I have the distinct pleasure and honour to heartily
welcome you, the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria and all other invited guests, to
Abuja and to this Holy Mass marking the beginning of the first plenary of CBCN
in 2020,
The people of God in Abuja Archdiocese
happily join the Catholic Bishops in thanksgiving to God for the gift of the
Church and we are delighted to pray together for more spiritual health, further
pastoral growth for the salvation of souls and for the progress of our beloved
nation, Nigeria.
The first day of our plenary has
coincided, by divine arrangement, with the first Sunday in Len In our first
reading, the biblical writer in Genesis chapter two narrates how the heavens
and the earth were created and how our first parents, Adam and Eve, were placed
by God at the start of human history.
The author of Genesis emphasizes two
fundamental facts: 1) all human beings are made in the image and likeness of
God and 2) human beings are required to live in a harmonious community,
respecting the order and dignity of creation as designed by God.
According to the biblical narrative, God
created Adam first and when he saw that Adam needed a companion God made a
suitable help mate for him by forming Eve from the ribs of Adam. They were a
happy couple until the crafty serpent turned the woman and through her, the
man, against God. The devil taught them to say “no” to God, i.e. to disobey
God. The devil is an expert in this.
He broke the communion between our first
parents and God by urging them to eat of the fruits of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden them to eat. We are not
concerned here with opinions expressed by biblical commentators on the
historicity or the nature of the forbidden fruit, but about the fact that an
otherwise good relationship with God was ruptured or damaged by the sin of
disobedience. Man abused the freedom of Paradise, thus initiating a sinful
community apart from God.
The disobedience of Adam and Eve not
only destroyed their good relationship with God but also wounded their
relationship with each other, which explains why there is today in the world so
much unbelievable and atrocious demonstration of inhumanity and a terrible
deficiency of charity. Even the physical environment sadly has been affected
because of man’s disobedience to God. Pope Francis worries in Laudato Si, about
the degrading of the environment such as deforestation, use of chemicals
harmful to the soil, pollution and ultimately the violation of human life which
is sacred.
The disastrous consequences of the sin
of our first parents, which has affected all human beings, according to St.
Paul’s letter to the Romans, has been remedied by the coming, death and
resurrection of Christ whose obedience to the will of God brought us grace,
life and righteousness. The good news now is that no matter how great our sin
may be, grace can neutralize its effects.
We have the opportunity in this season
of Lent to soberly examine our lives and to mend them by saying a categorical
“yes” to God. To achieve this we must put on our spiritual armour to battle,
like Jesus did in the desert, the evil one who with impunity tempts us to
violate God’s orders. He poisons our cordial relationship with God;
destabilizes our common humanity by creating tension and conflict and making us
less sensitive to the sacredness of life and so, we are prepared to fight,
kidnap, kill, and do abominable things to one another.
We must acquire the moral strength and
spiritual capacity to repel the forces of the evil one and his agents through
the word of God. Happily, the theme of the CBCN conference this year is “The
Word of God: A Lamp to my Feet and a Light to my Path”. This is in line with
Pope Francis establishing the Sunday of the Word of God, devoted to the
celebration, study and dissemination of the Word of God.
As we embark on this Lenten spiritual
journey of forty days, the desired results expected will be a growing in
understanding of the riches hidden in Christ; succeeding in what St. John of
the Cross refers to as progress from purgation to enlightenment and then to
union with God. Another sign of success will be the practise of pure unspoiled
religion which in James 1:27 is described as “coming to the help of orphans and
widows ... and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.”
Both the first and second readings today
speak of temptation. In the Gospel, Satan tempted Jesus to use his spiritual
powers to meet his personal needs. In another temptation the Devil wanted Jesus
to put on a sensational display of power by working a miracle and also to use
political power to achieve his personal ends.
Temptations are still very much with us
when preachers constitute themselves into a personality cult or some to political
idolatry whereby they worship those in authority.
In contemporary Nigeria perhaps one of
our biggest temptations is one of believing in our country against all odds.
For quite a while now, it appears that it is our country’s destiny to always
dance on the edge of the perilous precipice. Otherwise how does one explain the
uninterrupted movement from one crisis to another? If it is not the murderous
insurgents ravaging rural communities and lives in the North East, then it is
the herdsmen laying waste towns and villages and leaving tales of death and
destruction in their trail. Most recently, the wanton kidnapping of citizens
for ransom has taken a brutal and deadly turn with very grave and sickening
consequences. Although those in authority continue to assure the populace that
they are doing everything in their power to arrest the ugly trend, permanent
solutions and peace will continue to elude us if we do not repent, change our
ways and turn to God for help and for healing.
In moments such as these, our leaders
must strive to bring us together and use all the resources we can muster to
confront our common challenges. They must avoid any impression that suggests
complacency or outright lack of interest in the plight of innocent victims. The
trend of resorting to self-help is indicative of the distrust of the government
and its security agencies who are seemingly overwhelmed by criminals. All these
call for concerted and harmonious efforts from all leaders – political, traditional,
religious to work together to pull our people away from the precipice.
This is no time to play politics of
division or to exaggerate fault lines of religion, ethnocentrism or region to
further set one segment of the country against another. This is not the time to
bicker about who could be the best president, the best minister or the best
army chief. It is equally shameful to reduce our misfortunes into an argument
about what faith has suffered more. Isn’t it shameful and regrettable enough
that dozens die every day, regardless of whatever faith they belong to? When we
allow such rhetorics of division to dominate the socio-political space in the
face of a grave danger, then the terrorists and criminals carry the day. We
cannot afford to give people without conscience the honour of dividing us
further or determining our daily discourse. In normal climes, terrorism and
violent criminality are very hard to rout out. With disunity, distrust,
fault-finding and finger-pointing, the hope for solutions is dead on arrival.
Yes we cannot pretend that all is well
with Nigeria. But neither can we give up hope of overcoming our challenges and
of building a united and prosperous nation. We cannot afford to give in to the
culture of disillusionment and even despair, of grumbling and perpetual
lamentation. By holding firmly to our faith in the Word of God and all the
teachings emanating from it and by living them day by day we will not only
embrace our true identity as members of Christ’s body, but also be able to
evangelize our environment. For evangelization primarily calls us to be, that
is, to witness with our lives, and then to speak up, to speak of our faith, of
what difference the Gospel and the teachings of the Church have made in our
lives, and of what differences these can also bring to the wider society
through us.
It will be a pelagian heresy to think
that we can achieve this by ourselves unaided by God’s graces, his healing
presence and a more sincere relationship with ourselves. Like Barthemaeus, the
blind man in Mark 10:46-52, we must cry out to Jesus and ask him to heal us of
our spiritual, social and political blindness and to even protect us from
coronavirus and inspire our leaders to do something quickly and effectively to
control its spread in Nigeria. We must beg our blessed Mother Mary to ask her
son as she did during the wedding in Cana, “they have no wine”. In the case of
Nigeria, what we need is more peace not wine, because we witness violence on
the streets, human beings being dehumanized by the ungodly acts of kidnapping
and other forms of criminality. Religion is used as a weapon whether by
terrorists or by others subtly to marginalize or disfavour others.
Our country seems to be like that man
who fell among armed robbers. We are battling with terrorists, cultists,
criminals, kidnappers, economic saboteurs, unscrupulous political leaders,
religious bigots and partisan traditional rulers. It seems everyone is just
passing by, including those who shape our policies and into whose hands we have
entrusted the economy, the security, the unity and stability, the present and
the future of our children. We need Good Samaritans (Substitute Samaritans with
Nigerians)!
Our primary task as religious leaders is
to steer the people to conversion and holiness of life but because of the
poverty and hardship suffered by our people, preachers are forced to become
miracle workers or political revolutionaries, throwing verbal bombs, missiles,
grenades, poisonous gas at political authorities from the pulpit. The question
is whether the authorities are listening or merely ignoring what they consider
the ranting of preachers!
The Church does not only pontificate on
what should be done by political leaders, she continues to do her best by
extending help to the poor in towns and villages through our many hospitals,
schools and other social services. We absorb many workers in our parishes and
institutions but we are limited by means, hence the need for government
collaboration with faith-based organizations to reduce hunger, poverty,
illiteracy, disease and unnecessary deaths.
The multiplicity of pious religious
activities in Nigeria and the ubiquity of religious houses are not enough to
make Nigeria a paradise. We must work honestly towards a change of mentality,
namely, that everyone should be patriotically concerned about our nation and
the common good rather than parochial ethnic, political or religious interests.
Our conviction is that just as Jesus was
victorious over the devil, so shall we also be victorious through hard work and
God-fearing behaviour. Peace, justice and wealth will flow in Nigeria as a
river.
If, as reported by the Oxford English
Dictionary, Nigeria has contributed 29 new Nigerian English words and
expressions such as “mama put” joining at least 57 other words of Nigerian
English origin already in the dictionary, it means that we can do more in a lot
of ways. We already have very distinguished Nigerian professionals, creative
business men and women making the waves in different parts of the world. Why
can’t we do something better at home through well-developed social
infrastructure, provision of employment and good pension schemes?
I wish the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria a
happy and fruitful deliberation. May the words of our mouth, the thoughts of
our hearts, the reflection inspired by the Holy Spirit and the pastoral and
social solutions we shall propose for the good of our Church and our beloved
nation bear abundant fruits. May our prayers wipe away evil from our land,
soaked by the blood of innocent citizens and melt the stony hearts of people
who rejoice at the suffering of other brothers and sisters whom they keep in
captivity.
May Mary our Queen Mother and Patroness
continue to intercede for us and our dear country and all her leaders. Amen.
Welcome to Abuja.
