Praise be to Jesus Christ! Please may I ask you permission to sit down and address you. I cannot stand up for too long. I thank God who made everything as it is. It is the will of God (Uche Nna) that I am here today. It is that will of God (Uche Nna) that I did all my work in the Catholic Church all through my life. My motto in life is “Thy Will Be Done”. However, sometimes in one’s life the will of God appears deceptive and you begin to ask whether God is still there.

The reason is that as we worship God, we expect certain things from him, but those things may not be forthcoming. A certain Saint after sometimes of hardship after trying to do the will of God, asked Jesus ‘Is it how you treat your friends’? Jesus told her that such was how he treats his friends. The saint said “No wonder your friends are very few”.

I am talking about the ‘the will of God’. Ask yourself ‘am I doing my won will or the will of God? If you are doing what is not your will, if you like continuing to build your Cathedral, whatever you ask God shall be given to you. Therefore, I am saying that all of you should beg God to help you to do his will. It is the will of God that should be done and not your own will. God works wonderful things for those who do his will. Ask my driver Linus, he will tell you what God is doing for me.

There may be a time we do not have money even to eat, but when we start praying, God will send somebody to us. If it is possible to you, try to do the will of God. I want to tell you that it no easy to do the will of God. This is because; most often God appears to be silent on you. The person that loves God so much is sometimes allowed by God to suffer terribly. St. Theresa of Avilla and John Chrysostom are examples we can readily cite. Actually to be a friend of Jesus Christ is not easy. There are situations when one may be tempted to insult him.

I sincerely thank you for asking me to speak but I want make my speech to be brief. Remember to do the will of God and not your will. If you were to do the will of God, though it may be difficult, but there are joys and blessedness following you. If you are doing the will of God, then you should not expect things to work exactly the way you want it. Our greatest problem is that we would like our will to be done even when our will is not the right thing.

I want to tell you not to look for the easy way always especially we the Bishops and the Priest. It has been discovered that easy way has never brought anybody to a great height. When Bishop Francis was speaking he made mention of what happened during the funeral of my mother, it is true that people are allowed to kill fowls, goats or cows during such ceremony, but some do not know why those things should be killed.

If were to do that, people would have said that the Bishop has given an example. They have forgotten that the Bishop may not be the best in theology. We have been Bishops according to the level of our intelligence. However I pray all of you to do the will of God so that by the time we join our father’s house in the next world, there we shall see Bishop Eneja.

Ask yourself: are you doing whatever you are doing to attract praise from men in this world? It is true that I stayed at Onitsha; I thank God and pray that the spirit of envy and jealousy among the priests should be destroyed. If I tell you what my fellow priest did to me, you will not understand. What I know is that anybody that comes out to follow Jesus must suffer. Let me not take your time but another thing I would like to remind you of it love. Who is the mother of love? I remember when I was teaching spiritual theology in the Seminary, I used to tell them that the mother of love is suffering.

We may not have the time to explain this in detail. Suffering which we are talking about is not the result of your sinful actions. What we are talking about is mortification. This is very important. It is mortification to refrain from eating in-between meals and be satisfied with what is set on the table. One can also eat food without salt. This can be penance or mortification. There are areas of mortification everywhere. Instead of asking the children to go and clear a portion of grass, why can’t you do it yourself as mortification?

Finally, may I remind you of the few words I have spoken to you: God’s will (Uche Nna), Suffering (Afufu) and Mortification. In case of mortification, if you have been used to spiritual exercise, it would not be difficult to mortify yourself. Mortification is very important in the life of a Christian. When I was teaching in Bigard, the only thing I succeeded in doing was to teach the Seminarians the principles of life. I was hoping that those principles would help them after ordination or by the time they would be going for further studies in the oversea countries. In mortification, you are not expected to take up those that are above you.

No, any mortification you are undergoing in anger is of no use. These principles I am talking about is not easy to imbibe but if you continue to put them into practice day and night, they soon become part of you. If I am still alive, I will continue to emphasis that holiness of life does not consist in high theologies, but in principles. It is principle that helps you not to be too greedy such that your eyes would not be fully attracted by food. How to know somebody who is not disciplined is that wherever he/she sees food, his/her eyes would go to the food more than ten times in a second. Whether you studied in Bigard or Rome, principles are the same everywhere.

I have to stop here, if I have forgotten anything, which I should have said, please forgive me. I conclude by saying that whoever does the will of God to the end would be loved by God; he will as well be loved by the Christians and fellow priests. But when you examine these friendships, you come to realize that they are the fruits of the will of God. I pray God, to please; give me the grace and the strength to do his will while I am still alive. Praise be to Jesus.

Culled from The Legend Magazine.