CYCLE I: HOMILY FOR WEDNESDAY OF THE 2ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME (1)
CYCLE I: HOMILY FOR WEDNESDAY OF THE 2ND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME
HOMILY THEME: SELFISHNESS & CONCEIT : A NIGERIAN DILEMMA!
BY: Fr. Benedict Agbo
HOMILY: Feast of Blessed Iwene Tansi
* Phil 2 : 1 – 11, Matt 13 : 31 – 46.
“Do nothing from selfishness and conceit but in humility count others better than yourself”.
When we stop thinking about God and about heaven as our supreme treasure, so many things begin to go wrong ;
1. Human life becomes very selfish and political.
2. Evil thrives because people lose the sense of sin.
3. Life becomes self destructive.
I have never seen Nigeria get so bad. I have never seen a government so selfish and insensitive about the interest of the people. I have never seen the Nigerian judiciary give judgments that cause ridicule to the legal profession such as we have witnessed in the past few years in Nigeria . I have never seen the legislatures get so compromised with the function of checkmating the executive arms as now that even to ask the President to explain sensitive matters about insecurity have become a difficulty. I have never seen the Church so complacent in the face of evil and so complicit with challenging an evil government that the very few ones that dare to speak are threatened and bishops are kidnapped and returned as a warning. I have never seen government get so insensitive about the care of the education of its youths as now and even in the dangerous wave of CoViD 19, can afford to allow a big crowd of University Students gather to cluster some 10 in a room and some 100 in a classroom with no test facilities and all the risks involved. I have never seen the Church so corrupt and so called prophets of God so compromised in materialistic quests as what we see happening in Nigeria today. The buttom line of all this is selfishness and conceit.
Comparing the generation of Fr Tansi (as we celebrate his feast day today) to this generation of priests and politians will be like comparing a chassis vehicle with its tokumbo. That generation feared God ; this generation fears man. That generation desired heaven ; this generation desires the earth.
Power in Nigeria is becoming alcoholic ; a politician will drink it and never want to leave the bar until he/ she is carried away with a barrow. What do we expect in a country where movement in the road has become a nightmare with all the insecurity ( fear of kidnappers) and lawlessness of the traffic. What do we expect rather than self destruction? I am becoming pessimistic about our prayers because we have insisted on asking when we should be knocking and knocking when we should be seeking. May the Lord quicken the fires of revolution in the righteous and courageous few.
May God bless you today.
FR BEN AGBO.
