Homily at the Christian Wake of Late Rev. Fr. Alphonsus Bello Yashim at Our Lady of Apostles’ Catholic Church, Independent Way, Kaduna (31st May, 2021).
1: I guess most of us will be shocked to think that God can ask anything of us. Asking presupposes a level of helplessness, a need or a want, an inadequacy, a lack of adequate knowledge. You ask because you don’t have and the one asking negotiates from a position of relative weakness. You ask for road directions or how to fill a form because you are ignorant. It was the late Chief Abiola who said,‘The hand that gives is always on top of the hand that receives.’We can now appreciate the irony of Jesus asking for a favour from the owner of the donkey on which he rode to Jerusalem.
2: The Psalmist says that: The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it belong to Him(Ps. 24:1). In whose hand are the depths of the earth, the peaks of the mountains are His.The sea is His, for it was He who made it. His hands formed the dry land (Ps. 94: 4-5). If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains (Ps. 50:12). The Lord said to Job: Who has given to Me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is Mine(Job: 41:11).
3: There is, however, an irony when God asks and when we humans respond to God when He asks. When Jesus asked for the donkey, he sanctified it by making use of it. It became the first donkey to be openly honoured by human beings who put their clothes down on the road. When the friend of Jesus responded to his request by offering him the upper room, the Lord sanctified that room by making it the first altar for the consecration of His body as the Eucharist. When the little boy offered his two fish and five loaves, Jesus used it to feed five thousand people(Jn. 6:9).
4: When God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son, he obeyed and in return, God made him an offer and fulfilled His plans to ensure that his children would be numerous as the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. Indeed, as Abraham lifted up his knife, God said to him:‘Do not do anything to him, because now I know that you fear God because you have not withheld from Me, your son, your only son(Gen 22: 12). So, when God asks, He does not do so to fulfil a need or a want but it is simply to make us a vessel of His honour and glory. His plans are revealed in our total obedience to Him.
5: We all know that death will come. However, the situation in Nigeria beggars belief and comprehension. Nowhere in the world are innocent citizens being gruesomely murdered in broad daylight with absolutely no consequences. This could be a fitting way to describe how our governments see us today.
Fellow-citizens, you are on your own. Your security is in your own hands. Keeping you safe is not our immediate priority. Foreign bandits or anyone for that matter can come at will, kill, loot, rape, kidnap and murder you. They can wipe out your communities, destroy your homes, your farmlands, properties and so on. They can kidnap or murder your children at will. They can rustle your cattle. If they kidnap your children, your wives or husbands, we will consider you criminals for negotiating for their release with the bandits. We are preparing a law that could see you go to jail for 15 years for this heinous crime against your fatherland.
You do not have our permission to negotiate with bandits. Do not bother telling us when you bring back your loved ones (after all you have committed an offence). Do not expect us at your funerals. If you want to come and formally tell us how many have been killed or kidnapped in your community, you have to find your way to Abuja or your state capital. We cannot come to console you because we may be guilty by association. Our wives and children are safely in government houses and they move around with bulletproof cars and escorts. We are not here by our choice. We did not stage a coup. You elected us and we will choose how to govern you. Be warned.
6: My brothers and sisters, today, as we all relive the circumstances of the mindless murder of our beloved son and priest, Fr Alphonsus Yashim Bello, we are forced to ask ourselves, how did Nigeria come to this tragic situation that we find ourselves in today? As I have said elsewhere, there is no ambiguity about those who are killing our people and why they are doing so and where their inspiration comes from. We hear and live with stories of complicity at the highest level. We as Christians can only rely on the faithful word of God.
7: Moses said to the people of Israel: Never forget these commands that I am giving you today. Teach them to your children. Repeat them when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. Tie them to your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. Write them on the doorposts of your houses (Dt. 6: 6-8). Holding on to the words of God, His promises and truth is what has brought us to where we are today as Christians. We, Christians, have no other armour but the truth of the promises of God.
8: The Book of Hebrews provides Christians with a sign post on which faith is nailed. It said: To have faith is to be sure of things we hope for, to be certain of the things we do not see. It was by faith that the people won God’s favour in ancient times…without faith, no one can please God. The author further gives us a long list of men and women of faith…Men who by faith shut the mouths of lions, put out fires with their hands, escaped being killed by the sword, men who defeated their enemies. Men whose women received their dead relatives back to life (Heb. 11: 1-2, 6, 33-35). Do you recall the words of the old hymn, ‘Standing on the Promises of God’?
9: I want us as Christians to meditate on the meaning of life and death, the meaning of the priesthood and what the lessons of the death of a priest mean to us. There is a lot of confusion about the priesthood today both among us as priests, the members of our Church and even the larger society. Ask the ordinary person to define a priest or what they think a priest is, what his life should be and so on.
10: The Second Vatican Council clarified this for us when it spoke of the priest as one who is configured in the image of Jesus Christ, one who acts in persona Christi. This process of reconfiguration almost serves as a neuter, an identity marker that totally removes the priest from our basic understanding and perception of his person and his office. This is why the writer of the Book of Hebrews again restates that the priest is:like Melchizedek of old, with no father, mother or descent, having neither beginning nor end of life, but made like the Son of God and abides forever (Heb. 7: 3). His duty is to proclaim the word of God, lead God’s children to His kingdom and, like Jesus, when summoned by father, mother, brothers or sisters, must say that the only father, mother, brother and sisters that he knows are those who keep the word of God (Lk. 8:21). His death is therefore more than a mere physical transition and we are called to respond to it in faith. A faith that is based on the fact that we believe that the Lord has our names on the palm of His hand(Is. 49: 16) that all our days are numbered by Him(Ps. 139:16), the one who has numbered the hair on our heads (Lk. 12:7, Mt. 10:30).
11: Faith is not some cube of sugar thrown into the bitter coffee of life to sweeten and make it bearable. Faith is not some stop gap sigh of a hopeless soul groping through the darkness of life. Faith is not a bitter pill that we must swallow because there is no other solution. There is a common fallacy that is captured in a saying which has become popular even sadly, among Christians. At the news of the death of a loved one, sympathizers ask, Yaya hakuri and we are expected to respond, To, hakuri ya zama dole! Really, hakuri ya zama dole? Yaya? Does God compel us to anything?
12: Was freedom not the first gift that God gave our parents in the garden of Eden, a freedom to choose between good and evil? Adam and Eve had a choice in the garden and they made it freely. Why did God not stop Judas from betraying him? Jesus could have taken the other thief to heaven with Him, but the choice was his. God decided to ask for permission by sending the Archangel Gabriel to ask our Blessed Mother for permission to borrow her womb for the birth of our Saviour. Despite her shock and confusion, she accepted the will of God and her womb became the first sanctuary!
13: Today, Nigeria stands on a threshold, between light and darkness, good and evil, death and life. It all started when some of our politicians decided to use democracy to install theocracy by subterfuge. In other words, they had no commitment to the democratic ideals of integration, diversity, good governance and the pursuit of the principles of a democratic society. They decided to tempt their supporters with the claims that they could create a theocratic democracy. Now we are living in blood inspired by the failed promises of yesterday. We are men and women of faith and our response to these tragedies as Christians must be to uphold the truth. Amidst the encircling gloom, despite being far from home, we must ask to be led by the kingly light.
14: These tragic times call for a renewal of our faith in the redemptive power of God. Moses said to Israel: The commandment that I am giving you today is not too difficult or beyond your reach. It is not up in the sky. You do not have to ask, who will go up and bring it down for us so that we can hear and obey it. Nor is it on the other side of the ocean(Dt. 30:11-14).
15: Finally, let me end as I started. We can ask all the questions we want about what might have been. We can ask what if Fr. Joseph Atado had not travelled or what if Fr. Alphonsus had traveled? What if Fr. Joe Keke had been in a deep sleep and did not wake up when he heard the sounds of the murderous gang? We can speculate as much as we want. So, if anyone should ask you why God took Fr. Alphonsus, just tell him or her, the Master has need of him. Isaiah warned us: Who has known the mind of the Lord, who has been His counselor or His instructor? (Is. 40:13). St. Augustine re-echoes the same sentiments when he said: All always ask what they wish, but do not always hear the answer that they wish. The man is your best servant who is not so much concerned to hear from you what he wills as to will what he hears from you. We have heard your.
