What the death of a priest teaches me By Rev Father Emmanuel Ojeifo

The year 2018, which has barely three months to come to a close, might well be described as the annus horribilis for the Catholic Church in Nigeria, if one were to look at the number of priests that have died in the last few months and the circumstances of their deaths, ranging from herdsmen attack, kidnapping, and armed robbery incident to illness, road accident, assassination, and natural causes. One of the hard-hitting for me was the death of Fr. John Ehichioya, my classmate. We studied together in Bodija and in the final year of our seminary training we worked closely, he as sacristan and myself as the master of liturgy. He was a very warm and kind fellow, always eager to help out. After our ordination, we both went on to become secretaries to our archbishops. He hosted me once in Benin City when I travelled for a priest’s funeral in his home diocese. I woke up one day to hear that Fr. John had died. It was devastating!

More recently, the diocese in which I am ordained has not been spared in this spate of deaths. Last month, armed robbers gunned down a fine young priest, Fr. Michael Akawu, barely a year and half in the priesthood, when he went shopping at a supermarket on Saturday evening in Gwagwalada. Being a priest I knew at a personal level, his death brought great sorrow to me, but also a sense of shock. It was difficult for me to accept the news. Of course, as priests, we are very much ‘used’ to hearing about death and seeing dead people. We are often called upon to break news of death to families, we pray for sick people in danger of death, hear their confession, anoint them, and give them viaticum in preparation for their final journey. We also are constantly conducting funerals for our deceased family members, friends, and faithful. But this constant interaction with the world of death does not make the reality familiar.

Every news of death comes with its own shock. Death is not something we can be used to. It is even more painful when the death is of someone we know personally; someone we journeyed together with in life, played together, ate together, laughed together, studied together, and shared moments of joy and sorrow with. Suddenly, you hear the person is dead. It is not easy to bear such news. Even more difficult is the prospect of quick recovery after the mood of mourning. For instance, while meditating on the death of the priest who was shot by armed robbers at a supermarket, I asked myself what was going through the mind of this young man at the moment the bullet hit him. I imagined that when he left the parish that fateful Saturday evening he would have said to himself, “Let us just quickly go and get some provisions from the supermarket before night falls so that I can prepare for Sunday Mass.” But he never went back to the parish that day; rather he was taken up into eternity.

At such a moment of dying, everything about life seems illusory; everything we considered so important pales into insignificance. In the face of death, the meaning of life throws up many existentialist questions. What would I have done yesterday that I did not do? Is this how my life is being blown away like a puff of wind? Am I really dying? The more fundamental questions may also come to the fore in those brief moments between bullet and death: where am I going to now? Will I see God? Did I prepare myself spiritually for this moment? Kyrie eleison! This is the reality of life!

I remember that in the seminary we were taught that every time we celebrate Mass as priests, we should do so with adequate preparation, undivided attention, and profound humility. We were admonished to celebrate the Mass as though it were our first, last, and only Mass. Recently, I went to a parish to celebrate Mass and the reality of those words hit me again with both freshness and newness. Hanging just over the vesting table was this bold inscription on bronze: “O Priest of Jesus Christ, celebrate this Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as if it were your first Mass, your last Mass; your only Mass.” These words are chilling to the nerve; but they speak to the reality of life’s transience. We are here today and by tomorrow we are gone. The Wisdom Books of the Bible are very graphic in their description of this idea of life as short-lived, brief, transitory, ephemeral, impermanent, momentary, fleeting and evanescent.

As I reflect on the staggering number of priests that have died in this year alone, a flurry of thoughts come to my mind. Many of us who knew the priests who have died this year alone have personal stories to tell about our friendships with them. But on hearing the news of their deaths, we sometimes discover that we didn’t give them the sort of attention we should give to our friends. For some others, it is a wonderful story to the end; for quite some more, we sense that we have failed to show our friends how much we loved them and how much we appreciated their friendships and the wonderful moments we shared on this side of heaven before they were called to eternity. This thought is gradually changing my approach to many friendships I share with priests and with many people. It is even changing my approach to my family.

As priest, we know that our families have given us to God and this thought sometimes makes us neglect them and focus more on the people we are ordained to serve. But the truth is that the priesthood does not cut us off from our families. Very often what our parents and siblings want is just see us, to hear from us, to know that we are fine; not so much what we might legitimately be able to give them. I think that we need to value our families and friends and give them the gift of our time and presence within the space permitted by our pastoral ministry. They will not always be with us; we will not always be with them. We must, therefore, learn to create time for them.

The above thought is very important but it is part of a larger stream of thoughts concerning how we relate with one another as priests. In this light, this write-up is directed more to those of us who are priests than it is to others, although many others too might learn a thing or two from what I intend to say. One of the very important documents of the Second Vatican Council is the Decree on the Life and Ministry of Priests. This document, relatively short, starts with an ecclesiology of the priesthood in chapter one and then moves on to speak about how priests should cultivate the human virtues that facilitate good relationship with their bishops and with their fellow priests. It speaks about how older priests should relate to young priests and how young priests should behave towards older priests. It recommends that priests should consider the priesthood as a spiritual fraternity, “an intimate sacramental brotherhood” (n8) with each priest “united in special bonds of apostolic charity, ministry, and brotherhood with the other members of this priesthood” (n8)The language of intimacy is very important here because it lies at the heart of how we are configured to Jesus Christ in whose one, supreme, and eternal priesthood we share.

The section of Presbyterorum Ordinis that I really want to point out is the part that talks about our priestly fraternity. It says, “In a fraternal spirit, priests should extend hospitality, cultivate kindliness and share their goods in common” (n8). This section deals with how priests should share their life in common and be eager to help and assist one another, especially those working in difficult places and ministries. As priests, each one of us can go down memory lane to picture what life was like for us when we were going into the seminary. More or less, we had classmates from the same diocese with us. We enjoyed life together, played, prayed, studied, travelled, ate, and did a lot together. After ordination, this sort of friendship sometimes dies. We are posted to work in different and sometimes far-flung places; we rarely meet and gradually our fraternal spirit wears off. Sometimes misunderstandings, envy, jealousy, and unnecessary unhealthy competition creep in and beautiful friendships are ruined. Sometimes, we hear things said to us about our fellow priests and instead of talking to them we spread the news around and end up hurting one another.

Presbyterorum Ordinis envisages these human problems and recommends that we “should always treat with fraternal charity and magnanimity those who have failed in some matters, offer urgent prayers to God for them, and continually show themselves as true brothers and friends” (n8). All of these conciliar exhortations arise within the context of human society. The priest lives within a society and he is sometimes susceptible to the problems many other people face, especially in how to cultivate and build good human relationships and friendships. As is the case with human beings, the priest is not immune from the problems I have highlighted above. But generally, people expect their priests to rise above petty human issues. In other words, they expect to see in us models of real brotherhood. This matters a lot.

There are many ways we could be kind and supportive to one another. It all begins from placing premium on the brotherhood we share. We must learn to keep the fire burning, kindling it with love and care. I recall that during our annual diocesan reunion when we were still in the seminary, our Archbishop always reminded us that, “We can choose our friends but we cannot choose our brothers. Our brothers are given to us by God.” That is what the priesthood should be. We don’t have to wait until a priest dies before we pour out our sentiments of loss on Whatsapp groups and Facebook pages. We should learn to truly love and appreciate one another for as long as we live.

These thoughts are a bit general in focus but I am sure that every priest who reads it will understand what I am saying. But I am also sure it speaks to many others who are not priests. Life is so short and we don’t have the luxury of making enemies but friends. Let us be kind to one another, gentle, considerate, patient, and caring. We live in a world where so often we hear of scandals and bad examples within the priesthood. In reality, these priests constitute but a small percentage of the priesthood. Rarely do we hear about one of God’s faithful servants who (like the large majority of priests) day in and day out fulfils his ministry in quiet fidelity and love. It is like the analogy of the trees that falls down which makes a loud noise or the airplane that crashes which dominates the news. And yet, there are thousands of trees standing that do not make as much sound and thousands of airplanes that fly daily without crashing. These hardly make the news.

This analogy tells us simply that there are thousands upon thousands of priests who do great work for humanity. We should never allow the few misdemeanours of some priests to obscure the nobility of the service they render to humanity daily. As Father Wolfgang Seitz notes, “There are so many priests—young, old, inexperienced, wise, weak, struggling, suffering, burden-bearers—all of them need our prayers. Often we perceive their weaknesses, faults and even sins, because in their human weakness they have to struggle with the effects of Original Sin like anyone else. Nevertheless, we must always remember that they are the primary targets of the Evil One. For Satan knows that when a good priest falls, he takes a thousand souls with him.”

Let me conclude this piece with a personal reminiscence. When Fr. Willy Ojukwu, the first incardinated priest of our Archdiocese of Abuja died in October 2016, his funeral ceremony was planned and fixed within one week of his death. This short time put a lot of strain on many priests who were part of the burial planning team. Fr. Ojukwu was a priest who was loved and respected by many. More so, he was one of the Episcopal Vicars of our Archdiocese and had laboured strenuously for the growth of the Church in Abuja. At a time he was even the FCT Chairman of CAN. And so we knew that we had to give his burial ceremony our best shot. We had to endure sleepless nights to ensure that everything went well. I was charged with preparing the funeral programme and I had barely three full days to get it sorted out. I swung into action immediately.

While researching for a quotation that would aptly speak to the occasion, which was inscribed boldly on the back page of the funeral brochure, I came across this very profound thought from a funeral homily delivered by a parish priest at the death of his assistant priest. I use it to conclude this piece because, once again, it speaks to the need for us priests to love, cherish, and care for one another, just as we ask couples to do during the inquiry at marriage ceremonies: “The death of a priest is unlike the death of any other: we feel it differently, deeply. We sense that in losing him, we have lost not only the man but also his unique way of manifesting God. The voice that spoke of God has been silenced; hands that once blessed are impotent. Since a priest is one who takes on the person of Christ, his leave of us is somewhat of a loss in our very communication with the Lord. No one will ever again exemplify Christ for us in the singular way that this particular priest has done.”