Homily titled "Obedience to God comes before obedience to men", delivered by Archbishop I. A. Kaigama on the 3rd Sunday of Easter at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Mugadishu Cantonment, Asokoro, Abuja on the 1st of May, 2022.
READINGS: Acts. 5: 27-32, 40-41; Ps.
29(30): 2, 4-6, 11-13; Rev. 5: 11-14; Jn. 21: 1-19
Obedience to God comes before obedience
to men
Very warm Easter greetings to you dear parishioners of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, Mugadishu Cantonment, Asokoro, Abuja, as well as the many Catholics who have joined this celebration from the General O. A. Azazi Barracks, Gwagwalada, Mambila Barracks and Lungi Barracks, Maitama. It is a great pleasure to visit you today, to pray with you, to administer the sacrament of confirmation to 374 candidates and to witness the marriage of nine couples.
Some kids are born to push the boundaries. They are hardwired to do things the hard way. In a recent parenting Bible Study that addresses complex cultural issues, pastor and theologian Ray Ortlund says, “Some children will find Jesus the hard way. But it is better to find Jesus.”
Yes, it is better to find Jesus the hard way if a child insists, but what can a parent do when their child is wandering?
That is a topic I addressed in a recent article as well as a recent episode of CHRISTIAN PARENT/CRAZY WORLD, which just turned one year old and earned the 2022 award for Best Kids and Family Podcast by Spark Media. Having a battle plan and prayer guide at your side is imperative if you have a child who is not walking with the Lord.
Most Rev. Ignatius A.
Kaigama, Archbishop of Abuja
Chrism Mass at Our Lady Queen of Nigeria Pro-Cathedral, Abuja, 12th April, 2022. Homily by Most Rev. Ignatius A. Kaigama, Archbishop of Abuja
READINGS: Is. 61: 1-3, 6, 8-9; Ps. 88(89): 21-22, 25, 27; Rev. 1: 5-8; Lk. 4: 16-21
This week marks the peak of our Lenten observance, a period during which the Church calls us to more intense prayers, sacrificial giving and personal discipline, and invites us to make more deliberate efforts to be nearer to our God in purity of mind and heart. This last week of Lent can be compared to what is for the mechanic, a time for overhauling the engine of a car for a pending journey, for the student, a time of intense revision for exams, for the trader, a time of reconciling accounts before the next purchases, for the footballer, an extra time during a match, for the priest/religious, the fervent preparations for ordination or profession, and for every Christian, a time to urgently call on Jesus as Bartimaeus the blind beggar (cf. Mk. 10:46-52) frantically did when Jesus was passing by. I urge us to use this golden opportunity of the Holy Week to renew our respective commitments to Jesus and to listen to what the Holy Spirit says to us as a family.
The Most Holy Trinity Mass 8am 30th May 2021
Catholic Parish of Guildford
SUNDAY SERVICE 30-05-2021
RCCG NEWLIFE ASSEMBLY
Left for Dead - Bishop T.D. Jakes
T.D. Jakes
BY: JONATHAN R. BAILEY
Igrew up as a pastor’s kid, the third of four children. Or was it fourth? For years I believed I was born 30 seconds before my identical twin, Josh. But he recently challenged this 33-year-old fact, turning the Bailey family world order upside-down.
Josh and I were adventurous and independent twins who made the suburbs of North Dallas our playground. The flame of our adventurous spirit was fanned by our older brother, Jeremy. Together we wanted to take risks and experience them firsthand. I wasn’t content to just watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I had to be Indiana Jones. I needed to wade through the creeks behind my house, build rope swings, and explore sewers. And not with a flashlight, but by tying my shirt to a stick, dipping it in gasoline, and lighting it on fire.
As a boy, I listened intently to my dad recount some of the greatest adventure stories ever told: Noah and his ark, David defeating a giant, and Joshua shouting down walls. These men experienced wild adventure, and God, firsthand. My longing for intimacy with God was born from story time with my dad.
Dad pastored a nondenominational, charismatic—or, as he liked to say, Happy-Baptist—church. It was our family’s second home. BB gun shootouts commonly took place in the vacant sanctuary. Josh and I raced the petting-zoo miniature ponies around the parking lot after the fall carnival and learned how to do donuts in our youth pastor’s car before we could legally drive.
The Network and Advocacy Group of Lux Terra Leadership Foundation organised a Town Hall Meeting to celebrate the 2021 World Dialogue Day, known more fully as "World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development," with the theme: NATIONAL INTEGRATION AND THE IMPERATIVE OF DIALOGUE, on Friday May 21, 2021.
The Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Fr George Ehusani, who was one of the panellists, said the importance of this for Nigerians cannot be overemphasized, as it provides an opportunity for citizens to deepen their understanding of the importance of dialogue as an ongoing engagement in a culturally, religiously and politically diverse society such as our own, and at such a crisis moment as we are presently going through.
He said there is the need to listen to each other, and to genuinely seek to understand each other’s feelings and perspectives; and where there are serious differences of opinion, to respect the right of the other person or group to express such opinions.
From the IG Desk of Evangelist Mike Bamiloye
Must You Start A Church?
Because you are gifted to Speak, and you
are in control of the Youths in your local assembly;
Does that Mean You are Anointed to Start
a Church?
Because you are respected by a large
members of the congregation, and you are trusted by the Pastor to handle Counseling
Sessions for a lot of members of the Church, you are now very close to them and
you know the houses of many of them,
Must You Start a Church because of that?
And You Dear Brother,
Because you were the President of the
Campus Fellowship
Highly Respected on Campus,
Having a lot of brothers serving you and
carrying your Bibles,
Sisters taking care of you in
Shift-duties,
Cooking your food and Laundrying your
clothes,
Because you were their "Papa".
Got this from Evangelist Mike Bamiloye's official IG with the message "The Scripture is far ahead of Man". What do you think? See the video below:
The Mass was celebrated by Very Rev. Fr.
Zacharia Samjumi, General Secretary, CSN, on May 1, 2021 at 8am.
INFORMATION
AS A PUBLIC GOOD AND THE QUEST FOR PRESS FREEDOM
Lead Paper
presented at the World Press Freedom Day Media Stakeholders’ Roundtable
Abuja, May 5,
2021.
By
Rev. Fr. George
EHUSANI, Executive Director, Lux Terra Leadership Foundation
___________________________________________________________________________
1. The theme for the World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2021
is “Information as a public good” per UNESCO, and the day was observed
in Nigeria as elsewhere according to tradition. It is a day to Promote the
Freedom of the Press, to Fight Against Oppressive or Tyrannical Governments
that seek to curtail this fundamental right, and also a day to honour our
fallen heroes – innocent journalists like Dele Giwa, Bagauda Kaltho and Chinedu
Offoaro who lost their lives at the hands of brutal dictators or “disappeared”
on account of simply discharging their duties! We pay tribute to the likes of
Tunde Thompson and others who spent years in jail, for simply doing their work
as journalists during the dark days of military dictatorship in Nigeria. We pay
tribute to functionaries of the Newswatch Magazine, Tell Magazine, the
Guardian, Tribune, Punch, Champion, Vanguard, and Daily Trust Newspaper among
other print media outfits that risked everything in the course of providing
space for champions and advocates of democracy and free speech, through those
years often describes as “years eaten by the locust.”
Yes, I agree with Lanre Arogundade that “there cannot be information for public good where journalists are in chains!” Yes, there cannot be information for public good when governments or agencies of government routinely weaponize the law, to punish individuals and group that express dissenting views. We cannot have information for public good when journalists and media houses are targeted mainly for uncovering uncomfortable truths, reporting failures of government or exposing high level corruption.
What is a public good? “Public Good,” also known as “the Common Good” is one of the nine cardinal principles in the Catholic Social lexicon, along with: the principle of Human Dignity and Inviolability, Participation, Distributive Justice, Peace & Non-Violence, Subsidiarity, Preferential Option for the Poor and the Vulnerable, Solidarity, and Human Stewardship over Natural Creation. In this lexicon the common good is defined as “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as individuals or as groups, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily.”
In ordinary political discourse Common or Public Good refers to those provisions and facilities – whether material cultural or institutional – that a community provides to all members in order to fulfil a relational obligation. They all have to care for certain interests that they all have in common. Typical examples of the common good in a modern liberal democracy include: the road system; public parks; police protection and public safety; courts and the judicial system; public schools; museums and cultural institutions; public transportation; civil liberties, such as the freedom of speech (which includes the press freedom) and the freedom of association; the system of property; clean air and clean water; and national defense. The term itself may refer either to the interests that members have in common or to the facilities that serve common interests. For example, people may say, “the new public library will serve the common good” or “the public library is part of the common good”.
For a while now Linda Ikeji, Nigeria's popular blogger has been dropping a lot of prayers via her IG. Today, the first of May, she has this one for her followers:
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| Mike Bamiloye, Nigerian Film Actor |
From the IG desk of Mike Bamiloye:
Sunday Mass at Lux Terra Leadership Foundation Chapel, celebrated by Rev. Fr. George Ehusani on Sunday, 14, March 2021 with the homily titled "GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD".
