St. Augustine’s Seminary Class Of 2003 Ends 20th Priestly Anniversary Alumni Convention In Kaduna

By Frederick Peters, KADUNA.

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: The St. Augustine’s Major Seminary, Jos, Plateau State, Class of 2003, has ended her 3-days 20th priestly Anniversary Alumni Convention in Kaduna.

The Alumni Convention and Anniversary Celebration which held at the Our Lady of Apostles’ Parish, Independence Way, Kaduna, from Tuesday through Thursday, attracted Alumni of the prestigious Catholic Institution from dioceses across the country.

Speaking, the homilist during the Anniversary Mass and Priest of Shemdan Diocese, Very Rev Fr. Clesus Daklong, said their life as priests in the past 20 years, is a mixture of bitter and sweet experiences, especially, ” when you see your unworthy self (Priest) God uses you to bring blessings to other people’s life, adding that for the bitter part, “it’s not easy, life is tough, the life of a priest is a life of serious discipline, sometimes painful commitment all these put together to make the life of the priest very beautiful, so this is what it has been in the last 20 years,” he said.

Continuing with his homily titled, ” God’s call beckons, offer no excuse” he said, “I see how people struggle with the challenge to answer God’s call and the readings of today ignited that feeling: you read through the Bible and you see that there’s no category of people that God has not used, a lot with all their weaknesses, God used them for great things, therefore, nothing should stop you from saying yes to God’s call.”

On Nigeria’s 63rd anniversary, he called on Nigerians to have hope,” the first call, is the call to have hope, when there’s no hope, people do every thing else that is wrong, but if there’s hope, you are committed to have ways to make things better, another is for us to decide to understand that this country does not belong to anyone, that we should unite to seek ways to make it better,

“I strongly call on all of us to eschew nepotism, eschew things that amount to sectionalism, to eschew things that amount to subjugation of peoples, I call on all us to eschew corruption, I call on us all to want to be inclusive in every thing, I call on our leaders , they’ve been exposed to the wider world, the first world, the second world, the developed world, they should please bring back what they see in the developed world, to come help our country become better, we have, the potentials, we have what it takes to make this country, a first world country; we should just be sad that we’ve not been able to do so” he lamented.

Similarly, the Class Coordinator, set 2003, St. Angustine’s Major Seminary, Jos, Fidelis Bitkop , elated to be in Kaduna said, “‘we are in Kaduna to specially thank and appreciate God for His mercies upon our lives as a set, 20 solid years, we have journeyed through life, 20 solid years, we have weathered the storm, 20 solid years God has kept us alive and we are here to thank him,

” especially for our Brother priests who have weathered the storm, who have kept the faith and the flag still flying high in service of God and humanity,
we have come here to celebrate their commitment and unwavered tenacity with regards to serving God in the vineyard, that’s why we are here” he added.

He further called on Nigerians on our 63rd Independence anniversary, saying ” if we look at our country Nigeria, the trajectory and the narrative is one of gloom, is one of despair and despondency, but as Nigerians, the verse of Hebrew chapter 12, is like a passage that envisioned Nigeria, which says, we are a hopeful people,inspite of our inadequacy as a nation, we have continued to hope and trust that God will not leave us in the desert with out oasis,

” so for the 63 years of our independence, with insecurity, banditry, ethno religious crises, bigotry left, right and centre, we still trust that there’s a living God, that will not allow us against all odds to go the part that will not lead us to life, so we thank God and urge on our leaders to do the needful, all Nigerians are asking for is the right to live.”

According to him, our right to freedom has been taken away, what we want is our right to live, ” if we are able to live humanly, we might gather all the necessary strength we have to make Nigeria a better nation, it’s indeed the nation that God has blessed, 63 years of sojourning, we trust that God will not allow us go empty handed, so 63 years of independence, God is on our side as a nation, we believe that he’ll not abandon us” he stated.

In the same vein, the Parish Priest and Dean of Kaduna North Deanery, Very Rev. Fr. Anthony Okelue, while describing the 20 years of the priesthood as’ wonderful’ said it has been the grace of God all the way, ” God has been gracious to us, God has been helping us and I will tell you it has not been a smooth sail, we’ve had our ups and downs, but God is still sustaining us,”

He said in their two decades as priests they were able to learn alot from the challenging conditions and situations they encountered, ” so they turn to be learning conditions and situations and they make us better, because we gain more experience and we able to reach out to the people we administer to, we’ve no family of our own per se and so we’re there for the people, therefore we should know what their aspirations are ours, we should know what their sorrows are, what their joys are and share with them from the perspective of our own calling as servants of God in their midst.”

While describing the hosting of the event as a honour and privilege, he said “I don’t think there’s any sense of entitlement to be the host and here I want to thank my classmates for considering me to be the host of this remarkable feat, in terms of years of experience in our own calling, so I thank them for giving me the honour and I pray God will bless them and bound us all in love.”

He further called on Nigerian masses at 63 to have “hope and look beyond our leaders because as Pastors, we deal with people at the grassroots, we feel what they feel, and Pope Francis will even tell us, you the shepherds should smell as the sheep, so we should know what they are passing through, I have had course to say in the church here that there’s hunger in the land: we should not get to this point in our history in Nigeria” he warned.

While calling on the masses to continue to pray and have hope, he urged the leaders to do the needful to write their names on the sands of time adding that if what Nigerians are facing is temporarily for 3- 6 months people will understand,” but if it lingers beyond this, then what they are telling us is not true, I pray also that God will give them the grace and they themselves will cooperate with this same grace and do right to Nigerians, so that there will be joy and fundamentally security” he stressed.

On his part, the Parish Pastoral Council Chairman (PPC ) of Our Lady of Apostles’ Parish, Independence Way, Kaduna, Bro. Alexander Agbeen, described the hosting of the array of priests from across the country to his parish, saying” It’s an epoch making event, because I have never seen such gathering, but it’s good to have them around us, this is plenty of blessings.”

He further said that “if you go through the trajectory of being a priest, it’s not an easy job, you have to be trained, close to 9 years, and you need to be tutored and like scripture said, once you set your hands on the plough, no looking back, so the work of being a Christian first and a priest is no mean joke,” he averred.