25/08/2022
Sermon on the occasion of Rev’d Innocent Mario Taudo Sunu’s first Mass at Church of Annunciation Gbazanga, Kubwa, Abuja 21st August, 2022.
Is 66:18-21; Heb 12:5-7,11-13; Luke 13:22-30
Some tears of joy gushed out from the eyes of those of us who have followed Fr Innocent in the priestly journey that ended yesterday when he received the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to continue the mission of Christ himself. As St. Pope John Paul II once put it, by Ordination Fr Sunu is on mission to prolong the presence of Christ the Good Shepherd in the midst of the flock drawing human beings into the communion of the blessed life of the Trinity. Through this ministry entrusted to him by Christ, Fr Sunu is now a minister of the infinite riches of Christ to announce God’s nearness, and more amazingly, be an instrument that unites us to God and makes us sharers in the communion of love. This journey has been interrupted by nearly ten years of dedicated perseverance, prayerful and planned neglect which only Fr Sunu himself can recount. Today, the adage God’s time is the best is however, fulfilled among us. Praise the Lord.
To arrive at this day we have many people to thank: God and through Him the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama for patiently journeying with Fr Sunu all through this road that ended in the joyful ordination ceremony yesterday. We remember also and pray for the eternal repose and reward of the souls of the late Mr Peter Taudo Bazza, the biological father of Fr Sunu and one of my early and dedicated parishioners at St Theresa’s Church, Jos in the early seventies; we thank the generation of priests who have impacted on the life of Fr Sunu and especially the late Fr Peter Umoren to whom Fr Innocent was close as a spiritual son and Parishioner at St Matthew’s Catholic Church, Giring and many of whose parishioners I spotted in the Church yesterday and some here today. We wished that both Taudo and Umoren were here yesterday and today to participate in the joy of the day. I am sure they are smiling at us in heaven. May they continue to Rest In Peace. We want to thank the mama of the day, mama Margaret Sunu and indeed all his siblings and you the many others who stood as sons of Boarnegers or daughters of Jerusalem to Sunu on this journey. I plead with the members of the family not to add to father’s problems as a priest of God. May I use Fr Joseph Olisa, the Parish priest of the Church of Annunciation, the last bus stop from which Fr Innocent came to answer “Present” yesterday to thank all our priests and religious, catechists and colleagues who acted as Simon the Cyrenean during the Via Crucis of Fr Innocent. Fr Olisa, thank you for hosting us here today. Please help us to initiate your younger brother, Sunu into the priesthood. I see tha both you and Sunu have “Mario” attached to your names. One is Fr Joe-Mario and the otherInnocent Mario. Innocent behold your brother. Joe behold your
The Parishioners here to whom Fr Innocent refers to as the new members of his family deserve our appreciation and encouragement. The gigantic church you are constructing here is a privilege to you all to help in the construction of this place of refreshment of our souls. May God bless you all and open doors for you to complete the building.
I, personally, feel greatly honored and humbled to be asked by Fr Sunu to concelebrate with him and preach at his First Solemn Mass. That a newly ordained priest requests one of the older clergy to preach at the special Mass the new priest presides at for the first time, or does for this very first time what he is ordained to do and will do for the rest of his life is an old tradition in the church. I place myself at the disposal of the Lord to carry out this assignment you have requested of me.
Fr Innocent, when the Archbishop, along with the college of priests, laid hands on you in an ancient ceremony of the laying on of hands yesterday, you received the power to absolve, consecrate and bless – the three particularities of the priesthood. The imposition of hands, as you know, goes back two thousand years to the moment when the first Apostles imposed hands on the first disciples and made them priests. The ceremony represents God’s commission, blessing, and equipping for service. In order that the community of Israel may not lack a leader after him, God tells Moses to take Joshua, a man of spirit, “and lay your hand upon him… Invest him with some of your dignity, that the whole Israelite community may obey him” (Nm 27:18, 20). The imposition of hands has also been a ritual used in paternal blessings. In the presence of Joseph, in Gen. 48:14-15, Jacob lays his hands on Ephraim and Manasseh, and blesses them (Gn 48:14-15).
As for the Gospel passage proposed for our meditation on this Twenty first Sunday in the Ordinary Time, Year C, Jesus was going through the towns and villages teaching and making his way to Jerusalem when someone interrupted him and asks, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” (Luke 13:33). Jesus neither gives the number of those who will be saved nor really answer the man’s question. He instead switches the question to one that is relevant for salvation as he responds to the inquirer to: “Strive to enter through the narrow door…” which would require that we repackage ourselves by openness to both self and divine discipline.
By this response, the gift of salvation is described by Jesus as people coming “from the East and West, from the North and the South, to take their place at the feast in the kingdom of God.” Let us note here that the first letters of the four directions, North, East, West, and South, spell the word, NEWS, and that the Good News for the followers of Jesus is that in Christ the nations are to be saved: no one is excluded from the possibility of sharing God’s life forever. Jesus, also speaks here of a “narrow door,” which leads to a banquet hall. This is a metaphorical language to describe how the narrow door will cost us. For many, it will cost a lot - our job, our family, our security, maybe even our life. When we make the “leap of faith” and follow Christ through the narrow door, we may find ourselves in an ocean of troubles, with very little peace of mind. We may wonder, “Is it really worthwhile to follow Jesus?”
At the time of Jesus and according to Jewish thought, only the chosen people, Israel as a body, would be saved. In the words of Jesus in today’s Gospel passage, however, being a member of the chosen people is neither a guarantee of salvation nor being part of the people of Israel an automatic exclusion from salvation. This is like telling us that being baptized, our possession of a baptismal certificate, our regular Mass attendance do not guarantee our salvation. To be saved, we must go through, like Jesus said, the narrow door. The narrow door is every moral decision that we make. Do we choose for God or do we choose against God? It is like a fork in the road. The correct road - the narrow road - takes us to heaven. The wrong road - the wide road, the easy road - leads us to Satan. Each choice that we make, makes it easier to make the next one, whether it is the correct one or not - like a slippery slope.
When Jesus said that those who would enter God’s abode would be those who strive to go through the route of discipline by entering through the narrow gate, he must have shocked all of his listeners. Entrance through the narrow gate would entail humility because those who humble themselves would be exalted (Matt. 23:12b). The Jews assumed that they would be the only ones in heaven and that even if a few non-Jews entered heaven, they (the Jews) would have the best places. Jesus warned them that, if they thought like that, they themselves would have no places at all in heaven. Because of their arrogance and snobbishness, non-Jews would take their places and they, the chosen people, would be on the outside, looking in. Rather than absorption in numbers, described in terms of “how many will be saved?” Jesus emphasizes the more important point, namely, to make sure that we are on the path to salvation by lives on fire for the things of God.
Salvation, cannot be bought, inherited or stolen, but simply gained by a life of doing God’s will and living under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity. The worst mistake on the spiritual path is to become complacent, presuming we are “home safe,” simply by having been baptized and confirmed. These are important steps in the pilgrim way to God, but the spiritual life has to be cultivated, lived out day by day, and not seen as some kind of “punch card” that we have in hand for a guaranteed entry into God’s Kingdom, heaven as it is usually called. Jesus insisted during his public ministry that it was “doing the will of God” that mattered most and even blood relationship could not cancel the requirement of acting on God’s Word in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Expressed another way, our present activity is important and will determine whether or not we share in the banquet of Christ in the great future of his coming.
Dear Brothers and Sisters, the reason we all experience profound joy today is not only because God has poured out his Holy Spirit upon and ordained Innocent to be a priest but because through the priesthood bestowed upon Innocent, God draws near to all of us in such a way that when Fr. Innocent speaks the words of the Holy Gospel, he announces to everyone the nearness of God. When those who are unbaptized are baptized by Fr. Innocent, they become sharers in the Divine Life. When those who have grown distant from God through sin hear Fr. Innocent speak the words of absolution over them, they will know the nearness of God. Those who are sick and dying – those who often feel afraid and distant from God - will know God’s nearness when, in the middle of the night, Fr. Innocent comes to bring the Anointing of the Sick. Most importantly, Fr. Innocent ’s hands will feed the faithful with the Body and Blood of the Lord. Jesus himself said, “Whoever eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has eternal life.” Fr. Innocent will feed others with the Bread of everlasting life. They will actually taste and see the nearness of God. We are all beneficiaries of this great gift that has been bestowed on Fr Innocent and we are filled with joy and with wonder. Today, and every day for the rest of his life, when Fr Innocent ascends the steps of the altar and holds God in his hands, he will show us God. We will receive God from his hands and through his ministry, he will lift us up to God.
Fr Innocent, you have been changed forever. You have been set aside by the Church, for the church – consecrated to be for the People of God and to be a priest – not just for as long as you feel like it - but forever. You are, in the words of St Gregory the Great, a servant of the servants of God, called to reflect the priesthood of Christ and to serve the priesthood of the people of God and to be one of the means of grace whereby God enables the church to be the church.
Saint Augustine of Hippo distinguishes between pastors who seek their own
good and those who seek Christ’s, those shepherds who shepherd themselves and
those who shepherd Christ’s flock, or, as the prophet Ezekiel puts it, those
shepherds who feed themselves and those who feed the sheep (cf. Ezekiel 34:2,
😎. Pope Saint Gregory the Great laments however, how when you look about you, you
“see how full the world is of priests, yet in God’s harvest a labourer is rarely
to be found; for although we have accepted the priestly office, we do not fulfil its
demands” (Hom. 17.3). Father Innocent, may I ask you: what kind of priest or
laborer will you be?
Yesterday, you promised obedience and respect to your bishop and to discharge faithfully the office of priesthood, to celebrate the sacred mysteries of Christ, to exercise the ministry of the word worthily and wisely, and to consecrate your life to God in union with Christ the High Priest; you publicly proclaimed that your one desire is to be a priest who serves and not one who seeks to be served. You solemnly promised to feed God’s people with His Word and Sacrament. I charge you, dear brother, to recall now Christ’s words: “If any one serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there shall my servant be also” (John 12:26). Hear Christ speak to you these words. Hear the Christ who ministers among the poor, the Christ who heals the sick, the Christ who welcomes children, the Christ who preaches the Kingdom of God, the Christ who spends the night in prayerful solitude on the mountain. Hear the Crucified Christ on the Cross say to you: “Wherever I am, there should my servant be.”
You have been ordained to serve Him selflessly among the poor, the sick and the lowly; to serve Him in your preaching and your private prayer; indeed, to serve with Christ from the Cross. Be faithful to your prayers, to the Divine Office, to the prayers you offer at Mass, and also to your personal time with Jesus. Without these, a priest cannot succeed much less be holy which is what the people you are ordained to serve deserve. Never be ashamed to let your people see you in prayer because the people of God want their priests to have their time alone with Christ the Good Shepherd. Pope Benedict XVI, once said: “So I would urge you sincerely to regard this as the fundamental task [of your priestly life]: to be with him, to learn to keep your gaze on him, to practice listening to him, and to get to know the Lord more and in prayer and in the patient reading of Holy Scripture.”
Christ’s Sacrifice upon the Cross is the greatest expression of love known to man. For, as Jesus himself taught us, “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). In the man Jesus Christ, it is God himself who in His humanity offers Himself in sacrifice for our salvation. From the Cross God loves us with a human Heart. Fr. Innocent, in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, your own heart and indeed your very being have been made one with Jesus the High Priest. Now, in the person of Christ the Head, you will utter the ‘I’ of Jesus and not your own, when you forgive men their sins, declaring: “I absolve you from your sins.” As you stand at the Altar and offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice, you will speak with the very ‘I’ of Jesus when you say: “This is My Body; this is the Chalice of My Blood.” In this Eucharistic Sacrifice, you, the alter Christus, will mysteriously offer yourself as well. As you live the Eucharist, your priestly service will become a service of self-sacrificing love.
Let me close by saying something to you, Father, priest-to-priest. From today, for the rest of your life you will be called Father. It’s always weird hearing an elderly person call me father. Or to have friends or even some distant relatives insist on calling me father. Who am I, who are we to be worthy of that gift? But priesthood is never something we can be worthy of. Truly, it is pure gift. It is among the greatest joys of the priesthood. As a father looks forward to coming home at the end of each work day to see his children, so too do we priests look forward to each Sunday, to see our families, the parish, our spiritual children. We laugh with our families and we cry with them, we enjoy their successes and we mourn their losses. We have no family so that we might be family to all. Fr. Innocent, it was the love you have for the Church and for Jesus Christ that has brought you to today. May that same love of Christ keep your priesthood holy and fill you with many blessings.
The devil wants you to forget the majesty and the grandeur to which you are called – to incarnate the presence of Jesus Christ to the world from the moment of your ordination to the instance when you see him face to face. Even after you are ordained, he will tempt you, he will urge you to work less. He will urge you to give up, enjoy life more, while people are going to Hell. St. John Mary Vianney knew the reality of Hell. He was always focused on the supreme goal – the salvation of immortal souls.
To many you will open the gates of heaven. When there seemingly is no chance you will give them the words of comfort and forgiveness and peace and heaven will open for them because of what you did. Never forget that. In the midst of all the illusions, all the distractions, all the nonsense, all the worries that you have, keep before you the heaven that awaits you and the lord Jesus and His Mother who will be waiting to thank you for what you did for his brothers and sisters forever.
Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you. Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity. Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection. Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you. Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer. Take up the sword of the Spirit. Let your heart be an altar. Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice” (Saint Peter Chrysologus, Sermon 108: PL 52, 499-500).
People will look to you for those refreshing waters and they will find them, but do not be disturbed by those who hate you because you are a faithful priest. You will experience the deep joy that the sacraments bring to people: whether it is the joy that people experience in coming to Mass, the quiet joy in a married couple asking you to bless them on their wedding anniversary, or the deep relief, expressed in tears of joy as you walk into a hospital room where a dying woman and her family have been praying that a priest arrives. The tears of joy and relief as you absolve sinners. The comfort in being with a family who has lost a loved one. The simple joys in a lighthearted joke as people see you during the day. Why this deep joy? It is because in the priest, the people of God find Jesus Christ, who is the true desire of all souls.
Sometimes we priests, like Our Lady of Sorrows, can only stand by the crosses of others, uncomprehending yet convinced that suffering and death are not the last word; that nothing can successfully foul God’s planned restoration; that good will ultimately prevail. At other times, by preaching, sanctifying and leading, we bring some sense, consolation and redeeming grace to situations that would otherwise confound us. What Christian priests and priestly Christians can never do is resign themselves to the reign of sin and death: no, our minds, hands and hearts are given by God to be people’s “vindicators close at hand”, ready to share in their burdens, intercede with the saints, and act to alleviate those burdens and their causes. In Christ the Priest we meet a suffering faith and active love that kept on hoping, even in the depths of betrayal and murder; an ultimate love that pours itself out completely for others and, paradoxically, is thereby given back life abundantly.
Fr. Innocent, it is the love you have for the Church and for Jesus Christ that has brought you to today. May that same love of Christ keep your priesthood holy and filled with many blessings. And may we all never forget the blessing of this day, as today, we give thanks to God for you! In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
