As a boy growing up in Lagos, I used to like to attend the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass every year with His Eminence, Anthony Cardinal Okogie. It was always a delightful celebration with all the priests of the Archdiocese concelebrating. After the mass, the priests and His Eminence would file out, making their way from the church to the chancery. The procession was usually normal except for one particular priest: Reverend Father Patrick Adegbite. A woman would shout out his name, throw herself at him from the left, pull him down and kiss him. As he was trying to avoid another person doing the same thing, someone else would grab him from the right, pull him down and try to kiss him, and so he would spend the entire procession dodging and ducking from the many adoring parishioners that wanted to hug or kiss him.
I was privileged to have Father Adegbite as my parish priest when I was growing up in Holy Family Catholic Church, Festac. No priest I have ever met has made a greater impression on me than Father Adegbite. He was so charismatic that it was quite impossible not to love and respect him. He was gifted with prayer, healing and art in his celebration of the sacraments. There was a day he was saying mass, and when he got to the part where the priest raises the host and says ‘this is the body of Christ,’ two possessed women ran up and threw themselves at the foot of the altar. Father Adegbite was also very charitable. After Sunday mass, he would put rice, yams, oil and other foodstuffs in his car and drive round the parish, giving food to poor people.
Not only that, he was in the habit of helping minor seminarians. These were young men attending the minor seminary, St Theresa’s Oke-Are. They wanted to be priests when they grew up, but they had no money to pay their school fees at St Theresa’s. Father Adegbite would practically adopt them and sponsor them through the seminary. I myself got to know Father Adegbite in person. He visited our house more than once. I remember that when I was first thinking of applying to the Missionaries of St Paul, Iperu in 1999, and my uncle was trying to discourage me from doing so – by the way my parents are dead, that’s why I lived with my uncle and aunt – he invited Father Adegbite to the house to try to talk me out of it.
The irony here was that Father Adegbite was one of the reasons I wanted to be a priest, and my uncle was calling him to try to talk me out of it. I remember that Father Adegbite looked at me and said: “Onyenachi, your uncle tells me you would like to be a priest.” I said, “Yes, father.” He thought for a while and said: “Are you sure you will be able to do Metaphysics?” I had never heard of Metaphysics before that time, but without hesitation I said: “Yes, father. I am sure I can do Metaphysics, whatever it is.” He smiled and did not say anything else. I still have not had the privilege of studying Metaphysics, but if I stick around long enough, I will do it this academic year – it’s on the prospectus for the pre-theology certificate program at Catholic U, and each day I am in my Metaphysics class, I will think of Father Adegbite and smile and probably mutter under my breath: “See, I told you I could do it.”
Another memorable encounter I had with Father Adegbite was one day at summer lesson. He was in the habit of organizing classes for the young people in the parish when we were on summer holiday, before school resumed in September. And he was very strict about the classes. One day however I came late to class, and as I was entering the church he saw me. Immediately, he shouted: “Onyenachi, why are you late!” I said, “I’m sorry father.” But that was not enough. He gave me such a thunderous slap that I nearly fainted. My head was in a swirl and I saw stars dancing above. The imprint of his five fingers remained in my cheek for two whole days. Seriously. You can ask my cousins.
But the thing we loved the most about Father Adegbite were his stories. In all his homilies, you could always expect to hear one story or another. And we as children, when we finished from afternoon classes and were running to make it to mass every evening, we were not running because we loved the Eucharist so much, or because we wanted to hear the proclamation of the word, or anything. All that was at the top of our agenda was to hear the story that Father Adegbite would tell that day. What story was Father Adegbite going to tell that day? We couldn’t wait to find out, and so we ran faster and faster.
In this reflection, I want to briefly talk about what it means to be a priest, using one of the stories that Father Adegbite told. Father Adegbite said that a long time ago there lived a priest. He was a very ambitious priest. All he wanted in life was to be a bishop. He woke up in the morning thinking of becoming a bishop and he went to bed at night dreaming of becoming a bishop. Whenever he said mass or performed any of his sacramental duties, all he was bothered about was how to become a bishop. He could not rest from wanting to be a bishop.
So one day he went to see a medicine man, a Babalawo or native doctor. He said to the medicine man: Please, I would like you to help me to become a bishop. The native doctor said: I will help you only on one condition – you must renounce Jesus and Mary. You must say that you will have nothing to do with Jesus and Mary every again. The priest looked up and looked down; he looked left and looked right, and then he looked into the calabash and said, “I renounce Jesus and Mary. I will have nothing to do with them ever again.” The Babalawo was very happy, and he made a very strong juju for the priest and sent him on his way.
Two days later, the bishop of that diocese died suddenly of a heart attack. Subsequently, the priest got a call from Rome. It was the Cardinal representing the Pope. The cardinal asked the priest if he would like to be the new bishop of his diocese. The priest said yes, with all pleasure. So he was ordained and consecrated bishop. Days passed, weeks passed, months passed, and he grew more and more depressed. He couldn’t eat; he grew thin and highly worried. His friends and colleagues said: “Bishop, you are not eating properly; you are falling ill all the time and you are sad. What is the matter?” But he could not tell them. One day, tired from all his sadness, he went to visit the Blessed Sacrament.
As he stepped in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he heard a voice saying: “Why have you done this to me and my mother? Why have you done this to me and my mother?” The priest said: “I am very sorry. What must I do?” The voice said: “Renounce the bishopric. Stop being a bishop.” So the priest called Rome the next day and said, “Please, I no longer want to be bishop.” The Cardinal representing the Pope thought for a while and then asked him a very important question: “So what do you want to be now?” The priest said: “All I want to be is a humble priest.” All I want to be is a humble priest. All I want to be is a humble priest. The Cardinal said okay. And so the priest renounced his bishopric. He stopped being a bishop, and all his joy and laughter returned to him. He was happy again.
Father Adegbite told us this story when I was eleven years old. I am thirty-two now, but I have never forgotten it. And whenever I recall this story, what I keep hearing was what the priest told the Cardinal representing the Pope: “All I want to be is a humble priest.” All I want to be is a humble priest. All I want to be is a humble priest. Being a priest to me is not about making money or acquiring wealth, riches and material possessions. I’ve worked in a bank before, and I know what that feels like. People who want to make money should go work in a bank or in an oil company. Being a priest to me is not about being popular or famous or a super star. Those who want to be super stars should go to the movie business, like Hollywood or Nollywood. Being a priest is not about academics, showing off knowledge in Metaphysics or Latin or Philosophy. Those who want to show off their knowledge should go to the universities. For me, the synonym of priesthood is humility. In other words, if someone were to say to me: Define priesthood in one word, I would say humility. Period. Humility.
Assassins shot and killed Father Adegbite in Lagos in 2007. Even though he is dead, his words still live in my heart. There are words that live in our hearts long after they’ve been said. These are words that encapsulate the best of us. These are words that contain the things we want to hear best about ourselves. The words I will never forget were said to me in 2000, seven years before Father Adegbite died. I was a young man then, preparing for the universities matriculation examination, or what we call JAMB. For those of you who know how difficult JAMB can be, you understand why we usually attend classes to prepare for them, or what we call JAMB lessons, and so I was attending JAMB lessons in Surulere.
Classes had just closed on this particular day and I was walking home as usual when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said: “I like you very much.” I said, “Really? Why?” He said: “Because you are the humblest person I know.” I smiled. The humblest person I know. The humblest person I know. The humblest person I know. I will live with this statement. I will work with it, die with it, be buried with it, go to purgatory with it, and when eventually I present myself in front of the gates of heaven and St Peter asks me: “Samuel, how is it you feel qualified to enter heaven now, after many years spent in purgatory?” I will reply: “Well, that’s easy Peter. It is simply because I am the humblest person that someone knows.”
I was privileged to have Father Adegbite as my parish priest when I was growing up in Holy Family Catholic Church, Festac. No priest I have ever met has made a greater impression on me than Father Adegbite. He was so charismatic that it was quite impossible not to love and respect him. He was gifted with prayer, healing and art in his celebration of the sacraments. There was a day he was saying mass, and when he got to the part where the priest raises the host and says ‘this is the body of Christ,’ two possessed women ran up and threw themselves at the foot of the altar. Father Adegbite was also very charitable. After Sunday mass, he would put rice, yams, oil and other foodstuffs in his car and drive round the parish, giving food to poor people.
Not only that, he was in the habit of helping minor seminarians. These were young men attending the minor seminary, St Theresa’s Oke-Are. They wanted to be priests when they grew up, but they had no money to pay their school fees at St Theresa’s. Father Adegbite would practically adopt them and sponsor them through the seminary. I myself got to know Father Adegbite in person. He visited our house more than once. I remember that when I was first thinking of applying to the Missionaries of St Paul, Iperu in 1999, and my uncle was trying to discourage me from doing so – by the way my parents are dead, that’s why I lived with my uncle and aunt – he invited Father Adegbite to the house to try to talk me out of it.
The irony here was that Father Adegbite was one of the reasons I wanted to be a priest, and my uncle was calling him to try to talk me out of it. I remember that Father Adegbite looked at me and said: “Onyenachi, your uncle tells me you would like to be a priest.” I said, “Yes, father.” He thought for a while and said: “Are you sure you will be able to do Metaphysics?” I had never heard of Metaphysics before that time, but without hesitation I said: “Yes, father. I am sure I can do Metaphysics, whatever it is.” He smiled and did not say anything else. I still have not had the privilege of studying Metaphysics, but if I stick around long enough, I will do it this academic year – it’s on the prospectus for the pre-theology certificate program at Catholic U, and each day I am in my Metaphysics class, I will think of Father Adegbite and smile and probably mutter under my breath: “See, I told you I could do it.”
Another memorable encounter I had with Father Adegbite was one day at summer lesson. He was in the habit of organizing classes for the young people in the parish when we were on summer holiday, before school resumed in September. And he was very strict about the classes. One day however I came late to class, and as I was entering the church he saw me. Immediately, he shouted: “Onyenachi, why are you late!” I said, “I’m sorry father.” But that was not enough. He gave me such a thunderous slap that I nearly fainted. My head was in a swirl and I saw stars dancing above. The imprint of his five fingers remained in my cheek for two whole days. Seriously. You can ask my cousins.
But the thing we loved the most about Father Adegbite were his stories. In all his homilies, you could always expect to hear one story or another. And we as children, when we finished from afternoon classes and were running to make it to mass every evening, we were not running because we loved the Eucharist so much, or because we wanted to hear the proclamation of the word, or anything. All that was at the top of our agenda was to hear the story that Father Adegbite would tell that day. What story was Father Adegbite going to tell that day? We couldn’t wait to find out, and so we ran faster and faster.
In this reflection, I want to briefly talk about what it means to be a priest, using one of the stories that Father Adegbite told. Father Adegbite said that a long time ago there lived a priest. He was a very ambitious priest. All he wanted in life was to be a bishop. He woke up in the morning thinking of becoming a bishop and he went to bed at night dreaming of becoming a bishop. Whenever he said mass or performed any of his sacramental duties, all he was bothered about was how to become a bishop. He could not rest from wanting to be a bishop.
So one day he went to see a medicine man, a Babalawo or native doctor. He said to the medicine man: Please, I would like you to help me to become a bishop. The native doctor said: I will help you only on one condition – you must renounce Jesus and Mary. You must say that you will have nothing to do with Jesus and Mary every again. The priest looked up and looked down; he looked left and looked right, and then he looked into the calabash and said, “I renounce Jesus and Mary. I will have nothing to do with them ever again.” The Babalawo was very happy, and he made a very strong juju for the priest and sent him on his way.
Two days later, the bishop of that diocese died suddenly of a heart attack. Subsequently, the priest got a call from Rome. It was the Cardinal representing the Pope. The cardinal asked the priest if he would like to be the new bishop of his diocese. The priest said yes, with all pleasure. So he was ordained and consecrated bishop. Days passed, weeks passed, months passed, and he grew more and more depressed. He couldn’t eat; he grew thin and highly worried. His friends and colleagues said: “Bishop, you are not eating properly; you are falling ill all the time and you are sad. What is the matter?” But he could not tell them. One day, tired from all his sadness, he went to visit the Blessed Sacrament.
As he stepped in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he heard a voice saying: “Why have you done this to me and my mother? Why have you done this to me and my mother?” The priest said: “I am very sorry. What must I do?” The voice said: “Renounce the bishopric. Stop being a bishop.” So the priest called Rome the next day and said, “Please, I no longer want to be bishop.” The Cardinal representing the Pope thought for a while and then asked him a very important question: “So what do you want to be now?” The priest said: “All I want to be is a humble priest.” All I want to be is a humble priest. All I want to be is a humble priest. The Cardinal said okay. And so the priest renounced his bishopric. He stopped being a bishop, and all his joy and laughter returned to him. He was happy again.
Father Adegbite told us this story when I was eleven years old. I am thirty-two now, but I have never forgotten it. And whenever I recall this story, what I keep hearing was what the priest told the Cardinal representing the Pope: “All I want to be is a humble priest.” All I want to be is a humble priest. All I want to be is a humble priest. Being a priest to me is not about making money or acquiring wealth, riches and material possessions. I’ve worked in a bank before, and I know what that feels like. People who want to make money should go work in a bank or in an oil company. Being a priest to me is not about being popular or famous or a super star. Those who want to be super stars should go to the movie business, like Hollywood or Nollywood. Being a priest is not about academics, showing off knowledge in Metaphysics or Latin or Philosophy. Those who want to show off their knowledge should go to the universities. For me, the synonym of priesthood is humility. In other words, if someone were to say to me: Define priesthood in one word, I would say humility. Period. Humility.
Assassins shot and killed Father Adegbite in Lagos in 2007. Even though he is dead, his words still live in my heart. There are words that live in our hearts long after they’ve been said. These are words that encapsulate the best of us. These are words that contain the things we want to hear best about ourselves. The words I will never forget were said to me in 2000, seven years before Father Adegbite died. I was a young man then, preparing for the universities matriculation examination, or what we call JAMB. For those of you who know how difficult JAMB can be, you understand why we usually attend classes to prepare for them, or what we call JAMB lessons, and so I was attending JAMB lessons in Surulere.
Classes had just closed on this particular day and I was walking home as usual when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said: “I like you very much.” I said, “Really? Why?” He said: “Because you are the humblest person I know.” I smiled. The humblest person I know. The humblest person I know. The humblest person I know. I will live with this statement. I will work with it, die with it, be buried with it, go to purgatory with it, and when eventually I present myself in front of the gates of heaven and St Peter asks me: “Samuel, how is it you feel qualified to enter heaven now, after many years spent in purgatory?” I will reply: “Well, that’s easy Peter. It is simply because I am the humblest person that someone knows.”
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