Be A Digital Saint

DIGITAL SAINTS

How can we become Saints in this contemporary society, where materialism, relativism, selfism, consumerism and all the ‘ism’s, have become the skeletal mode where we glued our societal model. God is no longer the algorithm, many schools of thought had re-formed our natural spirituality, and People no longer want things at Gods time everyone wants to be digital.

Do you know that presently in Europe, even in other parts of the world many students no longer use paper and pen, everything is computerized? “The digital age” they call it. Students go to school with their lap-tops, high pads and flash drives. whenever the lecturer finished lecture the students goes to the digital board to copy the lecture even those who could not attend the lecture can have both video and audio of the lecture from the digital board, to read from books is longer a priority because you can Google anything. Father Paul was telling us the other day that some liberalists in United States are clamoring for digital communion; some are asking that confession be done through cell phones, and social Medias, yes! They want to get everything easy. 

Soon therefore, perhaps the next generation will no longer read from books, how then, will they know about St Lawrence, Augustine, Aquinas and others. Most of them will even not understand what we meant by martyrdom, so, we that cut across analog to digital will need to put them through, the implication is; we must become digital saint for them, since the only language they may understand is Microsoft, PowerPoint, IPod, etc. 

We must reshape our way of life despite the lousy world to do ordinary things in an extra ordinary way. Like the market monk my brothers and sisters, we must learn to shun the noise of the market and stay alone with the alone.

Let us remember the story of a hunter who set out with his colleagues to hunt for Elephant, an hour later, they ran into a rabbit hole and began to dig, they dug all day that they forgot their main task, unfortunately for them the rabbit also escaped. If we allow the distractions of this world we will surely lose divine union which is our ultimate goal.

We must be aware that there are challenges waiting to limit our efforts to being a saint. The modern society needs a new approach. Let us learn from the soldier-ants. Whenever there is a grain of food; they march out to get it. They are always ready to fight in order to protect the queen. The mother Church has giving us an apostolate, let us work together to achieve it. I am therefore calling for a retreat like soldiers, for a tactical, strategic military planning so as to go back to the field of battle to combat the ancient serpent in modern clothing. Let us learn to read the modern signs. Our challenges are no longer Emperors or ancient persecutions. Rather we are currently fighting with modernity where all the “isms” are against us. Let us not be like my father who went on hunting alongside with Monsignor Somide with a double barrel only to be confronted by a big buffalo, we need the modern weapon to combat modern war. 

Let me re-echo the words of Pope Francis “We need saints that drink Coca-Cola, that eat hot dogs, that surf the internet and that listen to their iPods… we need saints that are not afraid or embarrassed to eat a pizza or drink a beer with their friends. We need saints who love the movies, dance, sports, and theatre. We need saints that are open sociable normal happy companions. We need saints who are in this world and who know how to enjoy the best in this world without being callous or mundane. We need saints.” We need Digital Saints

An extract from the book Be A Saint

Fr Lawrence Sdv.

​A SUMMARY ON THE APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION: PASTORES DABO VOBIS

A SUMMARY ON THE APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION: PASTORES DABO VOBIS

INTRODUCTION

In his introduction to the Apostolic Exhortation, Pastores Dabo Vobis, pope John Paul II maintains that without priests the church would not be able to live out the fundamental obedience which is at the very heart of her existence and her mission in the world. Moreover, this fundamental obedience is evangelical: go and make disciples of all nations (matt. 28:19) and do this in remembrance of me (Luke 22:10).

Nevertheless, he emphasizes the need for the church to propose to each new generation the vocational call, and help people to discern the authenticity of their call from God and respond to it generously and give care to the formation of the candidates for priesthood. Pope John Paul II considers the future formation of priests (whether diocesan or religious) and their personal sanctification in the ministry as the most demanding and important task for the church for the future evangelization of humanity.

 SUMMARY

“I will give you shepherds after my own heart” (Jer. 3:15). In the formation of future priest, the pope identifies the need for openness to the Holy Spirit in order to discover the tendencies of the contemporary society, its deepest spiritual needs, and the most concrete task, and method to adopt in order to adequately respond human expectations. 

Since priests are part of this contemporary society, aforementioned are to be included in their formation at various phases. Going further, the documents elaborate the contemporary challenges of modern priesthood to include consumerism, individualism, materialistic and hedonistic interpretation of human existence, and distortion of human sexuality and freedom. 

Thus, search and longing for vocation to the ministerial priesthood is distant from the interested of the young. However, hope lies in the unfailing love of Christ, and our certainty that the priestly ministry in the life of the church and in the world knows no substitute.

Certainly, there is an essential aspect of priest that does not change: the priest of tomorrow, no less than the priest of today, must resemble Christ. When Jesus lived on this earth, he manifested in himself the definitive role of the priest, by establishing a ministerial priesthood, with which the apostle were the first to be invested. This priesthood is destined to last in the endless succession throughout history. In this sense, the priest of the third millennium will continue the work of the priest who, in the preceding millennia, has animated the life of the church. In the third millennium, the priestly vocation will continue to be the call to live the unique and permanent priesthood of Christ.

Nevertheless, while being taken from amongst men and appointed for men in the things that appertain to God that they may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, live with the rest of men as with brothers. So also, the Lord Jesus Christ the son of God, a man sent by the father to men, dwelt amongst us and willed to made like to his brothers in all things save only sin. The priests of the New Testament are, it is true, by their vocation to ordination, set apart in some way in the midst of the people of God, but this is not in order that they should be separated from that people or from any man, but that they should be completely consecrated to the task for which God chooses them. They should not be the servant of Christ unless they were witnesses and dispensers of a life other than that of this earth.

The many contradiction and potentialities marking our societies and cultures, as well as ecclesial communities, are perceived, lived and experienced by our young people with a particular intensity and have immediate and very acute repercussions on their personal growth. Thus, the emergence and development of priestly vocations among boys, adolescents and young men are continually under pressure and facing obstacles.

The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God. It is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude. It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to his fulfillment. By this deliberate action, the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promise by God and attested by moral conscience. Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their completely sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth.

Christ, in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, makes man fully manifest to himself and brings to life his exulted vocation. It is in Christ, the image of the invisible God, that man has been created in the image and likeness of the creator. 

Often the world of young people is a ‘problem’ in the church community itself. In fact, if in them; more so than in adults; there is present a strong tendency to subjectivize the Christian faith and to belong only partially and conditionally to the life and mission of the church, and if the church community is slow for a variety of reasons to initiate and up-to-date and courageous pastoral care for young people, the risk being left to themselves, at the mercy of their psychological frailty, dissatisfied and critical of a world of adults who, in failing to live the faith in a consistent and mature fashion, do not appear to them as credible models.

Moreover, in this way the church feels that she can face the difficulties and challenges of this new period of history and can also provide, in the present and in the future, priests who are well trained to be convinced and fervent ministers of the “new evangelization”, faithful and generous servants of Jesus Christ and of the human family. We are not unmindful of difficulties in this regard; they are neither few nor insignificant.

CONCLUSION

“I will give you shepherds after my own heart” (Jer. 3:15). This short verse of the bible has shown that God has a great plan for his people and his ministers, who are called to minister to the people. The Church, the people of God, constantly experiences the reality of this prophetic massage and continues joyfully to thank God for it. She that Jesus Christ is the living, supreme and definitive fulfillment of God’s promise: “I am the good shepherd” (Jn. 10:20). He the great shepherd of the sheep, entrusted to the apostle and their successors the ministry of shepherding God’s flock.

Perhaps, without priests the church would not be able to live the fundamental obedience which is at the very heart of her existence and her mission in history, an obedience in response to the command of Christ: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nation” (Mt. 28:19) and “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24).

Moreover, every aspect of priestly formation can be referred to Mary, the human being who has responded better than any other has to God’s call. Mary became both the servant and the disciple of the Word the point of conceiving, in her heart and in her flesh, the Word made man, so as to give him to mankind.

Fr Lawrence Sdv

Theological basis and validity of African family for the Church in Africa

JOHN PAUL II, ECCLESIA IN AFRICA, 14TH SEPTEMBER 1995

INTRODUCTION

The synod of bishops on the church in Africa held in Rome acknowledges the pride and place of the family in the society and the church. In his Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesial in Africa, (1995), the Holy Father from Familiaris Consortio #75 holds that; “The future of the world and of the Church passes through the family (and that) not only is the Christian family the first cell of the living Ecclesial community, it is also the fundamental cell of the society.”

Central to this document is the African family, which the document cautions that though she tries to adopt positive values of modernity, she must preserve her own essential values. The document thus admits that in trying to build the Church as a family, such is truly proper to the African culture, because such values as care for others, solidarity, warmth in human relationships, acceptance, dialogue, trust and sharing which characterize the family of God are present in the authentic African family. This work therefore, attempts to discuss the theological basis and validity of the use of this image for the Church in Africa.

THE NATURE OF THE AFRICAN FAMILY

The African Family is not equivalent in a strict sense to what the word family means in other cultures especially in Europe and America. The traditional African family is known for its unique nature of being widened beyond the nuclear family. Within this understanding, the African family comprises “the children, parents, grand-parents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters who may have their own children and other immediate relatives” and indeed all those persons who descend from a common ancestor. This ontological feature of the African family is usually designated in the anthropological parlance as extended family.

THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS AND VALIDITY OF THE IMAGE OF AFRICAN FAMILY FOR THE CHURCH IN AFRICA

It is obvious that when we approach the family model theologically, it is traceable to the Blessed Trinity who shows us the best and perfect communion in the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit One God. Again, when we consider the concept of family in relation to the church and its members, theologically it encapsulates everyone who has accepted Christ and been received into the family through baptism, including catechumens. A position which implies brotherhood and it is likens to African blood relationship, which gives basis for unity and solidarity, and results to sharing of roles and involvement of everyone in the work of evangelization. These are commendably perceivable in the African family model.

Having considered the family model in relationship to the Church as encapsulating all those born into it through baptism and living everywhere, it is pivotal that we consider the application of this model in relation to the evangelization and governance of the local Church. By local church we mean a diocese or a parish, but we must note that a particular church cannot be dissociated from the universal Church and other local Churches. 

Just like the African family in which everyone has a role to perform towards the harmonious living of every member of the family and the community, a local Church modeled after it must recognize in the spirit of Vatican II that;

“By divine institution holy Church is ordered and governed with a wonderful diversity.”For just as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same function, so we the many, are one body in Christ, but severally members one of another” (Rom. 12:4-5). There is, therefore, one chosen People of God: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4.5); there is a common dignity of members deriving from their rebirth in Christ, a common grace as sons, a common vocation to perfection, one salvation, one hope and undivided charity.”

 It follows that members of a local Church should essentially receive one another as brothers and sisters in the first instance rather than giving a primary consideration to their different status within the family. Consequently, no one would be left and not attended to either by means of evangelization or governance of the local Church. In relation to the African family, there is no way individuals in the family are left out in her administration, because leadership is never by one person, rather by individuals who in the spirit of family work in collaboration and solidarity for the larger family.

However, the very concept of African family when used as a model for the Church could be problematic and demands some level of understanding. The question is, how do we adopt this family model where crisis of homelessness, poverty, which result from war, famine, tribal tension, insurgence, political instability and violation of human rights?

Furthermore, care is to be taken so that our ecclesiology based on the African family model does not end up with a pyramided structure of the Church, emphasizing the authority of her leaders; a kind of paternalism when compared to the nature of the father’s position in the family. This will neither help communion nor help her primary work of evangelization.

Moreover, the idea of blood-tie poses the problem that could lead the family to be exclusive of other families. This particularly poses problem against dialogue within and without the Church. However, while the Church as family should establish interaction among the laity, religious and clergy to promote healthy existence within the Church as family, she should play a leadership role in ecumenism.

Following still from her feature of blood-tie and extended family nature are caring, sharing of problems and blessings, concern and love. These features are good but the negative expression of it often regards the person outside the group as if he or she was a non-person. The identification of outsiders as strangers has been the cause of some of the worst atrocities in Africa and has often led to negativities like tribalism and ethnicity. But we know that the love of Christ is unrestricted and universal, it embraces even the enemy. Hence, we need a vision that will take into account the vision of Christ’s universal reconciliation. It is only this vision that can turn the church in Africa into a family that does not exclude any person from its ambience and even in decision making so that the work of evangelization of Africa becomes easy.

CONCLUSION

From our discussion so far, it is clear that Church’s documents acknowledge the importance of the family to the ecclesial community and the larger society. Such that without it the community whether ecclesial or secular cannot possibly exist. It is rightly so, because, the Creator of all made it her mission. The Church’s documents really acknowledge that it is possible to build the Ecclesia edifice on the family model. This, the CBCN deem necessary when it tries to build her Church with the authentic African family model in Nigeria. 

Fr Lawrence Sdv

​THEOLOGICAL CUM PHILOSOPHICAL BASES OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

THEOLOGICAL CUM PHILOSOPHICAL BASES OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

Introduction

A careful and critical reading of this introduction immediately offers the reader an idea of the philosophical foundation of the Theological virtues.

In man to man relationships, the life of a good man will be characterized by the practice of the four classical virtues: temperance, courage (or fortitude), justice, and above all wisdom or prudence that refined ability to judge correctly what is right to know and do. This much can be developed by natural and reasonable man, quite apart from revelation and faith. In all this Thomas does little more than reproduce Aristotle. God endows man, through Christian revelation and the church with its sacraments, with the added gift of the three theological virtues, faith, hope and love, which direct man to God Himself, and which therefore crown the four natural virtues.

Aquinas’ moral theory is a relatively unimaginative appropriation of the Aristotelian theory of virtue, with faith, hope, and love spliced somewhat on top. “It is clear that for Aquinas there is an ideal type of man, an ideal of human development and integration, a notion which has been flatly rejected by, for example, existentialists like M. Sartre. And the possession of the natural virtues, moral and intellectual, belongs to this ideal type. But the concrete ideal is not for Aquinas simply the ideal of the fully developed natural man. For under the action of divine grace man can rise to the life of supernatural union of God for which he was created. And for this higher sphere of life he needs the infused virtues of faith, hope, and charity. So while building, therefore, on a largely Aristotelian foundation, which represents what we may call the philosophical background in his ideal for man, Aquinas proceeds to discuss the theological virtues, which are not acquired in the same way as the natural virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.” Copleston, Aquinas (Penguin 1955) p.209

An examination of nature proves especially crucial to understanding the virtues in Aquinas, because it is only through a return to the Thomist conception of nature that one can makes sense of the fact that there are for Aquinas not one, but two sets of virtues. For Aquinas believes that nature itself is capable of habituation, and that an altered nature requires a correspondingly altered set of virtues. Through the acquired virtues, man is perfected in accord with his created nature; the infused virtues perfect man insofar as he partakes in the Divine Nature

In both these ways, says Aquinas, virtue is natural to man inchoatively. This is so in respect of the specific nature, in so far as in man’s reason are to be found instilled by nature certain naturally known principles of both knowledge and action, which are the nurseries of intellectual and moral virtues, and in so far as there is in the will a natural appetite for good in accordance with reason. Again, this is so in respect of the individual nature, in so far as by reason of a disposition in the body, some are disposed either well or ill to certain virtues.  ST. FS Q 63 art. 1
What is Virtue?

CCC 1803 “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good. It allows the person not only to perform good acts, but to give the best of himself. The virtuous person tends toward the good with all his sensory and spiritual powers; he pursues the good and chooses it in concrete actions. The goal of a virtuous life is to become like God.

CCC 1804 Human virtues are firm attitudes, stable dispositions, and habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who freely practices the good. They can be grouped around the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. 

Prudence disposes the practical reason to discern, in every circumstance, our true good and to choose the right means for achieving it. 

Justice consists in the firm and constant will to give God and neighbour their due. 

Fortitude ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in the pursuit of the good. 

Temperance moderates the attraction of the pleasures of the senses and provides balance in the use of created goods. 

The moral virtues are acquired by human effort. They are the fruit and seed of morally good acts; they dispose all the powers of the human being for communion with divine love.
The theological foundations of the theological Virtues

In discussing the theological foundation of the theological virtues, one thing must be clear to us which is the fact that GRACE DOES NOT WORK IN a vacuum, that is, Grace builds on and perfects nature. What this means is that through the acquired (cardinal) virtues, man is perfected in accord with his created nature; the infused (theological) virtues, therefore, perfect man insofar as he partakes in the Divine Nature.

….They “relate directly to God” and “dispose Christians to live in a relationship with the Holy Trinity” (CCC 1812).

…. They are “the foundation of Christian moral activity” (CCC 1813).

…. “They have God for their origin, their motive, and their object” (CCC 1840).

…. “They inform all the moral virtues and give life to them” (CCC 1841).
THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES

Faith, according Thomas is a habit of the mind, whereby eternal life is begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is non-apparent. Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for and the evidence of things that appear not.

Whatever other definitions are given of faith, says Thomas Aquinas, are explanations of this one given by the Apostle. For when Augustine says that “faith is a virtue whereby we believe what we do not see,” and when Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iv, 11) that “faith is an assent without research,” and when others say that “faith is that certainty of the mind about absent things which surpasses opinion but falls short of science,” these all amount to the same as the Apostle’s words: “Evidence of things that appear not”; and when Dionysius says (Div. Nom. vii) that “faith is the solid foundation of the believer, establishing him in the truth, and showing forth the truth in him,” comes to the same as “substance of things to be hoped for.”

Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith ‘man freely commits his entire self to God.’ For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God’s will.” –CCC 1814

HOPE

Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817).

CHARITY

 “Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for His own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (CCC 1822).
The relationship between the theological and moral virtues

According to the CCC, the moral virtues grow through education, deliberate acts, and perseverance in struggle. Divine grace purifies and elevates them. 1812 The human virtues are rooted in the theological virtues, which adapt man’s faculties for participation in the divine. They inform and give life to all the moral virtues. They are infused by God into the souls of the faithful to make them capable of acting as his children and of meriting eternal life. They are the pledge of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit in the faculties of the human being. There are three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.

Fr Lawrence Sdv

African Theology in it’s Cultural Context

AFRICAN THEOLOGY IN ITS CULTURAL CONTEXT

African theology, or what some people call African Christian theology, could be explained as that theology which reflects on the gospel, the Christian tradition, and the total African reality in an African manner and from the particular perspectives of the African world-view. The task of Bujo’s African Theology is to bring together the fundamentals of Christian faith and the African traditions, to make the Africans feel more at home, to do this; he considered the theology of the Ancestors as a starting point for new Christology and Ecclesiology. 

Benezet Bujo is of the view that African theology has to be renewed. His criticisms, in pursuit of a renewed African theology, come along two headings, namely theology and African tradition and inculturation and theology of liberation. According to him, any theologian who wishes to construct an African theology must take the basic elements of the African tradition and interpret them in the light of the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church. Bujo argues that what Africa need today is an enlightened catechesis which would enable us to strike the right balance between the ancient African traditions and their current forms. For him, the catechesis is a tool for retrieving those aspects of our African traditions that could be used positively to make Christianity find a deeper root in the African culture. 
Bujo believes that catechumenates, classes of religious instruction, and small Christian communities are the places where such a catechesis can be introduced in the present generation so that it can bear meaningful fruits in their lives. As such, for Bujo, the task for African theology today is a vigorous catechesis that gives the Christian message truly African nuances for the spiritual edification of Africans in their cultural context, put differently; the constructive engagement of Christianity with African traditions must bring together the fundamentals of both the Christian faith and the African tradition. 
According to Bujo, the person of Jesus and the community of the Church are two fundamentals of Christianity that could be brought into dialogue with one veritably fundamental aspect of African tradition, namely Africa’s ancestor-tradition, from which we could derive an African Christology and an African ecclesiology.
Africans cherish the memories of the words and deeds of their forebears considered to be embodiments of their cultural, religious and moral values. According to him, the elders and more particularly our ancestors occupied a central place in Africa, there by projects a deep meaning to the people of Africa. As such he proposed a new messianic name for Jesus that is, “Proto-Ancestor” or Ancestor per Excellence.” He further explained that the title is not referring to any “so called bad ancestors.”  Rather, it refers “only to God fearing ancestors who exercise a good influence on their descendants by showing how the force which is life is to be used as God wishes it to be used.” 

The historical Jesus of Nazareth, for Bujo, epitomizes in the highest degree not just one who lived the African ideals of a good ancestor, but one who brought those ideals to an altogether new fulfillment by healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, and raising the dead to life, to mention but a few.  Jesus lived his mission for his fellow-humans in an altogether matchless way and left his disciples a final commandment, the law of love. The Last Supper which Jesus took with his disciples is like the final moments a father spends with his children before his death. In the African tradition, the final admonitions of a parent to his children before death are much cherished as it is a time the father blesses his children and pronounces his last will. Viewed from this African perspective, Jesus last will was: serve one another, love one another.
The term, ancestor, only applies to Jesus in an analogical or eminent way, for to treat him otherwise would be to make of him only one founding ancestor among many. Accordingly, the term proto-ancestor is exclusively reserved to Jesus. 
Bujo argues that, since it was the same humanity of our African ancestors that Jesus took upon himself, Jesus Christ, therefore, becomes the privileged locus for a full understanding of the ancestors Bujo argues that his proposed title will have much more meaning for Africans than titles such as logos (word) and kyrios (lord) which originated from an extra-African culture. 

Benezet Bujo argues that Jesus manifested all those qualities and virtues which Africans like to attribute to their ancestors and which lead them to invoke ancestors in their day-to-day life (p.74.) As a model of morality, let us bring to realization in our lives the memory of his passion, death and resurrection. He summits: “it is therefore clear that the African concept of Jesus as Proto-Ancestor in no way contradicts the teachings of the New Testament. It is not of course that we are treating Jesus as in any crudely biological sense. When we regard him as the ancestor par excellence, we mean that we find in him the one who begets in us a mystical and supernatural life.” 

Finally, Bujo’s proposal of an African messianic title for Jesus as proto-ancestor borders on the use of language in theology. Precisely, it touches deeply on analogical predications for God. The question is:  how far can our languages go in expressing Christ, God, and other-worldly realities? Particularly, does the title proto-ancestor really capture the being and doing of the God-man, Jesus Christ? 

Masumbuko Mununguri: in his book the closeness of the God of our Ancestors argues that the God of our Ancestors is at the same time transcendent that is far off, and immanent meaning near. (p.15) In His explanation of the place of the God of our Ancestors according to African Man, he states that God is sometimes considered an accomplice of man in some circumstances and certain key moments of life. According to him, this God “remains very powerful, very great, very distant, but in his goodness he does not abandon man to his fate in a hostile and bewildering world.” (p.17) he opines that our Ancestors conceive God to be transcendence in many aspects such as outside and beyond time; in terms of space, distance and inaccessibility; in terms of limitlessness; and in terms of his supreme status as Spirit creator. (pp. 18-25)

The God who is presented as transcendent is also said to be Immanent God; a characteristic of God that emanates from the very projection of God into nothingness of man. He observes that the essential quality of Supreme Being is that of being present to the world precisely because it is he who protects the universe. Therefore the God of our Ancestor is Immanence as beneficent Presence (and his presence at the side of man necessitate some consequences for their ‘mutual relationship’); and Immanence as Ambiguous Presence. 

God is considered transcendentally Immanent in as much as he is a God who, without identifying himself in history, governs and acts in the universe by his act of creation and of order. He further posits that there is a consensus in Africa that God is inaccessible because he is invisible. But he also holds that all African people expect to feel him in the Ancestors who reside with him as creator and provider, or the living God who gives life and death. Hence Africans turns their gaze, “demanding” and “confident”, towards God as Providence and creator and as Father, author and support of life. 

Mununiguri claims that the God of our Ancestors reveal to us his Incarnate Son and in spite of everything, the incarnation of the Son of God remains a mystery for the Africans who cannot accept that God could become man. According to Mununguri, the incarnate Son is “The eldest Son” and the revealer of the Father. Incarnation then finds its significance in the ultimate mission of the Incarnate Word to tell the World about the God of our Ancestors. 

Fr Lawrence Sdv

The Kerygma

OUTLINE

Introduction

What is Kerygma

The composition of the writing gospels

The relationship between the oral tradition and the composition of the written gospel

The circumstances that led to the composition and circulation of the synoptic

Conclusion
INTRODUCTION

The Gospels first existed in the oral tradition. The person of Jesus Christ, His life- words and deeds constitute the Gospel. After the ascension of Jesus the people started talking about him and of the events relating to his death and resurrection. These became the first “good news” to be announced. During this time, the Kerygma was on the fact that Jesus Came, lived, suffered, died, resurrected for our sake and that he will come again. What then led to the composition of the writing gospel is there any relationship between the writing gospel and the oral teaching? Why some are referred to as synoptic what led to this? 
KERYGMA

The word Kerygma is from a Greek word, “Khrigma” meaning proclamation (khrigma from verb khrusw). Khrigma means the proclamation or preaching done by someone sent by God.

In the New Testament it refers to the apostolic preaching and its development and its development in the early church. It also refers to the earliest form of the missionary preaching of the good News. A kerygma generally has an outline which can be detected in the New Testament. Acts 2: 14-38, 3:12-26, 4:3-12, 10: 36-43. In these passages there are six main parts that form the outline of the kerygma they could be called the six basic truths. 1. Announcement that a new age is dawned, a prophecy fulfilled. 2. This new age that has dawned is made possible in the suffering and death of Jesus. 3. By the virtures of the resurrection of Jesus, God exalted him to his right hand as head and savior (the word kurios explains this) 4. Christ has given the Holy Spirit as sign of power and victory in the church. 5. Messainic age reaches its consummation in the return of Christ. 6. Closes with an appeal for repentance, invitation to baptism and forgiveness of sins.
THE COMPOSITION OF THE WRITING GOSPELS

Formation of the New Testament did not cover a long period of history as did the formation of the Old Testament. The gospel accounts existed first in the oral form as we have said before. The teachings and miracles of Jesus were transmitted in oral form by those who had witnessed it, especially the apostles, who made it a focal point of their preaching. Due to the fact that the prevalent thought at the time was of the imminence of Christ’s return, no one was keen about writing down. Of course they had not been instructed to do so by the master who also did not write anything about himself or his mission. But when death through persecution began to threaten the oral form of transmitting the teaching of the master they began to write. By AD 65-70 Mark’s gospel had been written as the first gospel narration. Matthew and Luke must have writing their gospel account between the years AD 80-90 John around Ad 90-100.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ORAL TRADITION AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE WRITTEN GOSPEL

When we call the gospel a kerygma we mean that the gospel is a gathering of the various proclamations done by the apostles. C.H. Dodd, looking at the Gosple according to Mark opines that we have a solid impression that it is an extended form of historical Kerygma. This could be said of all the gospels.

The relationship between the oral tradition and the Gospel could be best expressed from the document of the church on divine revelation no 9 thus: 

There exists a close connection and communication between sacred tradition and sacred Scripture. For both of them, flowing from the same divine wellspring, in a certain way merge into a unity and tend toward the same end. For sacred Scripture is the Word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the Word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve this Word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. Consequently it is not from sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.
THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO THE COMPOSITION AND CIRCULATION OF THE SYNOPTIC

Out of the four canonical gospels, three are called synoptic gospels and they include Matthew, Mark and Luke. They are called synoptic because they can be placed side by side and viewed as it were at a glance. They are closely related to one another that one can notice that they all have something in common among themselves. However, they had different reasons for writing but generally; they wanted to preserve the word of God in a distinct way. The following circumstances led the composition and circulation of the synoptic:

The eye witnesses were dying one after the other and the source of the oral history may become depleted.

The rapid growth of Christianity as it expanded through the efforts of the apostles and their disciples.

To encourage Christians to become better people as they followed Christ.

There was the need to become independent of Judaism. The gospels help to establish Christian practices.

To encourage the persecuted church to endure suffering like their master.

To keep alive the teaching of Christ as received from the apostles.

To keep the authentic message of Christ from counterfeit and fake versions of the same message which were being taught and propagated by heretics.
CONCLUSION

Sacred tradition and sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the Word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles.
Fr Ogundipe O Lawrence sdv

 

A summary on evangelii nuntiandi

https://frlawrenceogundipe.blogspot.com.ng/2017/10/a-summary-on-evangelii-nuntiandi-1975.html?m=1