By Valentine Obienyem
Today, (July 21), we witnessed a new priest, Fr. Paschal Okekeazi, who celebrated the 6 am Mass for us. As a priest celebrating with us for the first time, he brought a somewhat new atmosphere to the Mass. Habitual sleepers were forced to stay awake in the unconscious decision to listen to this new priest.
He has been a priest for just three years and used to stay with us during his seminary days. For some of us, the alertness was an involuntary response by a student encountering his teacher for the first time.
As he delivered his sermon, he reminded me of how someone once defined priests as “young old people.” This means that once someone becomes a priest, they are automatically treated as an elder. Even those over 70 respect the priest and defer to him.
A Catholic priest is expected to be a life elder, which is why even the elderly bring cases to him for adjudication. During his sermon, he spoke in the mellow metaphysics of the elderly, offering advice to parents: ‘Please, if you are a parent here, do not buy an Android phone for your children in secondary school. Allow them to finish secondary school before you do so.’
As he preached, he enlivened the occasional dull moments with songs whose cadences threatened to rouse the congregation into dancing.
May I suggest that the dioceses encourage priests within the same geographic area to occasionally exchange services (saying of Masses) among themselves. Even if it is not diocesan policy, since they already carry out routine postings, let individual priests arrange this among themselves.
Valentine Obienyem, Awka, Anambra State.
