(Recounting the Testimony of Archbishop A.K. Obiefuna)
By Theodore Ekwem
The Church encourages all the people of God to respond positively to the call to holiness and perfection: ‘You must therefore be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect’ (Matt. 5: 48). In her Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium, the Church further emphasizes her central character of holiness, ‘through which the holiness of the people of God grows in abundance as shown in the History of the Church through the life of so many saints’ (LG, 39-40).
Thus, it gladdens her to declare publicly for exemplariness, veneration and invocation all those who showed a decisive intention by words and deeds to hearken to the call to be holy. Following the Divine revelations and in fidelity to the Apostles ‘creed of the communion of the saints, we venerate these exemplary brothers and sisters and seek their spiritual help and intercession (cf. Romans 12: 9-13, Rev. 8:3-4).
Apart from obvious heroic martyrdom, public declaration of anyone as ‘Saint’ takes a long period of prayers, discernment and investigations, lasting decades, and sometimes, centuries. Hence, Pope John Paul II, in the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister, January 25, 1983, puts it as follows: From time immemorial, the Apostolic See has accepted these signs and has listened to the voice of her Lord with the greatest reverence and docility.
Faithful to the serious duty entrusted to her teaching, sanctifying and governing the people of God, she proposes to the faithful for their imitation, veneration and invocation, men and women who are outstanding in the splendour of charity and other evangelical virtues and, after due investigations, she declares them, in the solemn act of canonization, to be saints.
Among the saints are those who took ‘unusual risks’ in their lives. Their lives were a kind of ‘white martyrdom’ in the love of Christ and for the sake of the people. We recount the heroic act of St Charles Borromeow (1538 – 1584) during the plaque that ravaged Milan in his days. Charles Borromeow as the archbishop of Milan stayed back in the city ministering to the sick and infected, against all advice and opportunity to ‘run for his life’.
The same was the case of St Damien Molokai (1840 – 1889). St. Damien provided physical and spiritual support to those suffering from leprosy who lived in the quarantine reserved area of Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokai. After living with them for 11 years, he contacted the disease and died in 1889, at the age of 49.
He was beatified on 4 June 1995 by Pope John Paul II and canonized on 11 October 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI. It took almost 104 years for him to be publicly declared. Similarly, St Jose Brochero (1840 – 1914) befriended lepers to minister to their spiritual well-being. He was canonized in 2016, 102 years after his death. St Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1587 – 1651) offered her home to the sick, during plaque and famine in her Region of Genoa in 1629.
Pope John Paul II canonized her on May 18th, 2003, centuries after her death. Regardless of how many years it could take to make a public declaration of one’s sainthood, what matters most is the spiritual support and impact of their exemplary lives on the living.
Fr Aaron Ejikemeuwa Ekwu had something in common with the examples of the above few selected saints. At difficult and very risky moments, these saints saw in the other, an image of God to be cared for, against their comfort and at the risk of their lives. In 1999, the 10th Anniversary of the memorial of his death, was celebrated at St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Owerre Ezukala, with Bishop S.A. Okafor as the host and chief celebrant and Archbishop A.K. Obiefuna as the homilist.
In his homily, the Archbishop narrated how Fr Aaron accommodated a madman in his room during their days as formators at Bigard Memorial Seminary Enugu. It was reported that a patient in the psychiatry home near the seminary escaped the ‘asylum’ in the late evening. The news was sent around the vicinity, the seminary inclusive for everyone to be on alert since the man in question is assumed to be violent.
However, while the formators on hearing the news hastened from the dining hall to their rooms, they (the formators) were shocked that the man had found his way to Fr Aaron’s apartment. They pleaded with the man to leave, and he refused. To their utmost surprise, Fr Aaron himself was willing to help the man with his clothes, and refused to join him, the Archbishop in his room.
Fr Aaron preferred to spend the night with the ‘madman’ to the risk of his life, under the notion of helping the man to feel at home. All attempt to dissuade Fr Aaron from such act failed. The man took the bed while Fr Aaron slept on the floor with a mat. In the morning, the man left peacefully. Fr. Aaron calmly responded, ‘I see Jesus in him’ when asked why he took such a risk.
I was there at the Anniversary Mass and heard the story as told by Archbishop Obiefuna myself. Interestingly, Bro David Francis Nwafor referred to the story in his book Fr Aaron Ekwu: A Holy Priest, p.31-32. Fr Aaron was in the ‘frame’ of St Charles Borromeo and other above exemplary saints who took ‘unusual’ risks of their lives for the sake of their ‘neighbour’, and love of Christ.
Theodore Ekwem
