By Ifeoma Ezenyilimba
An Awka Diocesan Catholic priest, Rev Fr Paul Azuakor, has charged Christians and other individuals to make humility their lifestyle so as to enjoy divine favours. The Catholic priest, who stated this in his homily of a concelebrated Holy Mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral Parish, Awka, Anambra State, on October 27, described humility as an attraction before God.
Rev Fr Azuakor, who based his reflections on the theme: Lowliness, Downtroddeness and Humility, noted that God despised the proud and the arrogant, but sought out for the humble. He identified the humble lifestyle of Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM), who despite the fact that God had honoured her as the Mother of God, still offered services to her cousin, Elizabeth, as what ought to be emulated by all.
The priest, who further based his reflections on the readings of the Sunday, charged all to learn to be humble, just like the tax collector Luke 18:9-14, and not like the proud Pharisee, of the same passage. According to the homilist, God despised the proud, and accorded his blessings to the humble.
Narrating the story of a secondary school student from a poor background, who due to her proud attitude, missed the opportunity of being sponsored for a university by her father’s wealthy friend, flayed all against proud lifestyle.
He exhorted some Christians against what he described as their ignoble habit of rejecting some portions of the Holy Bible, over language, saying that the messages from God which were contained in the Holy Bible, were vital, and not the language.
Fr Azuakor, who is a lecturer at Federal Polytechnic, Oko, berated the separated Christian brethren, who he said rejected the Deutrocanonical Books of the Bible, on the ground that the books were not written in Hebrew Language and in the Land of Isreal.
According to the priest, ‘Hebrew was the language of the people of Isreal, and not the language of God’. Rev Fr Azuakor observed that if the Protestants’ reason was anything to go by, they might as well reject the books of the New Testament, which he said, many of them were not written in the Hebrew Language. He added that such ignoble act which was inimical to humility, ought not to be associated with Christians.
