STOP! Kidnapping, killing Catholic priests

Weekend Sermon@ITRealms:

After a deep reflection over the past few days on the death of Rev. Fr. Cyriacus Onunkwo, was killed by supposed kidnappers, I sat down to write this just to beg the killers of priests to STOP.

I would have written this on the Feast of the Martyrdom of Saint John the Baptist, but it’s like Chris just wanted this now.

Priest dresses decently, looks good and for those who have cars, they keep their cars neat, the way the priest encourage the faithful at times makes people imagine whether they have any problem and whether they will ever have any in life ... Priests’ own world  seems better? Noooooo! So many of the priests are carrying loads of worries.

So many are suffering; so many can't let out these worries just because these problems are so overwhelming that they may even get faithfuls discouraged. Just like his bad behaviour may affect the faith of the faithfuls too. So many priests suffer daily and die daily with their worries and pains.

Who will they complain to?

Do not envy him because you see him living in a parish mansion that does not belong to him, drive a car owned by the parish or a car bought for him and fueled by friends. Eats food provided by good hearted faithfuls. When many see these, they thought that all is well with him ... your are wrong. Go close to him and plead to God that the priest opens up and tell you his worries.

My dear friends, things are not all well for the priesthood. Priests have their own problems. So many are sick, some do not feed well, some cannot even buy clothing for themselves; so many cannot afford fueling their cars much more maintaining the car you see them drive. They all depend on the charity of good hearted Christians.

Why kill, kidnap a priest?

Do you hope to get a dime from him? Oh my God. Do you think he is rich? Don’t be deceived. We are not rich. Stop killing us. What have we done? We become priest to serve you … to help you know God, open windows of salvation for you and your families.

We become priests to bring you closer to God, to help you get a place in Heaven, instead of allowing you to die in sin and end up in hell. We become priests to save your soul, to help you receive the sacraments, whenever you are born, baptize, when you are sick, sacrament of anointing of the sick, when you have sinned, sacrament of penance; when you are ready to take up a wife or husband … sacrament of matrimony.

To administer to you the sacrament of the Eucharist to energize you as you journey in faith and most importantly, to call down Jesus Christ daily in the Eucharist to come dwell in and around you to fulfill His promise of “I will be with you till the end of time.”

Stop killing us, we have no wife, no children and at times, families even abandon us. So many see us as wolves, so many want to devour us. We are daily misunderstood. Agreed that we are not Saints but weak humans who are prone to human mistakes, so please stop killing us.

So many insults us, we hardly sleep in the night because we are at prayers for you. Few years ago, Fr. Nnabuife was gruesomely murdered too.

In many parishes today, so many of the criminal minded parish council chairmen and women even turned diabolical against the priests. So many Christian murderers see nothing good about the priest. The priest is not a Saint. He has weaknesses, but can you allow who called him to judge him?

God’s judgment starts with teachers of which the priest is number one, so he is to be the first to face God's judgment on the last day. Why take him out of the world forcefully? What has he done to you? Stop killing us.

*Courtesy/pix: @Fr. Alexander U. Okere of Owerri Archdiocese, and edited by GEE@ITRealms.

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