A CRY FOR HELP

RESPONSE TO CRY FOR HELP OF A SEMINARIAN BY REV FR PAUL IKECHUKWU OGUJIOFFOR ON WEDNESDAY 12TH MAY 2010
Wednesday: 12th May 12, 2010: 1: 11am
Hello Dear,
How are you battling with your exams, I hope all is well over there? Everybody is fine; just remember us in your prayers.
It is very penitent to say that experiencing this world full of miseries, struggles, enemies, worst still sin. Can one still be a priest and be a man? The joys and sorrows of priesthood are what border me most. What is the meaning of life without happiness? Where can that happiness be found excluding “God”. My identity is so much important that even what I do with it seen or unseen, still that wonderful voice still speaks to me O BOY WHAT ARE YOU DOING? What is the essence of all my philosophical and theological studies that only a sixteen year old girl can pull me down, what a shame? People who cluster around you in the name of love and they mess you up and go away. Their demands are always contrary to your identity even in the mist of their wonderful promises. WHAT A CONTRADICTION? This call lies in the consciousness of my identity but how can we live this life of priesthood without the world? The glories of this world are so wonderful, interesting, and enjoyable. How can one enjoy them and still be in communion with his God? Considering the fact that life is too short to waste it and too long to bear its misuse. Just consider these questions and many which will come later. Make effort to reply this mail as soon as possible.
RESPONSE:
I will not leave YOU as an orphan in my vineyard, Christ the Eternal Priest is telling you, inasmuch as you put on your sincere best without fear or favour. Let your daily endeavours gear towards the Parousia (Divine Presence). Please spend at least quarter an hour before the Sanctissimum and tell him what you think of your personal response to your questions, but make sure that you listen to him too. Christ knew that we are weak yet he called us and so you are not excluded.
The dignity of a human person is a supernatural gift. In humans when the egg and sperm mixes they form human being, but the INTEGRITY of a person is rather from God. Animals reproduce but do not produce INTEGRITY, therefore your vocation is a gift of integrity which of course you ought to maintain as a person. NOTHING (eternal forces: family, psychosomatic, friends, worries-intra or extra) should be a barrier between your VOCATION and the GIVER OF THIS GIFT. Be aware that the dignity of the work does not depend on the work, rather from the spirituality of the person who does the work, because work is done by the birth of LOVE, and Christ is that love, hence as priests and seminarians we are not just ALTER CHRISTUS or working IN PERSONA CHRISTI, but we are properly IPSE CHRISTUS. Ipso facto, going back to the temptation narrative of the synoptic, we owe Christ a lot, hence CAREFULNESS in relationship with people is highly commendable, but not without total trust in God and confidence in OUR BLESSED MOTHER MARY. The Psalmist, related to us of: THE MAJESTY OF GOD and THE DIGNITY OF MAN in Ps. 8, in every situation God takes care of us, that is why the Psalmist said: “Quid est homo, quod memor es eius, aut filius hominis quoniam visitas eum? Minuisti eum paulo minus ab angelis gloria et honore coronasti eum et constituisti eum super opera manuum tuarum, omnium subiecisti sub pedibus eius. – What is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him? Yet you made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned him gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his feet” (4-6).