1ST YEAR
BURIAL ANNIVERSARY OF EMERITUS BISHOP ANTHONY EKEZIE ILONU ON THE MEMORIAL OF
ST. BENEDICT ON THURSDAY 11TH JULY 2013 BY REV FR PAUL IKECHUKWU
OGUJIOFFOR
Ora et labora
of St. Benedict vis-à-vis or better still in the life of Bishop Anthony Ekezie Ilonu,
emeritus bishop of Okigwe Diocese who died on the Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart
of Jesus on 15th June 2012 and was buried on the Memorial of St.
Benedict on 11th July 2012 is something worthy of emulation. As I was
celebrating the Holy Mass today at Comunità Parrocchiale San Giuseppe di
Cassola e Bassano diocese di Vicenza-Italia, on reading the Gospel of Matt.10:
7-15 the life of Bishop Anthony Ekezie Ilonu appeared before my mind,
reflecting on the St. Benedict’s maxim of Ora et labora, because the bishop
believed and lived concretely to the fullest this maxim throughout his life
praying and working for Christ the Eternal High Priest in his Church without
looking for a personal profit, rather he did all for the eternal glory of God
and for the good of all irrespective of who you are and where you come from and
what your religion is. The praying (Orare) decorum which Bishop Anthony
Ekezie Ilonu created whenever he was in prayer calls for constant remembrance
because all who knew and have seen him in his moment of meditation and prayers,
even at the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy thinks about him as been in a
state of mystical union or better still a mystic. This mystical thought is also
seen as you listen to him when he preaches. Many appreciated his homily as he
starts from abstract or natural things around to come down to the concrete
daily lives, making things clear and simple with the existing things, which
calls for our holiness of life even as you work and not only in a moment of
prayer. His prayer life is worthy of emulation. His listening acumen to
spiritual talks is very wonderful. I wish to recall for about four different
years while we were having our Diocesan annual priests’ retreat at St. Peter’s
Seminary Okigwe, sitting near him and always in the front row, as the spiritual
conference was been delivered by the retreat moderators, how he listens with
keen attention and take down notes, I was highly edified watching him as he
kept silent and listen attentively more than very many of us priests there. Oh
Lord glorify your servant who served you with a total and humble spirit leaving
everything as was read in gospel of Matthew above. The labora
spirit led him into many disciplines in life of which reading the tribute brochure
of his burial Mass, which his contemporary and most close friend right from their
seminary days, Professor emeritus Rev S.N.N Iweh wrote about him, that he was extraordinary in intelligence and in wisdom
hence he worked assiduously in the academic world that led him into having many
degrees which were not less than 16 in number yet nobody knew of that because
of his humility. He was a man who mastery of many languages from semitic
(biblical) to many international languages has no equal in fluency. On various
occasions when our brother priests who studied in Europe comes back home with
some of their friends, these Europeans get marveled once he starts to talk to
them in their languages sometimes in their dialects, garnished with some
cultural stories mentioning names of places and persons which they only affirm
because of the correctness. This confirms the Igbo adage: Ihe amuru amu ka ihe agworo agwo (What is learnt as a result of
personal endeavours are greater than what is just concurred as a fiction or
folkstale). Bishop Anthony Ekezie Ilonu was extraordinary in nature, a
university, a colossus and an encyclopedia of natural endowments and virtues.
This is easily observed when you watch him speak or call on him at any point in
time to talk on anything ranging from sacred disciplines to ‘profane’ if I may use the word, he will
always gave an excellent mastery to that, that one will continue to wonder of
what stuff he was created of. The force and spirit of excellence in labora
led him into then communist country, Soviet Union (Russia) when it was strictly
forbidden to enter there with Bible. As a Biblical research student, he had his
Holy Bible and when he landed in the airport, on checking his luggage they
found a Bible with him and he was put into custody but with the intervention of
the Vatican he was released. This spirit of labora still made him to
start another St. Peter’s Basilica Rome in Okigwe land as Immaculate Conception
Diocese, which he had the intention of building also catacomb or crypt of the
12 apostles and also a pinnacle of our Blessed Virgin Mary’s statue at the
center of the Cathedral arena. The question is, how did the name Immaculate
Conception Cathedral came up, and how did he began to build this Marian
Cathedral? During Nigeria-Biafra war he prayed to our Lady that if the Biafra
were not exterminated because of the war that he will build a befitting Marian
Church or Shrine in her honour, wherever he is posted to work when he back from
Europe in 1970. When he chosen by the then Pope, Blessed John Paul II as the
first Bishop of Okigwe Diocese in 1981 when he was a formator in Bigard
Memorial Seminary Enugu, that thought of his promise to Our Blessed Mother Mary
appeared before him giggling like a bell before him. The response to the
giggling bell before him was exactly how the Immaculate Conception Cathedral
Church was born. May our Mother Mary, the Immaculate Conception help us to
realize this magnificent thought in our time through unity of purpose and
fraternal collaboration with our incumbent bishop, through Christ our Lord
Amen.
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