The Year 2021 is already on its course and I am sure.we all have cause to thank God the Almighty even though we are still struggling to cope and by God's grace overcome the evil of the COVID 19 Pandemic.
Christianity when fully looked at involves responsibility. As humans we are responsible for our lives to some extent, because even the Almighty God Himself gives us the will to make our choices. We can make a choice of following His son our Lord and Saviour all the time or when we feel we need to. One of the synonyms of the word "responsibility" as seen in the Oxford Dictionary is “Good Judgment," so we can see it stands as one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit - the spirit of discernment.
Christ through his passion shows us how to be responsible. In all his ways and in many instances, he refers to himself as one doing the will his father, the one who sent him. Most of the time we behave as if we created ourselves and have our own plan for life. This is a wrong notion, we are here on earth to love and serve the will of the Father.
With this fact in mind, I always ponder at how people of our time always display an attitude of irresponsibility. The Bible in Galatians 6:2 encourages us to be our brother's keeper. This, we have failed ourselves in many ways. When we look at the attitude of our leaders around the world, couples in marriages, parents or even the younger generation, our children. If anyone of us is asked to mention a situation where we feel our leaders have failed us duri g this COVID 19 Pandemic, am sure we would all have a case to mention. What about you, can you think of a situation where you have not acted responsibly since the pandemic has invaded our world, our actions, our communities, our families. Can you say you have been your brother's keeper all this while?
What about the care of our environment? Have we been responsible as governments, corporate bodies, as citizens, as families, as individuals. All over the world there are issues of poor management of wastes by nations, governments and people. This is really evident in our communities in our in Africa, where people still dispose of their wastes on roads, gutters, or waterways. We have seriously failed ourselves and our God by not taking proper care of our environment. In the book of Genesis where the story of Creation was told, after all creations God gave the responsibility of taking care of the environment to man. So it is your responsibility and mine to ensure we care for the plants, the animals, the ocean and other water bodies protecting them from getting destroyed or extinct. That they may even provide for us that which we need from them. We are all part of God's ecosystem.
Ensuring you keep your waste till you can properly dispose them ( in a trash can or waste bin) is a responsibility. Our governments must now see it as their responsibility to provide proper public waste containers, position them at vantage points and far away from our waterways and remove them timely to avoid overflowing.
Recycling should be the responsibility of State governments so that we can turn our waste to wealth rather than have our waste kill us. To me, COVID 19 is not Africans main problem, managing our waste to ensure our environment is rid of malaria, generating wealth from the enormous waste we produce (as a consumer continent,) and improving trade among our nation's should be our main problem. So that we can benefit from our interdependence as a continent, as a people and truly be our brother's keeper.
Please be the change in your environment, love to keep the roads and waterways clean. Be the prompt for others and let's win for Christ. To be continued.
I have been thinking a great deal about my experience at Reconciliation this past Saturday. I felt an intense and unexplainable urge to go and confess my sins when I woke up that morning. I try to go every six weeks or so, but this was no routine visit to the priest for me. I needed to unburden myself of the numerous venial sins I had committed since I last participated in this Sacrament.
Purest Gold: God's Refining Fire in our Lives »
After salvation, many young Christians wonder if there's anything more to their newfound faith than just the security blanket of "being a Christian." Time and time again, God shows himself as a "refiner," and our lives are as gold. God started leading me in this study to understand what He was doing in my life, as well as in the lives of others.
Picking up my pen to write this column, I couldn’t imagine how time flies. Since the last publication of this column I have gone through a lot, especially the loss of my dear mother to whom I dedicate this article. Not only her, but seems I lost a whole generation of my close family.
How to Achieve Business Excellence »
“Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before Kings; He will not stand before unknown men.” Proverbs 22:29
Spiritual Development for our Youth »
Most of us youth in today's fast moving world are easily thrown off by difficulties and worries.
The theme of conversion is a thread that runs all through Lent, but conversion takes on different aspects throughout the phases of Lent. The first two and a half weeks focused on the interior turning of hearts; the liturgy urges the faithful to reflect and examine consciences thoroughly.
Saint Josephine Bakhita »
Feast Day: February 8
Patron Saint Of: Sudan
Saint Josephine Margaret Bakhita was born around 1869 in the village of Olgossa in the Darfur region of Sudan. She was a member of the Daju people and her uncle was a tribal chief. Due to her family lineage, she grew up happy and relatively prosperous, saying that as a child, she did not know suffering.
Catholics Must Fast More Intensely This Lent»
The Norbertine Canons of St. Michael's Abbey have created this digital Lenten retreat so that you can journey through this holy season alongside them. If you want to have one of your best Lenten seasons yet, join us in our Lenten Program "The Great Fast" - https://theabbotscircle.com/the-great-fast-join
When Your Faith Is Put to the Test - Bishop Barron's Sunday Sermon»
Friends, we come now to the Second Sunday of Lent, and we’re on both dangerous and very holy ground with the first reading from the twenty-second chapter of Genesis. The ancient Israelites referred to it as the “Akedah,” which means the “binding”: Abraham binds and is ready to sacrifice Isaac at God’s command.
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