Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Adama, OP of the Catholic Arch-diocese of Lagos recently addressed Christians of SS Peter & Paul Pro-Cathedral, Lagere, Ile-Ife.

The Dominican Priest belong to the Ordinis Praedicatorum. Like a pilgrim, he observed that pilgrimage is partaken in an area outside the natural space. This is to buttress his earlier assertion that life is unexplainable and understandable. His further reason is that life journey comes with different terrain; sometimes it is good, other times, bad. Hence, he was not surprised of human curiosity, having realized that many have been victims.

The Priest realized that hope exist; noting that scientific and technological development is good, since it has come to help human to trust man. He however worried that these advancements have taken human aback in religious dimension in relation to God. According to him, if human trust so much in the likes of Google-Map while going through an unfamiliar journey for example, how much more should trust be in God in the journey of life.

Fr. Adama noted that many Christians place more trust in technological advancement ahead of God in recent time. While he realized that Christians now are fond of request from God based on their own terms, he educated that God should not be boxed with a time limit.  He referenced that though human parent provides earthly requests to their Children, God, the heavenly father provides the tools and resources to self-make the request instead.

In other words, according to him, God provides the ingredient and resources, including step-by-step process of baking bread – one after the other while human provides the full bread without caring to teach how to bake the bread. In his opinion, hope of wishes and probability is not a Christian hope but that of assurance; not a hope of command which Christianity now practice.

He further reiterated that the God of love takes his Children through processes because he wants them to care for themselves while seeing themselves as one who falls and rises. The Priest however encouraged Christian to be ready while hopeful; with the assertion that praying in Church night and day without working is in vain. “No matter the circumstances, never compromise authenticity for anything” said the priest.