Homily at Fr Francis Adedara’s 60th Birthday

Seminary of Ss Peter and Paul, Bodija, Ibadan

January 28, 2026; by Father Anthony A. Akinwale, OP

 

 

 

“The seventy-two came back rejoicing.”

These words, heard some moments ago from the Gospel proclaimed to us, point to the purpose of our gathering at this Mass (Lk 10:17-24). 

We are gathered here to offer the holy sacrifice of the Mass because, like the seventy-two in the Gospel, Father Francis Adedara, and we with him, his family and friends, have come to the Lord rejoicing on his 60th birthday.

The Nigeria into which Father Adedara was born on January 28, 1966 had just witnessed a military coup—the first in her history.  On January 15, 1966, young military officers below the age of 30, soldiers immensely skillful in shooting guns and hitting their targets, reduced Nigeria’s complex problems to target, bullets and guns.  Skillful snipers they were, but utterly lacking in sagacity. 

In total disregard for sanctity of human life, contemptuous of Nigeria’s ethnic and regional sensibilities, they turned guns on some of the political leaders of Nigeria’s First Republic.  That day marked the beginning of the first bout of pestilential military rule in Nigeria.  Prior to that needless bloodshed, Nigeria had a headache.  On January 15, 1966, the headache became a brain tumour.  And, sixty years later, the patient is neither dead nor alive.

But today is not a day of lamentation.  It is a day of celebration with and for Father Francis Adedara.

The seventy-two had been sent by our Lord on a mission to labour and to harvest, to bear witness to the Gospel.  He sent them with nothing.  “Take no purse with you, no haversack, no sandals,” Jesus instructed them.

        And he warned them about the challenges of their mission.  They were to offer peace.  “Whatever house you enter, let your first words be: ‘Peace to this house.’”

        However, they were to prepare for instances when that message of peace would be refused by a world that needs peace but does not want peace:  “if a man of peace lives there your peace will go and rest on him; if not it will come back to you.”

        On a difficult mission they were sent, and from that difficult mission they returned with news of success: “Lord,” they said, “even the devils submit to us when we use your name.”

        “The seventy-two came back rejoicing.”

Today, Father Adedara comes rejoicing for the gift of life, for the gift of sixty-years, thirty-four of which have been spent fulfilling God’s mission in his life and ministry as a priest.  Like the seventy-two in the Gospel of this Mass who, after their mission, returned to the Lord to give an account of their mission, rejoicing, he too has come to give an account of what these past years have been.  He is thanking God for his life and for his mission. And we as friends and family gather around him, adding our voices and sentiments to his, to give a thanksgiving account of God’s blessings in his priestly life and ministry.

Celebrating his birth reminds him and reminds us that each of us was given the gift of life for a purpose, each of us was born with a mission.  Our Creator gave each of us a mission to accomplish in life.  The days and years of the life of each of us are to be spent prayerfully and constantly asking the Lord to show us what our mission in life is, to open our eyes at the breaking of bread, just as he did to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, that we may know what our mission in life is, that having known it we may understand it, and having understood it, live to accomplish it. 

On this occasion, some famous words of St John Henry Newman come to mind. In his meditation entitled “The Mission of My Life”, which is found in his Meditations and Devotions, posthumously published in 1893, can be found these words: “God has created me to do Him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission.  I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.  I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.  He has not created me for naught.  I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.  Therefore, I will trust him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.  If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.  If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain.  He knows what he is about.  He may take away my friends.  He may throw me among strangers.  He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me.  Still, He knows what He is about.”

Father Adedara’s birthday providentially falls on the day the Church celebrates the feast of St Thomas Aquinas.  In the life of St Thomas, illustrious son of the Order of Preachers and illustrious son of the Church—a true son or daughter of the Order of Preachers is a true son or daughter of the Church—we find an eloquent embodiment of Catholic intellectual tradition which we all must imitate. 

In St Thomas we find a man who cultivated his intellectual life by cultivating his spiritual life, and cultivated his spiritual life by cultivating his intellectual life.  In him there was no separation, no compartmentalization but a beautiful marriage of faith and reason, in a synthesis of philosophy and theology.  Such a fine blend of spiritual and intellectual life was a gift given to St Thomas by God to be used as a gift for the Church and for the world. God gave St Thomas a mission.  In the midst of the Church, and in the heart of the academia, God raised him up and gave him the mission of a teacher of faith. 

From St Thomas, teacher of faith and reason, we learn what thanksgiving means.  From him we learn that “Thanksgiving [gratiarum actio] in the recipient corresponds to the favor [gratia] of the giver: so that when there is greater favor on the part of the giver, greater thanks are due on the part of the recipient.”  God the giver of life is the greatest Giver.  To God the greatest Giver is due our greatest thanksgiving.

From St Thomas we learn that gratitude is a virtue, ingratitude a vice.  To be grateful is to act in consonance with justice and charity.  To be ungrateful is to act against justice and charity.  Gratitude disposes us to acknowledge the good we have received from a benefactor.  A virtue makes its possessor good.  Therefore, gratitude as virtue makes the one who is grateful good.  By the mere fact that a beneficiary acknowledges the benefits he has received from a benefactor, by the very fact of being grateful, the beneficiary disposes himself to receive more benefits and therefore becomes good.  That is why to be grateful is to dispose oneself to receive more benefits.  “Bi omode ba dupe ore ana, a ri omiran gba.  Sugbon eni ti a se loore ti o dupe bi igba ti olosa ko ni leru lo ni. »  Memory lapse gives birth to ingratitude, and ingratitude is another name for theft.

God has no need of our gratitude.  If we do not thank him he is not diminished, we are instead diminished by our own ingratitude.  Our prayer of thanksgiving adds nothing to his greatness.  If we thank him he does not become greater, we become greater when we are grateful, we grow in grace when we acknowledge grace.  Our desire to thank God is itself God’s gift making us grow in his grace. 

I first met Father Adedara in 1992.  That year, the Catholic Diocese of Ilorin had a new Bishop, in the person of my Dominican brother, Bishop Ayo Maria Atoyebi.  I was studying in the United States when news of his appointment came.  I placed a call to him in order to congratulate him.  When I told him I would be visiting Nigeria in August of that year, he told me he had an assignment for me.  Getting to Nigeria, I travelled to Ilorin to know what the assignment was.  The assignment was to preach the retreat to the first two of his deacons to be raised to the presbyteral order.  One of those two deacons was Father Adedara.

For years I have watched with grateful admiration how the grace of God has continued to elevate Father Adedara.  I thank God for the time he served as Vice President of the Catholic Theological Association of Nigeria while I was President of the same Association.  He was my highly dependable collaborator.  I thank God for his days as Rector of the Spiritual Year Seminary, his years as doctoral student at Ave Maria University in the United States where he was mentored by my teacher Father Matthew Lamb of blessed memory, his years of sterling teaching at the Seminary of Saints Peter and Paul, his years as President of the Catholic Theological Association of Nigeria.  With a sense of mission, Father Adedara has spent his life at the service of the Church and at the service of the academic community. 

We owe God a huge debt of gratitude for the life and ministry of Father Adedara.  The Lord gifted him in many ways, and he continues to gift us by gifting him.  But how can we who are tiny thank the mighty Lord?  How can we who are so little pay the huge debt of gratitude we owe God?  Like the Psalmist, we too wonder, “How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?”  What shall we render to the Lord who has immensely blessed Fr Adedara?

Like the Psalmist, we shall raise the cup of salvation, the cup of the holy Eucharist, the cup of thanksgiving.  But how can a few drops of wine and a few tiny pieces of unleavened bread express the huge gratitude we owe God?

The simplicity that the Eucharistic bread and the Eucharistic cup represent is what is symbolized in the tiny pieces of bread and in the few drops of wine in the chalice.  Yet, in these tiny pieces of bread, and in these few drops of wine, we have the greatest gift and the greatest thanksgiving.  The holy Eucharist is the greatest thanksgiving because, in it, we offer the body and blood of Jesus.  And it is the greatest gift because in it the Lord Jesus offers us himself in his body and blood. 

May the simplicity of these gifts of bread and wine represent the simplicity of our hearts, the simplicity that ought to mark our hearts. For the one whose heart of gratitude is marked by simplicity is able to empty himself of self-centredness so as to be filled with God’s love.  The human heart cannot be filled with the love of God if it is lacking in simplicity. 

After receiving the news of successful mission of the seventy-two who came rejoicing, Jesus expressed thanksgiving to the Father in words that pointed to the reward reserved for simple hearts: “I bless you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to little children.  Yes, Father, for that is what it has pleased you to do.”

Dear Father Adedara, you would have noticed that I have not offered you any piece of advice so far.  I can only say at this point that, having attained the age of 60, you must now learn to apply the breaks before you break.  The energy of you is beginning to undergo some depreciation.  So, be careful what you do with your body.

As you come before the Lord God rejoicing, may he continue to reveal the mystery of his love to you.  Using the words of the First Reading of this Mass (Sirach 50:22-24), we say this prayer for you:  we bless the God of all things, the doer of great deeds everywhere, who has exalted your days from the womb and has acted mercifully towards you.  May he grant you a cheerful heart and bring you peace.  May his mercy be faithfully with you now and all the days of your life.