Nigeria: The Christian Lent Season - Citizenship, National and Social Questions

24 February 2013

"You shall not oppress or afflict a resident alien for you were once aliens residing in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry to me, I will surely listen to their cry. If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you must not act like a money lender; you must not demand interest from him." (Exodus 22: 20-23, 24,) and "You shall not deny one of your needy fellow men his rights in his law suit. You shall keep away from anything dishonest. The innocent and the just you shall not put to death nor shall you acquit the guilty . Never take a bribe for a bribe blinds even the most clear-sighted and twists the words even of the just. you shall not oppress an alien; you well know how it feels to be an alien, since you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt." (Exodus 23: 6-9).

The Christian Lent season is a period of complete spiritual and bodily retreat in total submission to the will of God in order to be in complete and total unity with our creator. On this journey, we exhibit quiet charism of unity with our creator. As mortals, we struggle during this period. Sometimes we fail to reach that total spiritual unity, sometimes we succeed. Our failures and successes during this period point to the essence of our mortality, our fragility as humans. That act of spiritual surrender, which our faith requires, took me to the scriptures. One dawn, last week as the day rose reluctantly with heavy grunts for the mortality of the body is beginning to assume and show its weakness and fragility, a voice took me to the scriptures, one of my family's daily catholic prayer texts. I hurried. I opened. I flipped. I read. There, I saw graphically a representation of the national and social questions in human societies, which profess faith and spirituality. The quote above is what I saw. I decide to share it with fellow Nigerians for we claim to profess faith and spirituality. But at the end regardless of what we profess, we must ask ourselves (including myself) candid questions about our faith and spirituality.

...

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.