In Memory

IN MEMORY My primal sin: I take things for granted. What if my grandfather hadn’t decided to be a Christian or hadn’t invested in my Dad’s formal education, and what if my Dad hadn’t valued education also and hadn’t trained me to the university level. Surely, I could still have made it, but at a greater toil and lengthier time. Only God knows what important choice my Great-grandfather or Great great grandfather had made to get me here. And do I think at all, am I grateful for these or do I take things for granted? And what choices will I make for my children to keep up this progress. This is the capital sin: Idagunla, aibikita. Memory. The bane of our society. We lack history. We treat death as another ‘spanner loss’, we ignore the lives of our ancestors, that is why wise elders are lacking, why dynamic leaders are short and why we have swarms of mediocre as followers. Don’t look too far. Mia cupa. It’s saddening when we practice faiths that tend to kill memory. How on earth shall there then be growth? Even Christ cannot effect much without memory. A society whose followers are obedient and grateful, whose leaders let go, and whose elders practice memory and teach others its method will move at light speed. The greater virtue after morality and letting go is memory. Look at yonder, how do they get on? They lack faith, they are immoral, they are aggressively secular and atheistic, but they value history, biography, autobiography, they have a reading and writing culture , they think, they don’t forget and they believe in and leave legacies for posterity,. All Souls Day tend to portend sorrow (which is good, it helps the souls anyway) and purgatory has loads of bad press that we think of it little less than anathema. We look at our beloved dead as being helpless, and having no more contact whatsoever with our lives here, and we spare some thoughts for them, if at all , only on All Souls Day. A whole lot of Christian faiths wouldn’t even spare a day for memory. Do we really need to be sad for them? Yes, sad because they are no more around us physically. But they feel an infinitely more sorrows for us (which they have mastered, for sorrows effect much than joy in heaven) because we are more to be pitied. Work, pain, labour sorrows, etc becomes the opposite over there. When we remember them, we help them quite alright, but we benefit a lot more from them. We gain vision, progress and love. Blessed are the sorrowful, for they shall be comforted. Do you think pains, labours works etc are evil? Think a little of the Little Flower wanting to spend her heaven in doing good on earth. Did I hear earth? This ‘jakujaku’ earth?; as if that is not bad enough, what if we think of the Blessed Virgin still in labour of childbirth until now? Since 33AD! Is that not purgatory in heaven? And as if that is not the worst, what when you hear of St Paul’s wish of being condemned to hell on behalf of the Israelites?.. Don’t try to imitate them if you haven’t trusted love.’o ni hun ti agba je tele ikun… ‘Are they stupid or are we ignorant? Only when we learn to love and not hate do we know the reason why. It is He who has not come to condemn, but has come to save, who causes that experience. What is purgatory, for those who live the beatitudes? Hell melts away at the sight of love. A soul in love cannot stand still, that is why Yoruba says that ‘oku olomo kii sun’, that is the most natural means of this love that we speak about, albeit needing purification. (Mother and child). Movement is love, love happens for freedom and peace. He who is more artful at the utility of memory wins, that is why evil thrives. Evil people believe more in devils than we do God and have mastered this memorial act than us, and it is easier for humanity to destroy than to build. They conjoin demons, they remember devils, thus iniquity flocks the world. They make us forget our heroes who are dead in Christ and they keep on holding to the land. Freedom is all about the liberation of the land. Who owns the land? Who are our ancestors, the true ‘alaales’? Until we realise that man goes back to dust, and that, a man in Christ is word, and that it is through word that the land gains its freedom and liberation. In fact, the word has become land. Christ has won for us the land, but until we master the art of memory, we shall continue to succumb to the devil’s illusions. (And when He is come He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: Of sin, because they believe not on Him; of righteousness because He goes to His Father, and we see Him no more; Of judgement because the prince of this world is already judged -JN16:8-11). Christ’s ultimate legacy is: ‘Do this in memory of Me’. Therein lies great power, and He gave us the means to do this: The Eucharist. Christ told the rich young man after he has fulfilled point 1 of progress: morality, to apply point 2: go sell all what you have and give the money to the poor (letting go, the virtue of a leader, ‘agba maa n gba ni’), after the 2nd point He proposed step 3: ‘then, follow Me’. That following is the stage of memory, keep me in focus, it is the arrival of eldership, the 24 elders who are always by the throne of the Lord are those who have learnt the science of memory. The eternal legacy a man can achieve is the true acquisition of the land, and you can only acquire this land if it is truly liberated, and it behoves of one person, one man only to liberate the land, He only who has opened the seal. The Christ. Our Saviour! Our lives, knowingly or unknowingly are truly a battle for the land. But it is through letting go and memory that we gain the wisdom of conquest. And about what matters afterlife, Christ says: whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. When we remember those who have died in Christ, albeit imperfect as they are (least of the brethren), we give Christ greater means of conquering the land. A damning belief is that which teaches us to forget the dead. A society or household that fails to constantly remember its dead is itself dead! No matter our cries to Him for liberation, Christ is likely to tell us: I am busy with Israel and Palestine, and when we tell Him, but come to Nigeria, He’ll reply: You have Tansi and all the numerous dead in my name to deliver you, and we shall answer, but they are not You, and they are not saints, they are imperfect, and we’ll rattle to Him their faults and imperfections, and He shall reply us: whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me. Remember them, thus you remember Me., for they are in me, ‘e ma pa ketekete!’ I rule from Israel, but I am present everywhere through my vicarages, even Peter is not here in Israel, he is manning My site in Rome. My mother also is not here, she is in Ephesus, so also my beloved disciple, John etc ( This is a description for literary purpose, I know the land is one and everything operates in essence) .What is sin and imperfection in the presence of love? When we believe that they that are in Christ are not saved, we have thus commenced our own condemnation on earth. Home is the natural place to build love, that which lasts till eternity. We should do everything to preserve the natural love of the home. ‘Bi ile o ba dun, bi igbe ni ilu nri’. If we miss the love from home we shall labour more to get it elsewhere and the vastness of our destiny most probably shall be curtailed. I know we dread idolatry, but nonetheless, Christ takes glory in the glorification of Christians, more so those who have died and are perfected in Him. Remember that famous Starcomms slogan: ‘We speak your language!’ , how important it is. Apart from the natural love which family fosters, there is this family, tribal and national language which is manifested in culture and tradition, which only he who is born, bred and died in the land is adept at. We speak your language! And this language is the word, which every one of us shall become. Logos. This logo must cut through the waft and weft of the illusions of true cultures, where a fake word exists; it is burnt up and taken over by the True Word. The Logos of God and it is through this that the land is liberated. This is truth, it is because we believe it in a shallow way, that is why evil still reigns. The real war is on and has been won at the same time. The actual war is inside us, our capacity to see this and work in love. Liberation of the land can only take effect through memory of our ancestors, our true ancestors, those who have died in Christ. The more this is continual and widespread, the more this cult of memory is built, in an individualistic and personal way, and all brought into the mystery of the Eucharist, the more our individual locality language is spoken, and the more our lands are liberated, the more there shall be prosperity,for the liberation of the land has a very close tie with the liberation of its people. We are the Word! Those who are dead in Christ are the actual living, they are waiting to perpetuate this true legacy! The real fact of the many languages heard spoken of during Pentecost is not only that of speaking in tongues , but that of a deep and divine understanding of the respective cultures of the languages spoken , which had been hitherto foreign to the disciples, which needed to be entered into and conquered for Christ. If Christ had not envisioned the universality of the church, they would all have spoken only Hebrew on Pentecost, even with that, it took persecutions to move the apostles from there comfort zones. They spoke the gentiles languages, they knew, by grace, the waft and weft of dwelling in the respective lands. That which they gained through divine grace is what we have been given naturally by our language. We need to wake up, and wake up the dead in Christ through memory. They have the natural ability to speak our languages, in fact, they have become our languages, and that is a plus for our land. They are the real words, but they are powerless without us bringing about their memory, even Christ is powerless without His memory (which the Holy Spirit shall not permit), and He is busy in Palestine, He still rules from Jerusalem, and whether we wilt or not, He shall conquer in the middle East and when He does, He shall rule the world, but then He shall have to ask us, how have you assisted me to conquer the land? The same words of the judgement apply in our relations to those who are living as well as those who are dead. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy begins from the life here into life hereafter. Will the words ‘whatever you do to the least of my brethren….’, affirm or refute us? Some ancestors have tried so much that they have won over their traditions, cultures, albeit to truth or to falsehood. Latin has so much been conquered that it has become the language of the church, and how the devil trembles at Latin! So also is Aramaic and Hebrew. Powers also dwell in Arabic, Hindu, English, Greek and even Yoruba, albeit positively or negatively. They know the power of using the word. I was named Francis during my baptism. I have cultivated the art of remembering St Francis, my patron Saint. He blesses me and blesses my family through me, but he has carried the remaining blessings to Assisi, for he really could not speak Yoruba to effect much further, except to act briefly only through those who understand him as we do. But he knows the nooks and crannies of Assisi, so it becomes easier to work in Assisi, or through Assisi, for work he must as an authentic logos. What shall I do then to liberate my land? I must learn and practice the science and art of memory, bringing back alive my ancestors who are dead in Christ, for they love to dwell with us, they hold the true language that can liberate our land, and it is through them that there shall be prosperity, progress and true liberation of the land! O blessed are the dead who have those that really matter to remember them, i.e. the church, holy people, simple souls; and also blessed the living who have saintly dead to remember. Reciprocals of this bring liberation of the land!