Regarding Daddy’s 10th year and this year’s MArIA

We have gone successfully thus far since 2011 and we praise the Lord for mapping us through a right positive Destiny.  I have always believed that Daddy’s milestone year should be marked with a difference even if we are restricted in some ways to gather physically in order to celebrate this. 

Having consulted somehow with some of us individually, I have the following propositions to bring forward about this year’s forthcoming MArIA celebrations

Suggestions and contributions and additions to these are of course very much welcome 

1. E’eyan ki I ni ile Baba k’o ma ni ti iya…. Inisa’s Church is called St Joseph, Osogbo’s Church is St Mary’s. This somehow reflects Daddy and Mommy. More so, when the latter in is Olorunda, and as such I believe, having contributed towards St Joseph’s year last year, we should also endeavor to have something contributed towards St Mary’s. 

2. Memory is the link between here and hereafter, so while we have tried regarding Daddy and Mommy’s burial site, we should give this a facelift and we should also try and endeavor to give Akinkunmi's site a facelift. Last time I was in Nigeria, Victor took me to the site and I gave some money for some slabs to be done. I am not sure this was done or not as I couldn’t follow up. One thing I am sure is that Victor knows the site. Maybe this can be followed up during MArIA. 

3. Relationship is everything. While we act towards building physical cum spiritual infrastructures, my opinion is that during this milestone year, we should shift a little bit on our reconciliation journey and bring forth a different scenario to the MArIA event in the ways below: 

4. Building on the success of Tomilola s wedding we should try to co-opt Motunrayo and Tomilola and invite them to one (or more) of the sessions of the MArIA program. 

5. Also, looking farther from Michael Akinola’s immediate household, we can invite Aunty, Br John and Br Deremi, either individually or collectively to one of our sessions to discuss on “Before”, “Now” and “Tomorrow” of Akinola’s household.

6. And, while I’m not yet proposing about Iya Tunrayo’s, someone should make out to find out what she is trying to do from her own end. We can find out from Tunrayo or Tomi.

23/05/21

Michael Araoye Akinola - 10th Year Anniversary By Agnes Bola Gbemile

 Thank you all for coming to celebrate the 10th year of our brother,father,and grandfather, Engineer Michael Araoye Akinola

My name is Agnes Bola Akinola Gbemile a.k.a Sisilewe 

Late Engineer M.A Akinola was the eldest son of late Pa Lawrence Akinola and Mama Felicia Adeyoyin Akinola

After we came back from Ghana with our parents,he took over my education and welfare after he finished his secondary School education, in the year 1965.

I lived with him from tender age till he married me out in May 1982

He was very close to all of us the siblings especially me Agnes, our extended families both father and mother sides He was also closed to friends like late daddy Akinjogunla,late Mr Raphael Oladosu and Elder Joseph Oyedeji to mention but few

He made sure all his siblings were well catered for and always wanted us to be united in peace unity and love

His love for his immediate family and extended family was superb.

He worked at St.Kizito Catholic Seminary Ede in Western Region now Osun state as Teacher before joining the then Post and Telecommunications in Osogbo

He got married to his lovely wife autie Mercy Titilayo Akinola in August 1970

He was a kind loving partner to his spouse M.T  Akinola until her demise in January 1983(May her soul rest in peace)

Late Engineer Michael Araoye Akinola was transferred to Ibadan Oniyanrin Exchange of Post and Telecommunications in year 1973/74

He later took up appointment with the then WNBS Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service in Ibadan which later became BCOS Broadcasting Coporation Service where he was given nick named "Radio Dake"because of his dedication to his job.

Due to the demise of his wife in 1983 January he later married  Mrs Moji Akinola in 1990 until his passing away in 2011 July into the cold hand of death (may his soul rest in perfect peace)

In his spare time he loved being indoor spending time with his family and doing lot of church activities as choir master

His favourite word was LOVE (Ife)

MAY HIS GENTLE SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE AMEN

7 Cases for Lourdes Pilgrimage

 ***

1. Covid-19 Pandemic is an eschatological parable, but The Immaculate Conception will be our refuge during this new times and era that are unfolding. 

2. This new era will be birthed by a  supreme submission of the great Motherhood (Alma Mater) to the Divine prerogative. It is a motherhood which comes in three:

1.)Our Biological mother (which has happened) 

2.) The land of our birth (which is happening). 

3.) The source of our evolution, the Church (which will happen). 

Lourdes encapsulates the 3 motherhoods. 

3. The pilgrimage of 2016 Divine Mercy Jubilee Year was our escape against the vicissitudes of the great ‘shutdown’ which is ongoing. On a similar note, this pilgrimage will be a preparation for refuge against any future ordeal which may be looming.

4. ‘In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph’. This is a period of great Hope, irrespective of what may be happening in the world today . And this hope is being championed by a woman called Mary.  

5. Fatima and Lourdes are 2 sides of the same coin. Fatima is about ‘what will you do for me’. Lourdes is about ‘what can I do for you’.  The reason why many (Including our diocese (Oke Maria) choose this period for our pilgrimage) is to find the easiest  (next to do-nothing) succor in Our Lady. Similar to what mercy is with justice.

6. I have always been wary of the 13th to 15th years after, in the Akinolas. I’ve seen that the clue to breaking the next jinx is with the Immaculate heart. It’s nearing time and the time to act is now! 

7. I have been to Lourdes 2ce and the graces and protection I’ve received have left me aghast. There is heaven on earth and my desire is that everyone experience this heaven, even on this side of the bridge. 

Happy Feast day

Our Lady of Lourdes

11/2/22

Where it all Began

A Very Christian Conspiracy Against the Cross

 

Once upon a time, in ancient days

Christ Jesus suffered a painful fate

Crucified on wood, stripped, and shamed

His sacrifice was a new beginning of history

 

Catholics dared to represent this ignominy on the cross

But wove a loin around Christ’s waist to hide the truth

Trouble arose in the aftermath

As Christians grappled with the meaning of the cross

Leaving behind cults that insist on the ‘whole truth’

 

A struggle between caution and full expression

Tussle of faith and enlightenment

An insistence on unity and caution

Against rationality and full expression

 

Protestants emerged seeking to right the tyranny

Causing a revolution of freedom and liberty

By removing Christ from the bond of the wood

And leaving a wooden cross devoid of Christ

 

A culture of work without eternal meaning arose

Causing a cultural fragmentation of truth

The relativism of reality toward individuality

And a splinter of Evangelicals to rescue the harm

 

But Evangelicals removed the wood left by Protestants

Creating their unique model of the cross

Causing passion without process

Experience without structure,

Spirituality without heritage

And a de-Christianised nihilism now taking hold

 

Catholics covered the truth

Protestants removed the truth

Evangelicals recreated the truth

Everyone guilty of a conspiracy against the truth

 

The truth may not be easy to face

But it is the only path to freedom

For, reality started from the cross

And liberty is found in this shamefaced ignominy

 

-Framat

 

Discovering Truth with Faith and Matter

 Consider certain technological actions which may appear as trifling spiritually, but these occur to me as a rare opportunity by which ancient decays, as experienced within ancestral archetypes and original sins could be universally done away with.

Earth-wise, consider purging of black oil and the consequential opportunity for environmental sustainability. This is penance, and a potential for the theological virtue of love.

Human-wise, consider the breakthrough in genetic sciences, its discoveries and potential for wiping out ancient maladies when correctly utilised, and this calls for the theological virtue of hope.

Cosmos-wise: think of the Large Hadron Collider and its potential for discovering a feel of Genesis, and this is a potential for the theological virtue of faith.

These are human endeavours that are likely to be tainted by maladies, but its synonym in its entire pure form is in the Sacrament because, contrary to these human strivings, sacraments are a work of God.

Sacrament of penance is the divine sustainability, Eucharist is the divine genetic science and Baptism the divine Hardon Collider!

But, when the Son of man comes back again, shall He find faith on earth?

This state of peace and freedom that the human spirit strives after in science and a purely endeavour of human knowledge may still take generations to attain, and may never be attained without a full understanding and knowledge of the Christ factor; this state that has already being lived through the reign of Christ.

Everything that would survive through the aforementioned human endeavours, ultimately points to the person of Christ. One cannot achieve this lofty end simply through Economics, or Law, or Science, or Business, or Technology. One attains peace and freedom through Truth that these human endeavours seek to attain, but the source and summit of this truth is Christ, whom we can encounter through the scripture, in the poor and in the Sacraments.

It is Christ that creates a synergy that enables us to apply His corresponding graces within the theological virtues, evangelical counsels, cardinal virtues, the beatitudes , the corporal and spiritual works of mercy ; with Economy, Science, Law, Technology and Business, as pragmatic parables unto attaining the much sought after goal of peace and freedom.

 

Unabashedly Eucharistic

Our days are filled with desperate strife for power

Those who seek the future

In the consolidation of Capitalism

Or in the emergence of Confucius ideology

In the push for White Supremacy

Or, in the re-enactment of Imperialist dreams

In Stalinism, Leninism and Nazism

Or, the hope for a new dawn of Black Power

Nationalist dreams and ideology persist

And new age Liberalism is adamant

Zionism is stretching its muscle

And global Islamism stubbornly unyielding

Communism is pushing forth with venom

And, Totalitarianism and Fascism making its comeback

While the poor look forth in despair

Within all this I stick with one Force

As the true hope for humankind:

It is the potent silence of the Eucharist

That will usher in our new civilisation

Seek forth true freedom

Not in the common ideologies that be

But in the Corpus Christi

The hope of humankind

Call me what you may, but

I am unabashedly Eucharistic!

The Case for Black Maria

I penned the below in November of 2019, before Covid - 19

A couple of months back I suggested 10 propositions that I believe would positively impact the growth of Catholicism in Yorubaland. A couple of minor divergences then, but there was a consensus on many of the suggestions.

I was asked to prepare an expose about my conviction that Mary is Black (Point 7). I hadn’t (Not from lack of conviction but of lack of time and space to put my thoughts on paper).

Then, the Amazon Synod came and the Pachamama debacle happened and my argument was brought to the fore.

I read that the Church’s hierarchy struggled to explain the place of Pachamama at the Synod, and yet it is this battle of the spirits that the 21st century man should gear itself to fight more and more.

I can only thank Pope Francis for opening a can of long hidden canker-worms that can only be experienced but cannot easily be explained out.

I still haven’t got time to write a full expose, but I can itemize the points I would like us to explore and expose more.

1.            In the first instance the Synod should not be about Amazon, it should be about Africa. To win the Cosmos, your starting point should be Africa. Africa is the Mother!

2.            There are 3 forms of Motherhood: Your land of birth, your Biological mother and your Point of Connection with the Divine. And the origin of all this is the land. Don’t mess with the land. Even though we would all end in Jerusalem, the starting point is Africa!

3.            Science, Religion and History may look at ethics but there is a grand Reason behind Amazon (South America) drifting from Mother Africa (some said it was during the Flood, but I believe in the continental drift theory) and why the land calls back her children with 400 years of Slave trade. Let’s watch how history would unfolds. Seize not in thanking your star you are Black! 

4.            In Revelation (Rev:12), we saw a woman clothed with the sun, the moon was under her feet and she was adorned with a crown of 12 stars. Sun, moon, stars: a depiction of the entire cosmos. But where is the earth in this? Because, this woman herself is the Earth!

5.            Why do we think the cult of Black Madonna is coming back strong?

6.            There is a spiritual woman at the heart of creation. Some devotees of the earth find that solace as Pachamama, I have realized that reality as Mary.

7.            Authentic spirituality cannot just explain reality out, it must journey through the darkness of the vague to arrive at clarity. Mother nature is not an allegory, it is a reality.

8.            It may not be Oya, Olokun, Osun or Pachamama, but excuse me, you cannot just ignore this out. Pantheism is coming back with a venom because we dismiss it rather than engage it.

9.            This engagement will be an experiential journey to reality, and many will be lost, die and condemned in the process, but it is the path through which the Church can be purified and where Reality can be discovered.

10.         Ninu ikoko dudu ni eko funfun ti n jade! Ancient gates do not rise with fun. We cannot just throw away the baby of truth away with the water of superstition. The easier bit is to throw Pachamama into River Thebes. The harder part is that she is coming with a venom until we engage. Haha!