I am interested in your stories. An occasion to acknowledge the contributions of our alma mater, (Loretto Boys High School, Ossah, now Bishop Nwedo Memorial Boys High School) and her personnel played in your life then and today. This school, particularly lighted my life and late brother Dunga - along with the whole bunch - was particularly responsible for giving help to my formation. I am using this opportunity to thank God for the life and witness of those men and also to pray for many more young men and women to join their ranks. For decades now, we have been treated to unrelenting barrages of negativity about the damage allegedly done to generations of Catholic school children by the brothers of yesteryear. We have also witnessed some very sad developments in religious life in these periods - loss of faith and loss of identity. I would like to address a concern with this story and with your stories too, by asking you to pay tribute to the outstanding men and women who educated you at BNMBHS, Ossah, Umuahia. I shall appreciate if you mention each and every one by name, highlighting one especially memorable aspect of that brother, teacher or Father (kitchen women or nurses) etc. relationship to you in your human and spiritual development. As you do so, I invite you to think back on the brothers and teacher who educated you, and those in the parishes and your local churches where you have been spiritually nourished, possibly catechists, etc! From 1997 to 2003, I attended BNMBHS, Umuahia, a catholic mission secondary school operated by the Sons of Mary Mother of Mercy (SMMM) Congregation, Umuahia, Abia State. During that entire time, I received a superb education at every level, never a dull moment, and genuinely looked forward to every day of school in this boarding house. Were all the teachers and formators perfect? Of course not. And one or two were, shall we say, off-base, wicked over-zealous over-disciplined but where dont you find that? At any rate, permit me to launch into my personal litany with you. Great BOBA! We need your inspiring stories. I need you to remember your many sagas and stories of life with the brothers, priests and teachers and kitchen women and nurses in Loretto or BNMBHS as your case may be. We want good stuffs. Name names and tell your great stories to inspire us. As I came to understand from the outset, they werent all perfect, but fairness demands that I say that their communal successes far outweighed any individual failures. The presence of these brothers in our school as salt and light was indeed taken for granted at those times and we now sorely miss their dedicated and loving witness (most of them) as envidenced with responses to Basil Amauwas picture of those of Kitchen Women (afterall these years, the overwhelming consensus was they feed us!). I hope that some of their example, however, moved us - and many of us as well - to take up their example to be salts and light in the circumstances of our lives. As we thank God today for who those good men and women were and for what they accomplished to make our school and us great, let us also beseech the Lord that He would raise up men and women today to form new communities of Religious to replenish their ranks, communities that will be faithful to the true identity of consecrated life and that will offer new generations of young Catholics and other faiths even a tenth of what so many of us received at their hands, so graciously and so generously. And maybe, so. Wickedly if there is any of such case! Thank you all. I loved this school. I still love it!
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 03:26:57 +0000
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