Shikrot Mpwi - Sunday Synopsis with Fr. Justine J. Dyikuk

The Nativity of the Lord (Vigil Mass), Year A – Dec 24, 2016

Readings: Is 62:1-5; Responsorial Psalm Ps 89:4-5.16-17.29 (2a); Acts 13:16-17.22-25; Gospel - Matthew 1:1-25.

Theme: Christmas Eve: Joining the Shepherds in the First Vigil!

 

Beloved in Christ, today is Christmas-eve. Here in Nigeria, we are quite familiar with the razzmatazz that is often associated with the day or period of time immediately before an event or occasion like the bachelor’s eve or what is popularly called, before the wedding – Usually, the friends of the groom or groomsmen raise money and throw some kind of a send off party for their crony who is about to graduate from bachelorhood to both familyhood and fatherhood.

Those who have attended these parties claim that such parties are avenues for married guys to give good advice to the groom to be. Aside from the plenty food and drink available, such events are known to be wild and funky. What is clear in this kind of celebration is the spirit of expectation or joyous waiting by the bridegroom for his beloved bride.

Shikrot Mpwi - Sunday Synopsis with Fr. Justine J. Dyikuk 

The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas), Year A – Dec 25, 2016

  Readings: Is 52:7-10; Responsorial Psalm Ps 98:1-6 (R.v.3); Heb1:1-6; Gospel John 1:1-18 or John 1:1-5.9-14.

Theme: Christ Our Light: Lessons Of Christmas From Rural-Africa!

  In Rural-Africa, the excitement of children when light or power supply is restored after it has been interrupted for days or weeks is akin to that joy you feel when Santa Claus knocks at your door on Christmas morning to surprise you with a box of gifts. Perhaps an erstwhile gathering of African kids at the family compound or village square for tales by the moonlight tells the story of light (energy) deficit in Sub-Sahara Africa more.

Drawing from the latest Africa Progress Panel report 2015 titled “People, Power, Planet,” we are told that TWO in every three people in Africa, around 621 million in total, live in darkness – which means that they have no access to electricity. According to the report, the poor spend the most on energy with Africa’s poorest households spending $10/kWh on lighting, or around 20 times the amount spent by high-income households with a connection to the grid. It surmised that on current trends, it will take Africa until 2080 to achieve universal access to light (electricity).

            Shikrot Mpwi - Sunday Synopsis with Fr. Justine J. Dyikuk   

                          Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A – Dec 18, 2016

Readings: Is 7:10-14; Responsorial Psalm Ps 24:1-2,3-4,5-6; Rom 1:1-7; Gospel Mat 1:18-24.

Theme: Lessons from the Emmanuel & Joseph Effect!

Friends in Christ, the joy of last Sunday being Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday has led us to the last Sunday of Advent. The four Sundays of Advent have given us four weeks of intense preparation for the Lord’s nativity. Today, the Prophet Isaiah (Is 7:10-14) brings us glad tidings that a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son who shall be named Emmanuel. Isaiah’s prophecy is amplified in the gospel (Mat 1:18-24) which presents the circumstances leading to the saviour’s birth culminating in naming him, Emmanuel – much like Isaiah’s Emmanuel which means, God with us. What do we make of this? Well, our reflection will be based on the Emmanuel-Effect in the light of God’s omnipresence, omnipotence and omniscience while drawing lessons from the Joseph-Effect. 

Bishop Kukah: Four Decades of Exceptional Service to God and Humanity

By Justine Dyikuk

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, His Excellency, Most Rev. Mathew Hassan Kukah will be forty years as a Catholic Priest on 19 December 2016. This man of God needs no introduction in Nigeria. The quintessential ecclesiastical and elder statesman is a remarkable Nigerian who has stood tall in both spiritual and secular affairs.

While the preparations for the celebration of these forty years of faithfulness in the service of God and humanity for this servant of God are in top gear, it is essential to give honour to whom honour is due. Indeed, we know the celebrant as someone who is not only an idealist in the sense of one who has the theoretical framework of where he wants Nigeria to be but also “a brutal realist” as Africa Confidential describes him, who constantly gives a proviso of how Nigeria should work based on his many years of contact with the faithful on the pastoral field, people of divergent creeds at ecumenical gatherings, academics at scholarly fora and governments at local, state, federal and international levels.