We are very happy for today. To tell you the truth I never dreamt this was going to take the shape it has taken. This is because, the Sister told me about that but precisely what to do, I did not know. However, as the hours approached, we were told he would be there but when the time for that lunch approaches, he would return to Enugu. I said all right, we started waiting. Then later on, we were told that they would stay for lunch.

Then you know how much he eats, the joy of eating from the very word go, a lot of it comes from sharing. I thought it was necessary to tell the priests around, especially those at the Secretariat since we got the information last night. We asked to come down for lunch, how we were going to manage it we were not too sure; and it happened the way it has happened and we thank God for that.

I knew Bishop Eneja when I was small in the primary school. It was big news and something new and unseen before to receive a priest of Nsukka origin. Many things happened. The vehicle he drove, a Pick-up van was not donated by Nsukka Christians alone but with the help of the elders from all the Villages and Towns in Nsukka cultural one. This is because; they regarded his ordination as an honour to Nsukka people. If it were to depend on those who attend Church regularly, those you see on Sundays, I don’t know whether it would have come near to buying a kit car at that particular time.

When I finally went to the Seminary, I wouldn’t say Bishop Eneja was my mentor but I must say that he saved me from problems. This is because the very first Sunday I spent in Nsukka, after coming home on Easter holidays of my first year; I jammed him at Nsukka here. I did not know he was there, but my parents and one of my uncles were here to tell the Parish Priest they did not want me to be in the Seminary. When they came, they saw the Parish Priest carrying the Blessed Sacrament and the Mass Servers caring the light and the bell was being rung, and they said they wouldn’t go to him because ‘na o n’afu muo’ (he sees the spirits).

(This thing called conscience is terrible). They did not go to the white man because they claimed that he sees the spirit. They started wondering whom to go to and Fr. Eneja then came out, and they went to him. They greeted him and told him that they don’t want their son to be in the Seminary. And he asked them: “What of myself? Am I not born like the rest? (Amuro m amu?)” These languages did not mean much to them.

Before I went to the Seminary actually, without Bishop Eneja, I would not have bought even a trouser. I never put on a trouser until after my WEAC. I never put a trouser until 1958. I passed for the entrance Examination, but there was no means of raising the money. I was already being hunted for having committed a crime of after money has been wasted on me; I decided to go to the Seminary. Bishop Eneja, then Fr. Eneja, wrote a small note (you know the way he writes to say, he says it). I was to take the note round to the Christians to see whether they could give me something to buy my outfit. Some refused saying that I was only going to read, that I wasn’t going to become a priest.

I went round from Ukwu Alugwu (the market) to Odinigbo. (Most of the influential Christians were living within that range). I collected from them the total sum of three pounds shelling. That was for everything I needed. I fact, preparing for the Seminary, you need a box but the quest6ion is how do you get it? We couldn’t go for a plank. We went for empty crate of Heinekens beer. We used the white wood with which the crate was made (laughs). We bought it with some amount of money, which was not made known to me. All I know was that the Carpenter used it to construct a box for me with which I went to the Seminary.

My benefactor gave me one and six pens for my transport to Onitsha and that was all I had. With this money, I paid my transport fare and got into the car that took me to Onitsha. When I reached the Seminary at Onitsha, it was a beautiful reception because the Seminarians, once they see a vehicle stopped; they ran down to help you carry your things. They will show you everything you need to know about the Seminary. A day or two after our arrival, we were told to meet the Rector to pay our school fees and the rest of things. When I met the Rector, Fr. Regean, he asked me: “What is your name?” I told him my name. “From where?” I told him. He said: “All right our school fees?” I told him I had nothing. He looked at me (laughs). After looking at me he said: “Well go to Class” (laughs). It was ‘go to class’ for two or three years.

Then to come home on holidays, when I came home, by then my parents had shown that they don’t want me, the next holidays I didn’t go home. I had to go to Fr. Eneja at Coal Camp at Enugu. He found me a family from Aku with whom I could spend my holidays. And that was the way with his support things worked.

I am very happy about the adjective Fr. Emma Ugwu used in qualifying Bishop Eneja when he said: “the person of Bishop Eneja is God’s shrine and where he stands is a holy ground”. Yes, he is God’s shrine among us and we thank God for that. His fellows Bishops recognize this; we know the reaction of the Bishops towards him at meetings. He doesn’t talk much, but as soon as he raises his hand to talk, all would raise down their hands and he would say what he wanted to say. If there were many hands up, he wouldn’t raise his hand. When he thinks that everybody has spoken he raises his hand and those who were intending raising their hands would put them down.

The reverse would have been the case if not his person. So, we are lucky. It is part of the history of the Church that6 those who laid the foundation of the Church are most often holy men and women. We thank God we have somebody whom we can without exaggeration call a holy man. He is the eldest man in his clan. He doesn’t normally come home but as soon as he became the ‘Onyishi’, he makes time to come home to say a few things and to direct certain things before he goes back. He didn’t say ‘they had nothing to do without him’. Hence ‘onyishi’ is not idol worship’. So we thank God he is here with us today and we are proud he is here.

As he is a ‘shrine’, it is very important that we try to visit this shrine very frequently and ‘pray at the shrine’. The only thing we have to remind ourselves is that Christ was a Jew, and both his father and mother were Jew, and both his father and mother were Jews. Even Christ himself said that no matter what you say about the Jews (etere ugba etere azu)) ‘salvation comes from the Jews’. The Jews are still suffering for not taking Christ seriously; not doing what they were told to do. Yet they were told to do. Yet they were ‘Christ’s own people by blood. It is incredible!

A Jewish worker at Enugu-Port Harcourt Road told one of his fellow workers: ‘I am a Jew and Jesus Christ whom you worship is my brother (laughs). May God help us to understand and appreciate the person of Bishop M.U Eneja and to follow his examples. We cannot say that he has led us astray. Whoever fails is failing on his or her own accord (onye dara dara n’onwe ya). It cannot be because of what Bishop Eneja did or said. Talking of setting a good example, they’re a few things that one could touch.

When the mother died, Chief Joseph Nwankwu came with a huge cow, and wanted to surprise the Bishop. As the cow was coming for the funeral of the mother, Bishop Eneja sent word to Chief Nwankwu not to come in there with the cow. His argument is that if the cow was to be killed for the funeral of the mother, what provision had he that all the priests that lost their mothers would kill a goat? (Laughs). I think that alone shows a lot of the way he sees things and also the way he understand his position. He has always to think of the flock and we thank God and thank him for visiting our diocese. We thank everybody that has come to say welcome to His Lordship. Fr. Emma Ugwu, you are lucky and we thank God for your tears of joy.

We wish the Bishop good health as long as God wants him to live. It is interesting to watch him eat. If you want to pet him so much, he will leave the plate for you. He would try to take the food with his own hand and put it into his mouth (laughs). Up till now it takes him time to accept to be helped to come down the staircases of his house. He would like to go down with his walking stick.

We thank God that we also have the grace to do all that God has given us the strength to do and should not wait for others to come and do it for us. The Bishop mentioned to me in confidence: “My greatest penance is to see what I can do and what I should do but I would not do it because somebody has got to do it’. In other words, it is crippling to allow people do everything for you. Very often you will see that the work is not done and there is no way you can ask people not to do anything for you. You must necessarily need people. We have to accept God’s will in this case. I know that what God said should be done must be done. Again the success of what you are doing does not depend on the perfection of your own action. It can also come from the very fact that somebody has time to do it as he or she can.

Sr. Ndidi, we thank you very much for the special service you are giving His Lordship at this particular time. We continue to thank the Bishop’s driver for what he is to the Bishop. May God give us the understanding and the grace and the strength to follow the footsteps tally with the charism God has given to each and every one of us. This is because to be a saint, you cannot say that you must do every single thing a particular saint did. There must be something that distinguished every saint. May God give us the grace to play our own part. Thank you very much and God bless you.

Culled from Legend Magazine