I felt sick while praying in the BOMCA Academy chapel with the Masters one evening. As we walked out of the chapel, I mentioned how I wasn’t feeling well. The children quickly gathered around and offered to pray for me.
The “prayer prefect”, a student officer named Destiny, invoked God’s healing grace upon me using various petitions and appeals. The other children said “Amen” loudly and in timely fashion every time she paused.
“You are healed”, one of the boys deadpanned as soon as the prayer ended.
In about 2 minutes, the cold & flu symptoms I felt were totally gone.
This occasion, among many I have gathered during my many trips to Nigeria, revealed to me the spiritual character of the Masters according to the ethos in which they are being formed and nurtured.
This ethos is the “Kenosis” or “Self-Emptying” (Phil 2:6-11) of Christ, which Deacon Leo believes will remedy the culture of corruption in Nigeria causing it to fall far short of its popular title as the “Giant of Africa”.
“I realized that a new way of doing things had to be born for there to be true empathy and successful mitigation of the daily struggle of innocent poor people”, says Deacon Leo of the cultural crisis.
Just as the Lord said no one pours new wine into old wineskins (Mk 2:22), so Leo pours his new message into a new generation. “Since Pope John Paul II often called the young the hope of the world, I knew forming them in a Self-Emptying lifestyle would transform their world and the rest of society”, he says.
In today’s culture, where political leaders use their office primarily for financial gain rather than serving the common good, Self-Emptying service as a way of life is the right prescription.
Instilling this “new wine” into children requires dedicated missionaries, who have followed Deacon Leo over the course of his self-emptying life.
“A good number of our children were very self-centered when they started with us, but now they are genuinely concerned and work for each others’ welfare”, says Sr. Racheal Ulor, MOJ about the growth of the children.
A new culture of Self-Emptying is taking root in the lives of the Masters and it is beginning to transform their nation for the better.
I know from experience. I was sick, they prayed for me, and I got better!