Why Lent in 2023 is Important for Nigerians: Catholic Bishop

“L E N T says: ‘Leave Every Negative Thing.’ Call it a period for restoration, and recovery and you would be right,” Bishop Badejo says, and adds, “It is a time when we are knocking on heaven’s door for help.”

The Nigerian Catholic Bishop says that by the ashes received on Ash Wednesday, the people of God are called to repentance, humility, and love. 

“Jesus said: ‘Repent and believe the good news.’ The focus of Christians, observing prayer and fasting, is to get close to God in love, holiness, and good works for we cannot claim to be Christians without bearing fruits of good works. Faith without works is dead,” Bishop Badejo says.

According to the Local Ordinary of Oyo Diocese who doubles as the President of the Pan African Episcopal Committee for Social Communications (CEPACS), an initiative of the Symposium of Episcopal Conference of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), doing good works means living a truthful life by shunning falsehood and deceit. 

“In Lent, we fast not only from food and drink but also from doing evil such as murder, cheating, lying, infidelity stealing, hoarding, calumny, backbiting, and all sorts of wickedness,” he says.

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Bishop Badejo says that the three pillars of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving must go together, and adds, “Praying and fasting without good works is hollow religion.”

He goes on to remind his compatriots to be responsible citizens, saying, “In the election period, Christians must resist selling and buying of votes, lying, thuggery, and all criminality.”

The Catholic Bishop who serves as a member of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication since his appointment on 3 December 2021 notes that Lent requires humility in recognition that “God is supreme and that he will judge everybody.”

He adds, “Christians’ conduct, during Lent, should demonstrate trust in God and his word which says: ‘If my people who bear my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my presence and turn from their wicked ways, then I will listen from heaven and forgive their sins and restore their country.’”

“Beyond all human effort, we must trust God to write even on crooked lines and use anyone,” the Catholic Church leader who started his Episcopal Ministry in October 2007 as Coadjutor Bishop of Oyo Diocese says.