The Lord is faithful. Truly. Whether you believe it or not is entirely up to each individual. It is a matter of choice. For the “Senior Elders from Nigeria”, confirmation of what had previously been consigned to fanciful imagination was provided by our recent encounter with Pope Francis I (and non-encounter with President Muhammadu Buhari) in New York. Both the Holy Father and the President of Nigeria were in New York for the United Nations General Assembly which ran from 15 to 27 September, 2015.
In the days leading to the address to be delivered by Pope Francis I, it was an orgy of media frenzy while the Pontiff conducted mass at mammoth gatherings in Cuba followed by Washington D.C. and eventually New York, where the address before 170 world leaders would be the climax of his historic visit. Everywhere, the Holy Father was pampered with an overflow of love and adulation. It was the full rock star treatment. Everyone wanted to meet the Pontiff. So did we – the “Senior Elder Citizens from Nigeria”. However, the security was super-tight. New York was a no-fly zone as well as no-drive and no-walk zone for the duration of the Holy Father’s brief visit.
As part of the welcome arrangements for Pope Francis, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, had arranged for the heads of state to meet the Holy Father before he proceeded into the General Assembly. The expectation was that maybe a handful would accept the invitation. It turned out that all of them (including Nigeria) responded positively. Even those who were left out demanded invitations.
Anyway, it was at the last minute that the “Senior Elder Citizens” received our invitation cards to the Public Gallery from where we could watch the address by the Pope. In our rush to get to our seats, we lost our way within the labyrinth of the United Nations Complex. The security guards very courteously but firmly directed us to a tiny alcove with strict instructions that we were not to proceed further. Then a miracle happened!
Before we could blink, who should emerge from round the corner at the head of a long queue of heads of state, kings, emperors, queens, prime ministers, etc? It was none other than Pope Francis I in all his simple but magical splendour. His smile was dazzling and the warmth of his inner spirit was infectious. Then he delivered a powerful message (as he shook hands with us): “You are blessed. Indeed, you are blessed.”
It certainly worked for us. Something happened and it was something very special. As he shuffled past, still carrying his own briefcase, we could have sworn that the Holy Father was surrounded by angels. As all the dignitaries went past, there was no sign of President Muhammadu Buhari. Indeed, the television monitors showed over and over again the picture of the President of Zimboda who had arrived on a wheelchair but after meeting the Pontiff, he was instantly healed. There he was on his way to the auditorium – hale and hearty! Or could it be that he had been deceiving his own people by faking his infirmity? Afterwards, he insisted that the Holy Father had indeed performed a miracle on him.
He was not the only beneficiary of the Pope’s healing powers. There were other testimonies – from a deaf king who suddenly regained his hearing, a prime minister who had been blind for over a decade but could now see the suffering of people clearly for the first time in over a decade, a president who had been dumb for six years but suddenly found his groove, and a queen who was sure her ailment was terminal but was redeemed at the point of death. That is for others to confirm or debunk. As for the “Senior Elder Citizens” from Nigeria, there was no doubt whatever about the magical experience which we had just witnessed. The Holy Father had delivered the Holy Spirit and asked for nothing in return other than an exhortation: “Lift up your spirit because the Lord is with you. You will not fall. Neither will you stumble.”
The rest of the Pontiff’s message was: “Listen to the poor. Treat them with mercy and compassion. Your Father in Heaven will reward you with his bountiful blessings abundantly. Take care of the poor – especially the women and the children. In their pain and suffering they have no more tears to shed.”
The message was delivered partly in Spanish and partly in Italian and some of it was in halting English. Pope Francis is an Argentine of Italian parentage.
On the “Daily Show” (Comedy Central), the new host Trevor Noah (a South African) claimed that Monica Lewinski was at the General Assembly in a nun’s outfit. So also was Edward Snowden (disguised as a priest). They were there to protest their innocence and seek the intervention of the Holy Father!
Anyway, we the “Senior Elder Citizens” from Nigeria encountered a second miracle. As we took our seats in the Public Gallery, a message was waiting for us. It read as follows: “There are storms and trouble ahead but you will triumph. Have faith and remain steadfast. Those burning churches and mosques and detonating bombs all over your nation are the allies of the wicked and the corrupt. They have made the poor angry. Their goal is to destroy your nation and set up a parallel government. The Holy Father is always praying for the victims in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Africa (especially Nigeria).”
Even the United States of America is in the same bracket. For the fourteenth time President Barack Obama had to go to television over gun massacre of students, policemen, and other innocent citizens who just happened to be in their classrooms in schools, university campus, shopping malls, cinemas, etc by gun-crazy lunatics.
We were not sure whether the message was meant for us as individuals or for our head of state or for the generality of Nigerians. Clarification was promptly provided: “The Holy Father particularly wanted to meet President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria. The Pope always reaches out to those of a different faith – Moslems, Jews or whatever.”
It was only when we returned to our hotel, The Millennium, that we learnt that there had been a “navigation error”. Someone had misdirected President Muhammadu Buhari to the wrong entrance (instead of the special entrance reserved for visiting heads of state) which denied him the opportunity of meeting the Holy Father.
Q: Those burning churches and mosques and detonating bombs all over your nation are the allies of the wicked and the corrupt. They have made the poor angry. Their goal is to destroy your nation and set up a parallel government
J.K. Randle
