My Conversion Journey with Christian Cardinal Tumi [1&nbsp;ed.] 9789956792429, 9789956792894
Faith conversion experiences are first of all personal before being universal. While biblical history records relatively...
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Martin Jumbam

Copyright © 2014. Langaa RPCIG. All rights reserved.

Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon

Martin Jumbam

MARTIN JUMBAM was born and raised in Nkar in the Diocese of Kumbo in the northern grassland region of English-speaking Cameroon. He is a translator and a conference interpreter by training, and a freelance journalist. He served for several years on the editorial board of L’Effort camerounais, the weekly newspaper of the Bishop’s Conference of Cameroon. He also runs programmes on Radio Veritas, the radio of the Catholic Archdiocese of Douala, Cameroon. He is married with three children and lives with his family in the port city of Douala in Cameroon.

MY CONVERSION JOURNEY WITH CHRISTIAN CARDINAL TUMI

Faith conversion experiences are first of all personal before being universal. While biblical history records relatively few conversion encounters as dramatic and as explosive as Saint Paul’s on the road to Damascus, it is not rare for individuals in the throes of a religious conversion to fall prey to intensely agonizing confusion. That is what happened to Martin Jumbam when he marched for peace in his country alongside the charismatic and irrepressible Emeritus Archbishop of Douala in Cameroon, Christian Cardinal Tumi. He joined the prelate as a secular journalist but went back home more than ever conscious of his state as a fallen Christian, the first step in his journey of faith. Since then, all his writing, be it secular or religious, now bears the fruits of that encounter, characterized by intense empathy for the human person. This book recounts the myriad ways Jumbam’s encounters with Christian Cardinal Tumi have activated, nourished and inspired his faith.

MY CONVERSION JOURNEY WITH CHRISTIAN CARDINAL TUMI

Jumbam, Martin. My Conversion Journey with Christian Cardinal Tumi, Langaa RPCIG, 2014. ProQuest Ebook

My Conversion Journey with Christian Cardinal Tumi

Copyright © 2014. Langaa RPCIG. All rights reserved.

Martin Jumbam

Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Jumbam, Martin. My Conversion Journey with Christian Cardinal Tumi, Langaa RPCIG, 2014. ProQuest Ebook

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [email protected] www.langaa-rpcig.net

Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [email protected] www.africanbookscollective.com

ISBN: 9956-792-89-6

Copyright © 2014. Langaa RPCIG. All rights reserved.

© Martin Jumbam 2015

DISCLAIMER All views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Langaa RPCIG.

Jumbam, Martin. My Conversion Journey with Christian Cardinal Tumi, Langaa RPCIG, 2014. ProQuest Ebook

Table of௖Contents

Preface………………………………………………………… v

Part One: The Journey Begins……………………………….. 1 1. I marched with Christian Cardinal Tumi……………………… 3 2. I spent a week with the Cistercian monks in Mbengwi………... 15

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Part Two: My Prayer Life Firms Up…………………………. 35 1. Come, follow me!............................................................................... 37 2. Foyer de Charité, an oasis of silence in Bonjongo…………….. 49 3. A prayer at the University of Buea……………………………. 53 4. Jesus heals in silence………………………………………….. 57 5. I walked beside a Saint……………………………………….. 61 Part Three: My Interest In Church Governance Grows…….. 73 1. The Catholic Church and the radio…………………………… 75 2. Train seminarians to be good managers of human and finance resources……………………………………………….. 87 3. Keep processions and the homily short………………………. 91 4. Father, watch your health…………………………………….. 97 5. Giving to the Church is a Christian duty………………………101 6. The Catholic Church and the Reunification of Cameroon……. 105 7. I remember Father Paul Verdzekov………………………….. 109 Part Four: The Social Dimension Of My Faith……………… 119 1. The devastating consequences of abortion…………………….121 2. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Bamenda Archdiocese…………………………………………………….. 125 3. I salute you, Professor Daniel Noni Lantum…………………. 133 4. Why I donate blood…………………………………………... 151

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Preface

Saint Augustine once wrote: “Reaching Milan, I found your devoted servant Ambrose, who was known throughout the world as a man whom there were few to equal in goodness. Unknown to me, it was you who led me to him, so that I might knowingly be led by him to you”1. I could very well express similar feelings about my first encounter with Christian Cardinal Tumi, the Emeritus Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Douala, Cameroon. Unknown to me, the Lord led me to him and he knowingly led me back to the Lord. It all began on January 1, 1993 when I joined the first of what has become a tradition in the Catholic Church that is in Douala, what Cardinal Tumi himself called “The March for Peace” around the city of Douala. Our country, Cameroon, then stood in dire need of peace as the notoriously intolerant political establishment of the day was desperately trying to stifle the audible, painful and violent birth pangs of multi-party democracy in our land. Christian Cardinal Tumi is one of the few sons and daughters of our land who have had an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the proponents of political intolerance in our land and lived to tell the tale. Many others, who dared to ask why, including the Cardinal’s fellow religious leaders, are today history. In January 1993, I was a young journalist yearning for news and who else to track than the fiery Archbishop of Douala, who created news by his mere imposing presence anywhere, anytime? As I accompanied him in what ended up to be a well-over-five-hour procession around the city of Douala, hoping to beat every other journalist with news of whatever dramatic encounter we might have along the way with the forces of law and order, little did I know that the Lord was leading me to him that he may in turn lead me back to the Lord. It was only later that I realised that I was a mere penitent whose restless soul, to paraphrase Saint Augustine again, could only find rest when, and if, it rested in the Lord. v

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What has this journey of faith alongside Christian Cardinal Tumi done to, and for, me as a Christian, a journalist and a writer? Quite a lot! First of all, it has given my prayer life considerable strength, although, every so often, I still have to run to the Master with the cry: ‘I do have faith, Lord, but help me to have more!’ (Mk 9: 24). Secondly, I have come to see the way the Church functions from an angle I would otherwise never have seen. This is reflected in a number of articles included in this book on the Church and its governance. Thirdly, each time I pore over a blank sheet of paper, wondering how to stain it with my thoughts, I always hear Saint James whispering in the ear of my mind that faith devoid of action is a dead faith (Jas 2 : 14). That is why I have included articles in this book that reflect my views on issues of justice, peace, and reconciliation, themes that are so dear to our Church in Africa. I have also expressed open gratitude and admiration to, and for, people, near and far, whose actions have influenced my life in one way or another. In this journey of faith with Christian Cardinal Tumi, I have decided that all I do and all I write must be coated with the garment of my faith. My encounters with Christian Cardinal Tumi have activated, nourished and inspired my faith in myriad ways, directly and indirectly, as the articles included in this collection suggest.

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Martin Jumbam

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Martin Jumbam at his office in Douala

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Christian Cardinal Tumi Emeritus Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Douala Delivering a Sermon

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Christian Cardinal Tumi in Douala

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Part I

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The Journey Begins

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1 I marched with Christian Cardinal Tumi (Revised and reproduced from Cameroon Panorama Nos. 376 of April 1993; pp. 17-19) and 377 of May 1993; pp. 18-21).

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The news of the “March for Peace”, which His Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi was organising was in the air all week long, but the details were rather sketchy. That is why I was not sure of what to expect as I approached the large crowd in front of the small Saint John’s Parish Church in Deido, Douala, at 7 o’clock on the morning of January 1, 1993. No placards? What struck me as I scanned the crowd for a face to pin a name on, was the absence of placards and banners. I had thought that I would find an excited, noisy crowd waving a forest of banners and placards, bearing high-sounding slogans, calling on the powers-thatbe to restore to our land and people the peace that once was theirs. But, what I saw surprised me: just simple, ordinary people, mainly women of a certain age, many of them dressed in white or in deep blue uniforms, lining up behind a crucifix, singing songs of praise to the Lord and telling the beads of their rosaries. I was still wondering what to make of it all, when I saw Doctor Arnold Yongbang a few feet away. With Doctor Yongbang there, I began to breathe a little easier as I knew I would have answers to some of the questions I had on my mind. A few days earlier, I had stopped by his house, as I so often do whenever I need reliable information on just about anything happening in the land, to get details on the impending march, but he hadn’t been more enlightened on it than I was, not having seen nor talked with the Cardinal that past week.

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The Cardinal’s ring ‘You’ve answered present then, eh?’, Doctor Yongbang asked as we shook hands with each other. ‘Couldn’t miss this for anything in the world’, I remember answering him. We were still wondering about the itinerary of the march when we saw the tall figure of the Cardinal towering above a small crowd a few feet away. That was the first time I had ever come that close to His Eminence, and I wouldn’t have known how to greet him had Doctor Yongbang not immediately gone up to him, taken his hand in his and kissed the ring on it, genuflecting in the process. That was new to me; so I, too, took His Eminence’s hand in mine, brought his ringed-finger to my lips, genuflecting as I had seen Dr. Yongbang do. The action was so fast that I didn’t have the time to take a closer look at that ring as I would have loved to. Bishop Awa’s ring Just then, my mind raced back in time to the day I met Monsignor Pius Awa of Buea in his cousin, Mr. Peter Akumchi’s house in Yaounde some seven years or so earlier. That was the first time I came face-to-face with such a high-ranking official of the Catholic Church. I remember approaching him with a mixture of awe and uncertainty but, to my greatest surprise, delight and relief, Monsignor Awa suddenly said something unbelievably funny, and before I knew it, I was already at ease with him, asking him questions that have always intrigued me about the Catholic Church, and getting frank and direct answers wrapped in a seemingly inexhaustible fount of down-to-earth humour I hadn’t imagined a prince of the church could be endowed with. When I had to leave, I noticed that Bishop Awa, who had taken off the ring from his finger for a while, quickly put it back on before offering me his hand. I remember hesitating for a second, not knowing what to do, and then deciding just to shake it. Now I know I should have kissed his ring and perhaps knelt down for his blessing. That was what his Lordship probably expected me to do as well. Don’t we learn everyday! 4

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Call off the march As we greeted the Cardinal that morning, that usual, broad, warm, reassuringly contagious smile opened up on his face as he jokingly said: ‘Weti wuna di do here, you pagan people dem?’ Then, casting his eyes from that commanding height of his over the crowd that was growing by the minute, he said: ‘I hope no one shows up here in a party uniform or with a party banner’. We also echoed the same hope. Then he added: ‘The government has been very scared of this march and has sent delegation after delegation to me to call if off’. That was news to me and I asked why. ‘Well, that is because they don’t believe that a gathering of this nature at this time can be devoid of politics.’ Then he added with that disarming smile of his: ‘But, I told them this march had nothing to do with their politics. This is a purely religious event and I won’t call it off.’ I recall someone near me wondering aloud if that was the reason the place was, in his word “swarming” with CENER (secret police) agents. To prove his point, he pointed to one fellow loitering around the corner and to another one pretending to be repairing a motorbike a few feet away, but who kept shooting furtive glances at us. He also showed us another suspicious group of three or four individuals lurking at another corner who he also identified as plain-clothes men, claiming he knew their type well and that they were up to no good. I don’t know how the Cardinal would have reacted to that claim, but he didn’t hear it, busy as he was greeting those who came up to him. Many would die for Maria Just then a beautifully decorated pick-up truck drove into the mission yard, bearing the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. His Eminence looked at the crowd milling about the yard and remarked, with a smile on his face: ‘There are many people in this country who would not hesitate to lay down their lives for Maria.’ Then the pick-up truck swung round and began slowly to move out of the yard. The Cardinal with one or two of his priests and some altar boys, took their places behind it, and we fell in line a few yards 5

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behind them. As we came out onto the street, I was surprised to see that the head of the procession was nowhere in sight. I also looked behind me and the crowd in the churchyard seemed to have grown tenfold. I had no rosary! A woman next to me intoned a song in a language I guessed was Ewondo. This was followed by much hand clapping and dancing. After that song, another woman began to recite the rosary. I saw just about everyone with a rosary in hand and it suddenly dawned on me that I might be the only one there without one. For a few minutes, I felt at a loss, wondering whether I really belonged with that crowd of believers at all. What intensified that feeling of loss and guilt was the sudden realisation that I couldn’t even recite a single prayer in French correctly; neither the ‘Hail Mary’, nor the Lord’s Prayer. I then decided that I would say the prayers in English instead. There, too, I stumbled on one or two words and gave up the exercise. What of Lamnso, my native tongue? There, I had better luck, but my mind kept straying to the French prayers around me. I was still wondering how best to immerse myself in the prayers when Gregory Alem, a CRTV journalist on FM 105, walked up to me. I asked him in a whisper if he was on duty, and he said he was there to join the march, having decided that he could no longer stay on the sidelines while others were doing so much to shape the history of our land. That was why he was determined, he said, to join the Cardinal’s march for peace. The Cardinal was already nearly a kilometre ahead of me although when we started off, I was only a few yards behind him. As we went along, more and more people were joining the procession and preferring to be as close to the Cardinal and the statue of the Virgin Mary as possible. It was not long before Gregory and I were far apart from each other.

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Fallen by the wayside All around me, prayers and songs rose and fell as groups sent their praise and admiration to the Lord. I realised to my horror that I could neither recognise nor join in any of those songs or prayers. It then began to dawn on me that I had indeed fallen by the wayside in my religious life. Not that I hadn’t been aware of it, though; but it was how far away I had fallen from the right path that hit me with such frightening suddenness. Unable to join the chorus around me, I decided I would withdraw into myself and try to come to grips with my relationship with God since such an opportunity to stare into the rear-view mirror of my life uninterrupted for hours on end, had never presented itself to me before. As we wound our way at a snail’s pace through tiny, potholeladen streets, from Deido through Bepanda Voirie to Ndokoti and well beyond, I suddenly felt how the dregs of all those years of neglect of my Christian life had hardened and were weighing down so heavily on the shoulders of my conscience. Here I am, Lord! The only other time I felt an outsider in church was on April 22, 1992 in the Cathedral in Bamenda during the ordination of five young men into the sacred priesthood. Maika, my wife, Mrs. Rita Bomki Akumchi, her cousin, and I had travelled from Douala the Saturday before to be present at that ceremony to witness one of ours, George Tomrila Ngalim, take his place among the clergy of this nation. George has always been like a younger brother to me, just as I had been like one to his father, the late Joseph Ngalim, a simple man who had lived a simple, honest life of a great Catholic Christian. As I stood there watching George, I felt really sad that his father couldn’t be there with us to see his first son take the vow of the priesthood. In fact, I fought back a tear when George answered the Lord’s call, and his mother, accompanied by his junior brother, Stephen, standing in for his father, led him by the hand to the altar to 7

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surrender him to His Grace Archbishop Paul Verdzekov, as their own gift to the Almighty Father. I remember His Grace Archbishop Verdzekov’s commanding voice exhorting his fellow priests to abide by the dictates of their vocation. If you cannot stand the smoke, he told them, get out of the kitchen. That was one of the most profound sermons I have ever listened to. The power of that message seemed to be amplified by the magnificence of the music, which the conducting priest, Reverend Father William Neba, standing on a raised platform, seemed to be literally pulling out of the belly of the cathedral with his arms. Music of rare beauty and intensity. Heart-lifting sounds, which I still sometimes hear, in my mind’s ear, whenever I take a momentary respite from the rat race. It brought tears to my eyes. The river of age On that day, my mind was not so much on George – even though it was his day – as it was on his father, whom the Lord had called ‘home’ some years ago. I recalled that in August of 1984 when I returned home after several years abroad, one of the first things my old mother asked of me, was to go down to Gharu, Joseph Ngalim’s compound, to greet him for, she said, he had been very ill and would be pleased to see me. My family has always considered me Joseph Ngalim’s ‘son’ because of the liking he had taken for me from the time I was only a child. I must have been only five or six years old when he, still a young primary school pupil, asked my parents to allow me to stay with him in a hut he had, like all young men of his age, built for himself in his parent’s compound of Gharu, a kilometre or so away from our compound at Mboon. I still have fond memories of those childhood days when I would play in the yard with other children of his compound while watching out for him. When he came back home, I would run up to him and he would always give me something to eat, usually a piece of meat from the day’s hunt, or a fruit. 8

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My friends and I would sometimes play by the banks of River Mensai that takes its rise from the Ngongba hills that brood so menacingly above. River Mensai, today a mere shadow of its former self, used to rush down the hills into the valley, seeming to us who had never seen any other bigger river, frighteningly massive, as it wound and unwound itself down the valley like a huge wounded snake. We were always warned against playing too close to it as it was said to be unforgiving to anyone who was foolish enough to fall into it. Thinking of those days, over thirty years later, on that bright, sunny day in August of 1984, was like taking a ride up the river of age to those days of unblemished innocence. Out of touch As I walked down the hill leading to his house, I wondered what I would say to him. Whenever I was home on vacation, my mother would always ask me to go to Tobin and visit him and his family. He was always very happy to see me and took a keen interest in my academic progress. Unfortunately, as my quest for the ‘Golden Fleece’ took me further and further into the beckoning, wide world, I lost touch with him. So, it was with a very heavy heart and guilt feelings that I walked into his house that sunny August afternoon. As I took his hand in mine, a smile walked its way across his agony-wrinkled face. He could hardly turn his head as his neck hurt him so badly. I recall fighting hard to halt a lump that was already crawling unrelentingly up to my throat, always a prelude to a flood of tears, which I could already feel warm on my cheeks. I remember apologising profusely for my protracted silence over the years. In his usual manner, he merely smiled and said he had been wondering if he had done me wrong, but that all that was now history as he was happy I had thought of him immediately I returned home. It was then that the tears came tumbling from my eyes, a bucket-full. I was to let another generous flood of tears wash my face some months later when I learnt of his death. He had apparently 9

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recovered and gone back to work when the illness struck again, and he succumbed to it. I was in Yaounde, trying to find a job and feed a family, and couldn’t unfortunately attend his funeral. I did, however, pray that the Lord receive him with trumpet blasts.

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August 29 Meanwhile, the Cardinal-led procession continued its slow, dignified and graceful journey through the streets of the nation’s economic capital. I came out of my reverie only long enough to notice how far we had gone, and then I was back in my shell again. I remember that a few years ago, on a dreary, rainy and foggy morning of August 29, I stood over Joseph Ngalim’s grave in the small cemetery below the Church in my village of Nkar. August 29 is a memorable day to my family, being the day my father-in-law, Pa Anthony Tala, a long-time teacher of the Catholic School in Nkar, died. On that dreary morning, my wife and I joined the other members of the family to call on the Lord to accept Pa Anthony Tala, our father and His humble servant, among His chosen flock. Afterward, I walked over to Joseph Ngalim’s grave and communed for a while with one of the greatest souls that ever lived on earth. George, then a deacon, was also present. My beloved ones Beside my father-in-law and Joseph Ngalim, many a loved one of mine also reposes in that small church cemetery. Monica Bongberi, my only sister, lies a few feet away. She had given up the struggle against a merciless ailment and had passed away right in front of my eyes some ten years earlier. I remember that even though she died in my presence, I only felt the impact of her absence one year later when I went back home on vacation. I remember standing above her compound, waiting in vain for those shouts of welcome and warm hugs and smiles of joy, which I was so used to. I stood there staring into space, tears abundantly washing my face, to the surprise of many. May the Lord Almighty place His soothing hand on Monica’s forehead! 10

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Not far from Monica, lies Gertrude, my sister-in-law. Our phone rang one summer Sunday morning in Edmonton, Canada. I picked it up and an emotion-drenched voice told me that Gertrude was no longer with us. When the impact of that reality finally hit home, I jumped up, screaming and refusing to believe what I had just been told. Her husband, Kenjo, my brother, had left Laval in Quebec, where he had been studying, only a few days before, and hadn’t even had the time to call to inform us of his safe arrival in Cameroon, when we learnt of his wife’s death. Maika, a regular church-goer, nearly pulled me by the hand to church that Sunday morning to pray for the repose of Gertrude’s soul. ‘Even if the devil has truly made his home in your heart’, I remember her telling me as I grudgingly trudged behind her, ‘at least, on a day like this, you should ask the Lord to forgive your sister-inlaw her sins and welcome her into His kingdom’. I knew she was right, although I didn’t want to seem too eager to agree with her. I did, however, follow her to church to ask God to welcome Gertrude among His chosen few. John, my boyhood friend. A few feet away, under a fresh mound of earth, lies one of my childhood friends, John Fondzeyuf. John and I had served our first Mass as altar boys together way back then. I remember shocking my mother by waking up too early to go to church that day. John and I had been selected the previous day to serve our first Mass that morning, and had been warned not to be late. Despite my mother’s threats to tan my skin if I didn’t go back to bed immediately, I left for church, arriving when it was still very dark and, to my surprise, John was already there, dressed and waiting. You could have heard our heart-beats a mile away as we later accompanied the priest to the altar under the close and critical scrutiny of the elder altar boys, our trembling backs to the congregation. I still find it difficult to believe that John is no longer with us. I hadn’t been able to attend his funeral, but the impact of his death had hit me a few months later when I went to greet his family in Yaounde. 11

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I walked in and was greeted by John’s picture staring at me from the wall. I sat down on one of the all-too-familiar chairs, talking to Aloysia, his wife, and it was just as it had always been. It even looked as if John would walk out of the room any time to join us. I could still hear his voice, in my mind’s ear, as usual noisily contesting my claim to a traditional title, calling me, albeit jokingly, an impostor. We would then engage in friendly gibes at each other for hours on end. As those memories made their way back to mind, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, and it was with some difficulty that I held them back from his children. May the Lord give John a huge pat of welcome on the back! In that small cemetery, lie people who have been precious to me. Hopefully, when my own time runs out, my mortal remains, too, will join those of my loved ones at one corner of that cemetery. My soul, God willing, will link hands with all my family members who have slept in the Lord to give praise and thanks to God Almighty for eternity. Peace with myself Those were the thoughts that were winding their way through my mind at the same snail’s pace as we went through the streets of Douala. Never before that day did I realise how much I needed to incise my past as a way of coming to full grips with my present life of a fallen Christian. Thereafter, I suddenly felt at peace with myself. I still, however, felt inadequate before the Lord. I couldn’t remember the last time I ever spent more than a few minutes in church. I would, more often than not, drive my family to the church door, drop them there, only coming back for them when I knew the Mass was over. I had always found spending an hour in church unbearably boring, and I was wondering if I would stand the Cardinal’s Mass that was to follow the march. Peace on earth However, no sooner had the Cardinal arrived than he was at the altar saying Mass. I remember Gregory Alem and I earlier expressing 12

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the fear that, at his age, the Cardinal might not stand the tempo of such a long march; but there he was, still looking strong and preaching peace on earth to men and women of good will. As I listened to him, he seemed to be talking to me personally. The peace he talked of seemed to be making a home in my mind and in my heart. Since then, I cannot say that I have suddenly become an ideal Christian, but at least I do now feel the urge to lead my family, not only to the church door, but right into the church itself. There, I listen without the urge to glance at my watch. The message of the Gospel has been tickling my heart these days more than at any other time of my life. Even though I will never open my mouth in church to sing for fear of offending whoever may be standing near me, I have always had a weakness for church music which, over the past few months, has been sounding even more splendid than ever before. God bless the clergy The Cardinal’s march for peace seems to have done me much good. Only the other day, not only did I listen with unusual attention to, but was also profoundly moved by Archbishop Verdzekov’s pastoral letter denouncing torture in our land. I remember bowing my head and asking God to bless the Archbishop and the victims of torture in our land. However, I still haven’t found the courage to pray for those who order or execute torture, as the Archbishop recommends. How can one ever do that? I wonder. Not long ago, though, I would never have thought that God could listen to someone like me, and the idea of praying for no less an eminence than an archbishop could never have occurred to me. Maybe the indescribable satisfaction I felt after that prayer is a good indication that the Lord did, after all, listen to His humble servant! It seems by marching with Christian Cardinal Tumi for peace in our land, I had found that much desired but elusive peace with myself. A prayer for the Cardinal. May he too remember my family and me in his prayers.

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2 I spent a week with the Cistercian monks in Mbengwi (Reproduced from Cameroon Panorama Nos. 385, 386, 387, 388 and 389 of January through May 1994). The desire to spend a week of rest and meditation with the Cistercian Monks in Mbengwi took root in my mind, in my heart and in my soul in early 1993 after I heeded a call from his Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi to join him on a “March for Peace” in our country2.

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Should we join the march? In fact, the decision to join the Cardinal’s march was not an easy one to take. I remember Maika and I sitting up late at night, after our three kids had gone to bed, wondering whether to participate in it or not. If yes, who should go? The two of us, or just one person? Our indecision was understandable given the brutality with which the “law-keepers” of this land have so far handled any popular display of discontent with the status quo. Not that long ago, tear-gas canisters and grenades could be heard popping from street corners in Douala like champagne corks, leaving in their wake pavements caked by blood that had oozed from shattered limbs and split skulls. Strange hearse I was once a witness to the strangest ‘hearse’ that has perhaps ever been paraded anywhere: a wheel-barrow, bearing a young chap, way below his teens, struck down by a murderous bullet from a trigger-happy policeman’s pistol. That ‘hearse’ was being riotously escorted around town by a crowd of bloodshot-eyed, bare-chested, sweat-soaked kids, many of them foaming at the mouth, and loudly daring nervous, gun-totting soldiers to stop them. That was indeed a frightening scene in a land that has always prided itself as an oasis of peace in a mercurial sub-region prone to instability. 14

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That is why the Cardinal’s call for a march for peace caused us such anxiety. We both would have liked to join, but, we wondered, what if it turned out ugly and bloody? Wouldn’t it be foolish, at this time when responsible parenthood is an expression that is so warm on everyone’s lips, for a mother and a father to abandon their kids in the house to walk together into what had virtually become a battleground? Sacrificial lamb Those were some of the searching questions we had to wrestle with before finally deciding that I should go alone. If any mishap were to happen to me -- God forbid! -- Maika would then have to join the increasing class of widows that some people’s greed for power was daily creating in this land. It turned out -- thank God! -- that there was no violence at all. There was not even an armed, riot-shielded police force anywhere in sight; just one mammoth crowd, the largest I have seen anywhere in this land, and I have seen some crowd-pulling events here in Douala lately. A crowd, armed not with politically-marinated, slogan-studded placards, but with the simple armour of prayers and hymns of praise to the Lord Almighty. Five hours and nearly 30 kilometres later, with the gruelling Douala sun and heat enveloping us like foam, the impossible had happened to me; I had stared so long and so deep into my Christian life, or rather what was left of it, that I took a firm decision to run back for shelter under the protective canopy of Mother Church, that is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, and universal in its immensity! Shun falsehood I remember that a few months after immortalising my impressions of that march in Cameroon Panorama, I was part of a huge crowd of Nso people who had gathered at the Saint Louis’ Church grounds in Bonaberi, to meet with His Eminence Christian Cardinal Tumi. In fact, it was a kind of a long-overdue event as the 15

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Nso community in Douala had not yet had the opportunity to meet His Eminence since he arrived in Douala nearly two years earlier. The occasion had begun with a Pontifical High Mass celebrated by the Cardinal himself, assisted by a number of priests. His Eminence’s homily was dedicated to truth. Seek the truth and shun falsehood, he urged the attentive congregation. He regretted that falsehood had already made such deep inroads into the very fabric of the Cameroonian society that many have come to accept it as a normal part of life. He cited the simple example of age in Cameroon today. Ask any one his/her age, the Cardinal said, and the likely answer would be: “My official or school age is …, my true age is …”. The situation has already become so ridiculous, his Eminence continued, that some children are now even officially older than their parents! The congregation greeted this with much mirth. Joy in heaven It was after that light-hearted but profound homily that the Cardinal called me to his side. He had, he said, read my impressions of the march I had with him in Cameroon Panorama and had enjoyed it immensely. I said I felt flattered by his observation. He then wondered if I had ever read the Confessions of Saint Augustine as my writing sounded much like his. When the answer was negative, he promised he would get me a copy, which he did some months later. I remember Maika and I paying him a courtesy visit later, and I wondered how someone like me, who had had nothing to do with the church and her sacred sacraments for so many years, could do to regain favours in the eyes of the Lord. The Cardinal’s response was that there was no specific time for anyone to come back to the bosom of the Lord, and that whenever that happens, there is always much rejoicing in heaven because one soul has repented. Write to the monks I took the Cardinal’s answer in my hand and decided to look for a calm, isolated place to reflect on it. I was wondering where to go 16

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when a colleague of mine, Ms Lucia Nnam Chuo, suggested I try the Monastery in Mbengwi. She said she went there frequently, and that for meditation, prayers and spiritual counselling, I was not likely to find a better place than that. She then gave me the address of her “Spiritual Father”, Reverend Father Pius Okoye, himself a monk. Care-free days I had, of course, heard of people spending time in Mbengwi, but had never thought that I would one day be a candidate myself. I remember going to that monastery once back in the seventies, to buy a wedding cake for my brother. The monks then had a reputation for making particularly good but inexpensive pastry. In those days, I considered those monks a bunch of crazy people who had fled the reality of daily life to hide in the hills of Mbengwi. Bamenda town then was really a place to be in. What with those countless night clubs and bars where live brass bands held you spell bound on the slippery floor for hours on end, with multi-coloured bulbs gyrating on the ceiling and bathing the turbulent, sweat-soaked crowd on the floor in a rainbow of colours! One of those bars in particular – I believe it was called “Happy Day Bar” – was a favourite spot for many of us, from the University of Yaoundé on holiday in town. University students of those days were “swimming” in cash which they spent with astonishing lavishness. I remember a certain musician, who played in the band in that bar had, as one of his credentials, which he loudly brandished to anyone who cared to listen, the mere fact that he had once played in a band in Bangui, and claimed to speak fluent Lingala, or some such language. For that fact alone, he felt superior to every other musician in town, and drank considerable beer; at our expense, of course. Crime-free town Life in Bamenda town was throbbing with much excitement, the town being virtually crime-free, and you could go and come as you wished, well into the early hours of the morning. 17

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That was why I could not understand why anyone would give up that life for what looked to me like the drab, cold and depressingly quiet life of the monastery. I was in my early twenties then, and always had many unprintable things to say whenever the bells of the Big Mankon church disturbed my morning sleep, our house being located in Metta Quarters, less than half-a-mile away. Irony or ironies, nearly twenty years later, I was back to the same monastery, no longer the free-spirited, I-don’t-give-a-damn young man of those days, but a humble father of a family, already subdued by the slings and buffets of age, more confused now than ever before, and seeking solace in what someone has called “the deep pool of spiritual quietness”; a mere prodigal in quest of spiritual nourishment. The same people I had dismissed as sheer fugitives from reality, were the ones I was now turning to for quietude and reflection. Monastery, cold and silent My brother, Kenjo, and my sister-in-law, Joan, accompanied me to Mbengwi on a rainy, cold and windy Sunday afternoon of August 1, 1993. As we approached the monastery, that massive structure stared at us, cold, silent, and sealed from the outside. A note on the door warned us that since that Sunday was the first of that month, stricter silence was required. The silence was not only strict, it was truly profound. Kenjo gave a buzz on the door. A few minutes later, keys rattled in the keyhole, and the door flung open, revealing a strongly-built, tall, white monk with neatly cropped hair, a clean chin and eyes that darted here and there behind a pair of thick, horn-rimmed glasses. Invitation to benediction After the habitual hellos! I showed him a letter from Father Pius. “Hello, Martin, I’m Brother William, the Guest Master”, he said with a smile. “I’ve been expecting you. Come right in”. He held the door open for us and we walked in. He asked if we would like to join them in church since it was already benediction time. The answer being affirmative, he said he would show me to my room later, and then led 18

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the way up a flight of stairs and out at the back to the church some one hundred metres or so away. The beauty of your hymns What immediately struck me as I took a seat in the small chapel was the deep silence reigning therein. The altar section was very spacious, the altar itself occupying the central position. A line of chairs ran along the walls, with three others, bigger and more comfortable, occupying the mid section, which I rightly guessed would be for the officiating priests. The church walls were surprisingly bare; instead of the colourful, saint-studded windowpanes one usually associates with churches, what I was gazing at were just plain window-panes that let in a bright, but austere light. I was still exploring the bare walls of the church with my eyes when the deep bellows of an organ suddenly fell from the other side of the church that was shielded off from the lay section by a wall. I felt like pushing away that wall to unveil the organ, which had by now intensified in strength, rising up in pleasantly soothing waves. For the one week I was to spend in the monastery, I came to look forward to that music with intense eagerness. Listening to those monks sing, I could understand what Saint Augustine meant when he wrote: “I wept at the beauty of your hymns, and I was profoundly moved at the sweet sound of your Church’s singing. Those sounds flowed into my ears, and the truth streamed into my heart. My feeling of devotion overflowed, and the tears ran from my eyes, and I was happy in them”3. Benediction and terror There was a flurry of movements from the other side of the wall and the music suddenly fell silent. Then the monks began to walk out onto the open altar section, one after the other, taking their seats along the wall. They were all dressed in white cassocks with cowls attached to the back of the neck. Then five or six priests arrived and the Chief Celebrant began the service. 19

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Benediction and terror have always held hands in my mind. The reason dates back to the early 60s when, as a young altar boy, I served benediction under a Dutch priest of the Mill Hill Congregation, nicknamed “Fara Nji”. May eternal rest be his! I have never known how he got his nickname, but the mere mention of it sent tremors down the spines of many people in my village. “Fara Nji” was indeed the incarnation of brutality. I was a witness on several occasions to some truly disturbing and humiliating kicks he took delight in giving to the behinds of even elderly men and women whom we venerated for the wisdom which their ages conferred on them. I once saw him slap an old woman just because she happened to have smiled near him, and he didn’t seem to have liked her kolanut-stained teeth! I know of more than one person who received such humiliating treatment, walked out of church and never ever looked back again. “Fara Nji” probably never heard this wise advice the saintly Redemptorist priest, Father Francis Xavier Seelos, once gave to a young priest, an advice that is perhaps more relevant today than it was then: “The priest who is rough with the people does injury both to himself and to others. Thousands reject the Church and perish in eternity simply because they have been badly treated by a priest”4. Fara Nji stubbed his foot One day, a friend and I were serving benediction under “Fara Nji”. It was my role to pick up the cushion on which he was kneeling whenever he stood up to go up to the altar. In those days, the priest and the altar boys kneeled backing the congregation during services. I was apparently distracted because I didn’t realise the priest was already up. My friend, realising my inattention, bent down to pick up the cushion himself. It was precisely at that moment that I recovered from my reverie and also reached for it. As we tugged on both ends of that doughy cushion, “Fara Nji” stubbed his foot on it and almost landed nose first on the floor. Shocked surprise rippled through the congregation as he swung round in fury to face me. 20

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I remember my teeth chattering in my mouth as I clenched them hard in anticipation of the blow I knew would not fail to come. Had “Fara Nji” not been known to administer violent kicks to people’s behinds for much less “offences”? However, to everyone’s surprise, he merely grunted, stared at me in suppressed anger for what seemed to me an eternity, before walking up to the altar. When I managed to stand up from where I was kneeling, my knees nearly wobbled under me. On my forehead, stood visible beads of sweat, and I could feel some of it coursing down my neck. Even later in the sacristy, I still expected to be beaten, but when nothing happened, “Fara Nji” deciding to ignore me with a royal disdain, news went round the village that the man might, after all, be growing old. Who had ever heard of such a thing? “Fara Nji” missing a golden opportunity to land a well-aimed kick to anyone’s behind? No! No!, people said, shaking their heads in utter disbelief. Age, everyone seemed to agree, was beginning to play tricks with him. Nostalgic yearnings From every indication, however, it would seem not everyone in my village hated or feared “Fara Nji”. Just only a few months ago, my brother Bongfen and I met one of his classmates of those days, who expressed regret that the type of discipline “Fara Nji” had imposed on the Church had been eroded by sloppy neglect. Loudly pronouncing “Fara Nji” a saint, this fellow, who is himself notorious in our village for senseless acts of violence, asked me if I had been to church lately. When I said I had, he asked if I wasn’t appalled by what he called the ‘market atmosphere’ that has taken hold of the church these days. Swaying from side to side under the weight of alcohol, he declared the church these days a mess, loudly regretting that there was no longer any priest around with “Fara Nji’s” stamina “to beat sense” into the heads of church-goers. So, while some of us quiver at the mere thought of the ‘blood and iron’ Bismarckian discipline of those days, someone yearns for it!

21

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A ceremony steeped in gentleness I believe my misadventure with “Fara Nji” was the last time I attended benediction until the other day at the monastery. That must have been why just prior to that benediction service, I still felt the jitters of that Sunday evening, well over thirty years before. I could still see the stern contours of “Fara Nji’s” face in the fading horizon of my mind, staring at me with repressed rage. However, the monastic benediction was a complete contrast to “Fara Nji’s”. The chief celebrant, Father Clement, officiated over a ceremony steeped in unbelievable gentleness, humility and grace. Every gesture bore the weight of meticulous tenderness. This feeling was intensified by the music that almost brought tears to my eyes. My room After the ceremony, Kenjo and Joan left and I stood alone looking round the small guest room I occupied. What struck me immediately was the spartan austerity around me: the furniture, the curtains on the window, the small camp-like bed, the bedding, the reading table, the chair, the small sink at the corner, the towel, etc., were all impeccably clean, but that was a cleanliness that bore the weight of age. You couldn’t help feeling that you were indeed in very humble surroundings. The house rules, which Brother William had given me earlier, stressed silence as the golden rule. They identified the congregation hosting me as a Cloistered, Contemplative Order that seeks encounter with God through silence. No radio or tape-recorder was allowed without headphones. Meeting Monsignor Hishon I was still surveying my room when a gong went for the evening meal. I had been told to expect that gong three times a day: at 8 a.m. for breakfast, 12:30 p.m. for lunch, and 7 p.m. for dinner. I went to the Guest House refectory a few feet away and saw a long table around which stood several chairs. Already seated and waiting for me were Monsignor Ron Hishon of Small Mankon, and a young boy he 22

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introduced as his altar boy. Had they come together? I wondered. No, I was told the young lad had been there a few days before, but Monsignor Hishon had just come in as well I was, of course, meeting him for the first time. He said he had been ill and had been unable to accompany the other priests of the Bamenda Archdiocese who had earlier gone to Bambui for a retreat. He had therefore decided to come to Mbengwi both to rest and, at the same time, have his own retreat. I expressed surprise that there were still English priests working in Cameroon and, I believe, he said there were two of them here. Asked how long he has been here, he said he had come to Cameroon in the seventies on a special arrangement between his Bishop and the Archbishop of Bamenda. He had gone back home and had been sent to head a seminary in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid. Murdered for their faith I was surprised to hear that the English have a seminary in Spain. Monsignor Hishon said that as Catholics were being persecuted in the England of those days, the idea came up to establish seminaries abroad. Those who wished to pursue seminary studies either went to Rome or to Spain. Unfortunately, many of them went back home as priests only to be put to death shortly thereafter. There is, if I recall what he said correctly, a list of martyrs, former students of that seminary, on the seminary wall. We had much to talk about Spain, a country I had also lived in for a year back in the seventies, when I was a student of Spanish studies at the “Universidad Complutense” in Madrid. I had visited the city of Valladolid on my way to the historic cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where for centuries, pilgrims trooped to visit the grave of Saint James. Needless to say that my interest in those days was purely academic, since, as a student of Spanish art, I was required to make a pilgrimage to that cathedral, as to many others throughout Spain, including numerous fabulous mosques studding Spain, legacies of centuries of Moorish domination of the Iberian Peninsular. 23

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Restless in silence My first night at the monastery was not an easy one. Instructions required that all guests be back in their rooms by 8:30 p.m. I had no radio, no television, and no telephone. I didn’t mind the absence of television since I hardly ever watch Cameroon television anyway, but I always listen to the radio, mainly foreign radio stations: the BBC, VOA, etc. I missed the telephone as I would have liked to call home to find out how Maika and the kids were doing. I was restless in that silence, which was so thick you could reach out and grab it with your hand. I glanced at my watch every five minutes, wondering if I would ever be able to sleep. To make matters worse, the unforgiving weather planted a violent cough in my chest and blocked my nostrils with a stubborn cold that stayed with me for the week I was there. Finding the Lord in silence I paced up and down my small room that was enveloped in a thick foam of silence. I looked at my watch again. Only 9:30! I almost swore obscenely, but remembered just in time where I was. I picked up the Confessions of Saint Augustine and began to read. Barely half an hour later, my mind began to wander again. If only there was a phone, I thought, I would call home. From the din of Douala, a city that never sleeps, to the deep silence of Mbengwi; boy, what a world of a difference! My eyes strayed up the wall to the crucifix. I stared at it intensely for a while and suddenly had the uneasy feeling that the Lord could just unhook Himself, climb down from there, and sit opposite me. I took fright and quickly left the table to sit on the small camp bed. When I later reflected on my action, I thought it was truly ironic that I could be searching for the Lord, for that is what I was doing, and yet shy away from the mere thought of Him coming to sit by me! I have read of people who spend hours on their knees yearning for the Lord to come to them. That my first reaction was to run away from Him was perhaps an indication that I still had a long way to go in my spiritual quest. 24

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Vigil It looked as if I was in bed for barely thirty minutes when the church bell rang. I turned on the lights and looked at my watch. What! 2:15 in the morning! What in the world would these people be ringing the bell at that ungodly hour for? I nearly shouted, to no one in particular. But then, the gentle breeze began to float into my room, bringing with it the soothing music from the melodious voices of the monks. It was as limpid and pure as the cold air around me. It felt like a soothing balm on my anger. I sat up listening to it, but despite its magnetic appeal, I still felt too weak to stand up and join the monks in church as I would have loved to do. Satan seemed to be standing resolutely tall and insurmountable on my way, fanning my eyes back to sleep. Later that day, I could not help asking Father Pius why anyone would dare wake up that early in the morning. He responded that the monks always kept a vigil in the early hours of the morning. Didn’t I know, he asked, that monumental events always happen at night? The Lord’s birth, his sufferings prior to his crucifixion, darkness enveloping the world when the Lord died, etc. So, each night, the monks keep a vigil in anticipation of the Lord’s return. Morning Mass That morning, the church bell again rang out at 6:15. I sat in the pew with three other people listening to the refreshingly soothing sound of the music from the choir hidden from view by the wall. The lingering anger from the previous night was slowly receding, being peeled away by the enthralling sound of the music that was inviting my soul to prepare itself for Holy Mass, with its symbolic reenactment of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, for the salvation of mankind. The music suddenly fell silent and the monks began to walk up to the altar, one after the other, slowly, wearily and silently. I was immediately struck by the long, voluminous arms of their gowns that 25

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seemed to stretch right to the ground. I could guess that those arms helped to keep their hands and arms warm in the cold weather.

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Shortly thereafter, five or six priests, including Monsignor Hishon, walked up to the altar, kissed it in turn and took their seats by the wall. They were followed by the chief celebrant, Father Clement, a man of medium height with a slight stoop in his gait. He sported an impeccably white beard and behind his dark, horn-rimmed glasses, a pair of limpidly clear eyes stared searchingly at you. I marvelled at the clarity of his voice as he invited all of us to prepare ourselves for Holy Mass by calling to mind our sins. Throughout the Mass, I was struck by his simple, unhurrying gestures that were at the same time so majestically moving. He lifted up every word with care and respect, leaving you in no doubt that those words came from the bottom of his heart. Distractions I had never seen Mass anywhere said with such solemnity. The impression I usually have in most churches is that the priests want to get it over with as quickly as possible so as to rush off to “more urgent matters” elsewhere. On several instances during that Mass, I was a victim of distractions. I couldn’t help regretting that there was no phone for me to call home. I even caught myself wondering how best to describe the scene I was witnessing. The writer in me seemed to be wondering with the Psalmist how best to make “my tongue the pen of a ready writer” (Ps:45:1). Distractions in church have always posed a particular problem to me. I remember walking past a beauty parlour one day and, to my astonishment, there was a man I knew very well sitting among women, a hair-dryer sitting like a pot upside-down his head. Frankly, I had never known men too could be admitted into such places! The next day, I went to church and saw the gentleman walk in. From that moment until the Mass ended, I couldn’t think of anything else, but 26

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of him sitting under a dryer, among women; a particularly shocking sight that seemed, I couldn’t say why, to hurt my pride as a man. I was worried of the increasing distractions I was facing, but then I recalled that no less an eminence than Saint Augustine himself had also been a victim of such distractions in prayers: “When my heart becomes the receptacle of distractions … and the container for a mass of empty thoughts, then too my prayers are often interrupted and distracted; and in your sight, while I am directing the voice of my heart to your ears, frivolous thoughts somehow rush in and cut short an inspiration of the deepest importance”5. The value of silence One of the things that struck me with the Mass at the monastery was the place of silence. After the reading of the Gospel, and shortly after Holy Communion, everyone sits down, head bowed for what looks like an eternity. No one moves. Time itself seems to suspend its flight for that length of time. In those moments, I thought of what Doctor Norman Vincent Peale, the great American exponent of positive thinking, once wrote about silence: “[It] conditions the mind to those sharper illuminations which surely come from God working in your thoughts. Divine guidance is always spoken in a still, small voice. You can scarcely hear it in confusion – certainly not in excited panic, nor when your mind is filled with anxiety. You cannot perceive God’s will in the midst of noise, (…) especially noise within”6. As I watched that row of bowed heads, I wondered what could be going through their minds. Were they like me whose mind kept rushing back to my family in Douala, or had they disciplined their own minds so well that they could zoom them exclusively on the Lord? That “deep pool of spiritual quietness” brought to mind the words of Saint Augustine: “Let us leave a little room for reflection, room too for silence. Enter into yourself, and leave behind all noise and confusion. Look within yourself. See whether there is some 27

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delightful hidden place in your consciousness where you can be free from noise and argument, where you need not be carrying on your disputes and planning to have your own stubborn way. Hear the word in quietness, that you may understand it” (Sermon 52, 22). Confession After Mass that first day, Father Pius came to see me. He had met me briefly the previous evening and had inquired about my faith. I had told him that what was left of it was probably not worth talking about. He had smiled and told me not to worry, that many had been there before, like me, and that prayers and reflection had healed their souls. He didn’t see why that would not happen to me as well. All I had to do was trust the Lord and He would work wonders for me, as He always does for anyone who runs to him. He then recommended that I read Luke Chapter 5, the story of the lost sheep, the lost drachma and the prodigal son. Going through it, I recalled what Cardinal Tumi had told me several weeks before of rejoicing in heaven at the repentance of a lost soul. Father Pius also brought other reading material, especially on confession and the rosary. He talked to me lengthily about the origin of such prayers as “Hail Mary” and Our Lord’s Prayer, situating each of them within the tradition of the church. We discussed confession and its significance in depth, and he recommended I prepare myself for confession by reviewing the literature he had given me on it. That was going to be my first confession in perhaps well over one quarter of a century, and I was somewhat nervous about it. As I went down on my knees before that simple monk that Monday evening, I felt so unworthy of the care he was taking to cure my soul from so many years of neglect of the Lord. On my knees before him, I saw the contrast between us, standing out stark and bare. While I am a man of the world, who would rather listen to music, or read poetry than pray, he is a man who has dedicated his entire life to God. I could see the details of his hands roughened by hard work in the fields or in one of the workshops. I had been told that the monks consider ordinary labour too as part of their prayers. 28

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Holy Communion The next morning, I looked forward to Holy Mass with some excitement. It reminded me of the first time, well over three decades ago, when I had, for the first time, stuck out my tongue and “Fara Nji” had placed Holy Communion on it. My friends and I held Holy Communion in an awe that bordered on terror. We had all heard of what was said to have happened to a certain woman who had received the host and had surreptitiously taken it out of her mouth and taken it home to her “pagan” neighbours. One of them, we were told, had playfully thrown it on the fire and the whole house is said to have suddenly been engulfed in blood, threatening to drown the occupants. The panicky neighbours are said to have rushed to the parish priest, who came and blessed the blood-filled house, and when the blood receded, retrieved the host from the fire, where it was said to have lain, sparkling like a star. That morning at the monastery, well over three decades later, I still felt the weight of that legend on me as I waited for Father Clement to place the host on my tongue. In fact, I was so eager to receive it that my tongue was already dangling out of my mouth long before the priest arrived. I did not even remember to acknowledge with an “Amen” when the good priest reminded me that I was about to receive the body of Christ Himself. I rushed back to my seat, cherishing the flavour of the host that had, for one strange reason or another, decided to stick like gum onto my palate. I remember having to wiggle my tongue with some tact before dislodging it from there. I couldn’t help wondering if that was not what might have happened to the lady in the aforementioned story. Shedding tears What happened to me thereafter could best be described as a “miracle”. I am not someone who is unnecessarily sentimental and if someone else had told me an experience like this, I would have dismissed it as sheer sentimentalism. However, after I had succeeded to devour the sacred host, I suddenly felt as if a heavy load had been 29

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lifted off my shoulders. An unbelievable feeling of relief started to descend on me and tears began to flow uncontrollably from my eyes. It was a good thing the few people in church were so immersed in their own prayers that no one saw me shedding tears. I suddenly felt like a “new” member of a family from which I had unwisely excluded myself, and I wept unashamedly. From that day on, whenever Father Pius came for our daily rosary, those prayers no longer sounded boring and repetitive. Despite the inclement weather and the nasty cold and cough that were exacting much more than their own share of punishment on me, I began to feel as if I belonged to the monastery too. The afternoons I had to myself for prayers and reading passed smoothly, and I remember once being surprised that time could have passed so quickly without my noticing it. Mass for my family On Thursday afternoon, the eve of my departure, Father Pius dedicated his usual weekly Thursday afternoon Holy Mass exclusively to my family. I had never before had the privilege of being the centre of so much holy attention, and I felt truly unworthy of it. When I had to leave the next day, I felt I was leaving friends behind, people who had cared for my soul, people who had provided me a quiet corner, far from the noisy din of Douala, to meditate on my salvation. I left Mbengwi with my mind clear on a number of things. I discovered to my astonishment that the rosary is a prayer that could be said with delight and relative ease. I remember one afternoon after Father Pius had talked to my about the significance of the rosary, I suddenly felt the urge to pray. I picked up the rosary, opened my prayer book, so as not to miss the mysteries and some of the stillunfamiliar prayers, fixed my eyes on the crucifix on the wall, signed myself, and was surprised at how easy and delightful it truly could be to say the rosary.

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Prayer for my family From then on, I remember saying it a few more times, alone. I also realised that to my horror that I had never really included my family in my prayers before – at least, the few times in the past when I had ever bowed my heat to pray. To me, providing the material needs and giving them the love a father and a husband should give his family, was enough. In Mbengwi, Father Pius kept asking me to think of my wife and children in my prayers. It was then that I realised how Lucky I am to have such a wonderful family : a good wife and three strong, healthy children, and I thanked God Almighty for it. I remember also thanking the Lord for giving me a wife who has stuck faithfully by my side, especially when, as someone once said with a poetic flourish, dark clouds of despair had loomed thick and menacing over our heads in foreign lands. It was frightening to come to the sudden realisation that I had never thought of Maika in my prayers before. It took Mbengwi for me to render her that long over-due service. The Church as a place of reflection One thing I came to realise in Mbengwi was just how important a place a church is for reflection. I remember walking to the chapel every so often throughout the day, just to be alone with my thoughts, sometimes thoughts that were not always religious in nature. I would sit there just rummaging through my life and I would leave feeling astonishingly relaxed. Positive thinker, Doctor Normal Vincent Peale, says that the church is « … a wonderful source of security because this is where people, for générations, have congregated in an effort to bring the health-producing, life-changing laws of God together in a single concentrated expérience. Church worship is much more than a formal duty to perform. (…) It is your exposure to the greatest of all power. In fact, a vital church is the greatest power relay station in existence. Through it flows the vibrant life-changing energy of Almighty God himself »7. No truer words have ever been spoken ! 31

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The presence of others Another significant event that happened to me at the monastery was the presence of Monsignor Hishon. I learnt a great deal from him about the Catholic Church in both Europe and Cameroon. We always had time at meals to talk about one aspect of the Church or another, and I came to cherish those discussions immensely. I also recall the arrival a day before my departure of two members of the Focolare Movement : Demi, a Filipino, from Fontem, and Jean, a Malgache, from Bamenda. From them, I learnt much about their movement, which had organised a recent world-wide télévision programme dubbed « Family Fest ». Monsignor Hishon and I left Mbengwi the same day. Prior to our departure, I went to his room, went down on my knees and asked him for his blessing, which he readily gave, after a short prayer. So I left Mbengwi steeped in prayers. I felt like a newly minted coin. Morning prayers. I remember Father Pius telling me I could now go back to my daughter and tell her that I was now a fullfledged Christian. I had told him that one Saturday I had asked Simolen, my daughter, who seemed unusually reluctant to leave the house, to quickly go to the parish so as not to be late for doctrine classes. She surprised me by asking why I did not go with her to doctrine classes as well. I told her I received Holy Communion several years before. She had then wondered why she had never seen my receiving Holy Communion before. That had come as an unexpected surprise to me and had made me really uncomfortable for many months thereafter. In fact, when I received Holy Communion that morning, I wished she were there to see me. I remember bowing my head down in prayer and asking God to bless her and her two brothers and guide them along the path of righteousness. One thing I have been doing ever since I left Mbengwi is to wake up each morning with a prayer, thanking God for having kept Watch over my family during the night and asking him to take us into his 32

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hands during the day. That is an advice I took from an anonymous poet who wrote the following enlightening verses : Every morning, lean thine arms awhile Upon the window-sill of Heaven, And gaze upon the Lord … Then, with that vision in thy heart, Turn strong to meet the day.8

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As I reflect on my one week stay with the Cistercian monks in Mbengwi, I recall the words of Saint Gregory, talking about some poor peasants : « By their example, they keep me fastened to the peaceful shore of prayer whenever I am tossed about by the endless waves of worldly affairs». When the rat race threatens to overwhelm me, I do pose for a moment to think of the Cistercian monks in the hills of Mbengwi. Then a simple prayer pops to mind, and I feel at peace with myself and with the world around me.

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Part II

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My Prayer Life Firms Up

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1 Come, follow me!

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On Sunday, July 24, 2007, the Catholic men of the Douala Archdiocese held the general assembly of the Catholic Men’s Association (CMA) at the Our Lady of Annunciation Parish in Bonamoussadi. I was asked to lead the assembly in a bible reading but I preferred to reflect with the group on three words from Sacred Scripture: “Come, follow me!”, some of the most frequent words on the lips of our Blessed Lord as he began his public ministry. Introductory remarks Generally, during CMA-organised Masses, the priest would often give time for members to go out into the congregation to ‘fish out’ and bring to the fore, against the background of the beautiful CMA anthem, potential candidates for CMA membership. The Catholic Women’s Association (CWA) has come up with a much more colourful version; the women go out in search of potential members with candles alight; the candles symbolizing Christ, the light of the universe. “I am the light of the world,” says the Lord, “anyone who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (Jn 8:12). When we take our brothers by the hand and ask them to follow us, we are merely re-enacting what Christ himself did on several occasions at the beginning of his public ministry. He went out in search of faithful followers who would take his message of salvation to the four corners of the earth. Thus, the words: “Come, follow me,” became some of the most frequent words our Redeemer pronounced as he screened potential candidates for discipleship; those who would suffer persecution and even martyrdom in his name because he would be sending them out to hostile territory, like sheep among wolves (Mt 10:16).

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They must therefore be men of steel will because Christ’s enemies would only be too happy and ready to hand them over to the courts to be condemned for their faith; to synagogues for scourging, and to governors and kings to be bound hands and feet and thrown into dungeons for daring to preach his word (Mt. 10: 17-23). These three words of divine invitation, “Come, follow me!”, which still ring in our ears as fresh as when they were pronounced well over two thousand years ago, constitute the subject of our meditation. They have been echoing down the corridors of human ears from one generation to another for centuries, and they still carry the urgency of those early days because then, as now, the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few (Lk 10:2). Let us therefore reflect on the Lord’s invitation in two phases: first of all, how Christ calls his disciples in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke); and secondly, how he calls them in the Fourth Gospel, the Gospel according to John. In my conclusion, I point out the obligation we all have to extend Christ’s invitation “Come, follow me!” to our own brothers and sisters, especially those whose faith has weakened, for one reason or another, or those who have not yet heard our Lord’s call to sanctity. Evangelisation territory Our Lord’s evangelisation territory starts off rather small as he sends his disciples only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt. 10: 6), which he himself has come to redeem. It would later take the unrelenting persistence and strong faith of a stubborn Canaanite woman, whose daughter is possessed by a demon (Mt 15: 21-28), for our Blessed Lord to start changing his policy of “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He would later abandon this policy altogether when the said “lost sheep of the house of Israel” reject his message of salvation, thus forcing him, as it were, to turn his full attention to the whole world. It is then that he tells his disciples, and us this day, to “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Gospel of creation. Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16: 15-17); 37

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“All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28: 18-20). With such a vast territory to conquer, Christ necessarily needs faithful followers under a strong leadership because the harvest is plentiful, but the harvesters are few (Lk 10:2). The three words, “Come, follow me!”, become the hallmark of our Lord’s command to a select few, a band of timid followers, who are still wondering if they are doing the right thing by following him. Let us begin with the synoptic gospels. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are called “synoptic” (from the Greek word which means “seen together” or “seen at a glance”) because of their remarkable similarity to each other. They narrate the events of Christ’s life, including his call of his apostles, in very similar ways. According to Matthew, Jesus called his first disciples by the Lake of Galilee. “As he was walking by the Lake of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and his brother Andrew; they were making a cast into the lake with their net, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Come after me and I will make you fishers of people.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going on from there he saw another pair of brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they were in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. And at once, leaving the boat and their father, they followed him” (Mt. 4: 18-22). The pairs of brothers, Simon and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, receive an instant call and respond instantly. The same instant call and prompt reaction characterize Mark’s description of Christ’s call to his first disciples: “As he was walking along by the Lake of Galilee he saw Simon and Simon’s brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Come after me and I will make you into fishers of people.’ And at once they left their nets and followed him. Going a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. At once he 38

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called them and, leaving their father in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him" (Mk 1: 16-20). If Matthew and Mark give such a similar account of the call of Christ’s first disciples, what does Luke say about it? Saint Luke gives his account a lot more flesh than does Matthew or Mark. Whereas Matthew and Mark show us that Jesus is meeting those he is calling to his service for the first time, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus has already met Simon Peter for some time before extending a formal invitation to him to become his fisher of men: “Leaving the synagogue he went to Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in the grip of a high fever, and they asked him to do something for her. Standing over her he rebuked the fever and it left her, and she immediately got up and began to serve them” (Lk 4: 38-39). Christ’s reputation as a miracle-worker is fast gaining ground and people are already asking him for favours. Simon would see so many of such wonders that when some begin to reject Christ and abandon him, finding his teaching too strong for their liking, and Christ asks the Twelve if they too want to go away, it is Simon who makes this wonderful profession of faith: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn 6: 68-70). After the miracle in Simon’s house, days go by before our Lord again meets Simon, this time by the Lake of Gennesaret. Saint Luke tells us that the crowd is pressing around him, listening to the word of God, when he catches sight of two boats at the water’s edge. “The fishermen had got out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats – it was Simon’s – and asked him to put out a little from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat” (Lk 5: 2-3). Is our Lord’s choice of Simon’s boat a mere coincidence? I doubt that it is. By performing one of his first recorded miracles at Simon’s house, and later choosing Simon’s boat to preach from, our Blessed Lord is definitely sending out signals to whoever cares to listen that he has already found the leader of his team. Simon is being ‘anointed’, as it were, for greater things ahead. The Lord is gradually hewing the 39

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rock on which he will build his Church. It won’t be long before he publicly tells Simon: “And I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16: 18-19). But, that is still to come; for now, we are still at the early stages of Christ’s ministry and Peter’s personality is still a little fuzzy in our minds. We can only imagine him also staring dumfounded at our Lord alongside the crowd that is listening to him. He too must be asking himself where this young man has had this type of knowledge from. “They were all amazed and said to one another, ‘what is it in his words? He gives orders to unclean spirits with authority and power and they come out.” (Lk: 4: 36-37). Word is already reaching beyond the confines of the province about the wonders wrought by our Lord and Simon, who has seen one of our Lord’s first miracles performed under his very roof, is also invaded by feelings of wonderment. As Simon is still staring in disbelief, our Lord suddenly turns to him and asks him to cast his net. “Put out into the deep water and pay out your nets for a catch” (Lk 5:4). Simon Peter, with the rough features of a seasoned fisherman, his face having been beaten by the storms at sea for years on end, knows that sea like the palm of his hand. He and his kid brother, Andrew, and the other companions, James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee, have struggled all night long but have had to admit defeat and come back home, empty-handed. They were now cleaning their nets to wait patiently for another day, for there would always be another day. So, being asked to pay out his nets must have sounded to Peter like sheer folly; and he would have not hesitated to say so, had the command not come from our Blessed Lord himself. Simon is beginning to understand that with this young man, anything is possible. Has he not been a witness to some amazing things from his hands not that long ago? Was it not under his very roof that the young teacher rebuked the fever that had grounded his mother-in-law for days? Now that he is asking him to cast his net one more time, who is he not to obey? “Master, we worked hard all night 40

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long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets” (Lk 5: 5-6). The “if you say so, I will pay out the nets” is already a mark of submission to a more powerful authority. It is the attitude of a humble man before his Lord. In gratitude, our Blessed Lord rewards him, as he always rewards all who obey him, with another miracle: “And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear, so they signalled to their companions in the other boat to come and help them; when they came, they filled both boats to sinking point” (Lk 5: 6-7). It should be noted that it is Simon and his kid brother, Andrew, who invite their friends, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, to come and help them with this amazing catch. By so doing, they win for Jesus those who are to be some of his most devoted followers. That is what we too are called upon to do, my brothers. We should invite others to come to Christ so that together, we can bear witness to his endless miracles. But, let’s see how Simon reacts to our Lord’s miracle in his boat. The miraculous curing of his mother-in-law a few days previously is still fresh in his mind. Then comes the miracle of the fish and he can take it no more. He and Andrew, his kid brother, and his other companions, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, are “completely awestruck” (Lk 5:9). The evangelist tells us that “When Simon Peter saw this he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, “leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man” (Lk 5: 8-9). This is already a great sign of what kind of leader Peter is going to be to his flock; a leader steeped in humility; a man with what Archbishop Fulton Sheen calls “a deep sense of his unworthiness,” a true mark of greatness in a leader, who will serve his flock, rather than wait for his flock to serve him. Seeing how confused Peter is, our Lord quickly stretches out his hand to rescue him, as he will on several other occasions in the three years they will spend together. “Do not be afraid,” he tells him, “from now on it is people you will be catching. Then, bringing their boats back to land they left everything and followed him.” (Lk 5: 10). That’s the same message Christ is still giving us today. “Pay out your 41

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net among your brothers and sisters. Do not be afraid. I am with you. I will protect you.” We have, my brothers in Christ, seen the remarkable similarity in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, on how Christ called his first disciples, the pairs of brothers, Simon and Andrew, and the Zebedee brothers, James and John. We have also seen how Luke gives his own version a little more flesh than the other two evangelists. Let us now see how John treats the same call in what has come to be known as the Fourth Gospel. Christ’s call as seen and heard by John Let’s begin with a brief review of how John differs from the synoptics. A number of features differentiate John’s Gospel from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. John is much more concerned than the synoptics to bring out the significance of the events of Christ’s life and of all that he did and said. He is also far more interested than the synoptics in worship and sacraments. His is a much more complex work and gives more details of Christ’s life. Now, how does John see Christ’s call of his first followers? The answer is seen in John Chapter 1: 35-51. First, we are told that Jesus’ first followers were first of all John the Baptist’s disciples. As Jesus is walking by, John the Baptist, who baptised him a day before, very much against his will since he felt that he is not fit to untie the thongs of Christ’s sandals (Lk 3: 16), points him out to his followers, in these words: “Look there is the Lamb of God” (Jn 1:36). That pricks the young men’s curiosity and they decide to follow Jesus. He turns round, sees them following him and asks: ‘What do you want?’ They answer, ‘Rabbi – which means Teacher – ‘where do you live? (Jn 1: 38-39); and then comes the divine invitation: ‘Come and see!’ They go with him, see where he lives, and stay with him all day (Jn 1: 3940). One of these young men is Andrew, who can hardly wait to find his elder brother, Simon, to bring him to the Lord: Anyone who truly finds the Lord cannot keep the joy to himself. He has to share it; and that is what Andrew does. He hurries to his elder brother and tells 42

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him: “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:40), and then takes him to Jesus. I can almost hear Andrew urging his reluctant and perhaps sceptical elder brother to “come and see.” And Simon perhaps thinking to himself: “Oh, these young people are always excited over nothing. Okay, I’ll go and see but knowing Andrew, I won’t be surprised if I don’t find anything exciting about this guy at all. But, it doesn’t hurt to go and see.” That is what we are being called to do this day, my brothers. “Tell our own sister and brother -- even the most reluctant ones -- that ‘we have found the Messiah’" and lead them too to Jesus, as Andrew does his brother. A remarkable thing then happens. Christ takes one look at Peter and immediately calls him by name. He does not ask Peter his name, he simply says: “You are Simon son of John; you are to be called Cephas – which means Rock” (Jn 1:42). Christ, the Saviour, the Co-Creator of the world with his Father, knows us all by name. As the prophet Jeremiah reminds us: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer 1: 5). We see Peter already being singled out as the Rock on which our Blessed Lord will build his Church. (You’ve probably heard the Latin expression “Ubi Petrus, ibi eclessia” – where there is Peter, there is the Church of Christ.) So the Rock on which Christ builds his Church comes to our Lord through his kid brother, Andrew. What a lesson for us all! The next day, Jesus meets Philip as he is leaving Galilee and invites him to follow him. With no hesitation at all, Philip follows him. The excitement of having been touched by divine grace is so intense that Philip decides to share his joy, and he goes out in search of others. There is a beautiful exchange between Philip and his friend, Nathanael (Bartholomew). Philip tells him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and the prophets wrote, Jesus Son of Joseph, from Nazareth,” (Jn 1:45-46). But, like many of us, Nathanael is a victim of the stereotype syndrome. He judges people from outward appearances or from their origin. Stereotyping, of which we are all guilty, distorts the picture we have of people. It reduces us to narrow-minded tribal loyalists, regionalists, racists or trumpeters of ethnic intolerance. The question 43

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Nathanael asks shows that he is merely putting everyone from Nazareth into one basket and dismissing them as worthless. That is why he is astonished that anyone can admire what comes from Nazareth. “From Nazareth? Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (Jn 46-47, he asks, his voice steeped in disbelief. What I find remarkable about Philip, my brothers, is his refusal to indulge in fruitless polemics. He probably knows his friend well enough not to argue with him. Nathanael is probably the type who finds it difficult to change his mind, especially about people from remote and backward villages, like Nazareth. That must be why he finds it difficult to understand why his friend, Philip, is so fussy about a man from Nazareth. For his part, Philip thinks it better to simply invite his friend to “Come and see” and then make up his own mind by himself. All this while, our Blessed Lord is beckoning Nathanael to come to him. He has obviously heard the discussion between the two friends and is calling them to come to Him, the Omniscient, the Omnipresent, the Omnipotent. What happens when they do come to him? Instead of getting angry at Nathanael for his negative view of him and his village, as many of us would be in a similar situation, our Blessed Lord has only words of praise for him. As soon as he sees Nathanael, he says: “There, truly, is an Israelite in whom there is no deception.” (Jn 1: 47). Nathanael is astonished, as we all would be, I guess, and asks “How do you know me?” (Jn 1: 48). Oh, what a question to ask our Blessed Lord! From that question, it is clear that we are still in the presence of a soul that has not yet encountered the marvels of the Lord. Peter and the others, who have seen our Lord at work, who have witnessed the miracles our Lord has performed so far, would not ask such a question. Our Blessed Lord simply tells him “Before Philip came to call you, I saw you under the fig tree” (Jn 1:48-49). And what follows is the true encounter of a receptive soul to the saving grace of the Master. Nathanael, now completely dumbfounded, as had been Peter and his companions earlier, gives one of the first, if not the first, public recognitions of Christ as the Son of God in Sacred Scripture: 44

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“Rabbi,” he says, his voice dripping with astonishment, “you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel” (Jn 1: 49-50). And our Lord tells him, “You believe that just because I said: I saw you under the fig tree. You are going to see greater things than that. (…). In truth I tell you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending over the Son of Man,” (Jn 1: 50-51). Conclusion In this short reflection, my brothers in Christ, we have met some of those who are to travel with Christ throughout the three years of his public ministry. Our Blessed Lord calls each of them by name and in the state in which he meets them. The same holds true for us, he calls us in the state in which he finds us. He does not ask us to become someone else. No, he merely asks us to shed our old ways and embrace the new, that is, the doctrine of love, which we should spread around us. Christ is asking us to invite others, as Andrew invites his elder brother Simon, and Philip, his friend Nathanael, to “come and see” and hear him. Christ’s followers are not necessarily people who think or act alike. We can still think differently, vote for different candidates in elections, militate in different political parties and still carry Christ’s message of love to the whole world. After all, Christ’s early followers came from different backgrounds. In fact, you couldn’t find a much more heterogeneous bunch of people than Christ’s apostles. They include sceptics (like Thomas, the Twin), barely literate fishermen (Peter), scholarly tax collectors (Matthew), seasoned writers (John), impatient and violently antiRoman nationalists (Simon the Zealot), among others. There is even a traitor among them, Judas Iscariot, whose feet our Lord washes, but who turns round and sells his Master for thirty pieces of silver. The case of Matthew, the publican, and Simon, the Zealot, is worth mentioning. Whereas Matthew, by his trade as a tax collector, is widely shunned as a traitor to his people, since he collects taxes for a despised foreign power, Simon, the Zealot, is a virulent anti-Roman combatant, who is ready to use violence to overthrow the foreign 45

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yoke. He must, like Cleopas and his companion on the road to Emmaus, be dreaming that Christ would be the one to liberate Israel from the Roman yoke (Lk 24: 21). This leaves one wondering why our Blessed Lord would choose such two diametrically opposed individuals as his companions! In his beautiful book, Life of Christ (p. 113), Archbishop Fulton Sheen says that Christ might have chosen Simon the Zealot “because of his wholehearted enthusiasm for a cause.” If he carries that enthusiasm into the defence of the new faith, Christianity would certainly thrive in hostile environments. Whether we are political activists, soldiers, tax collectors, “bayam sellams”, or even highway robbers, our Lord is asking us to “come, follow him” into his vineyard. After receiving the grace of salvation, we should then go out in search of others. The divine invitation “Come, follow me” still resounds in our ears everyday. We are still being urged to come and follow the Lord, not alone, but with our brothers and sisters in the light of what the Apostles Andrew and Philip did. This is far from being an easy task, but with Christ’s Advocate, the Holy Spirit, guiding us, everything is possible, “for nothing is impossible for God" (Lk 1:37). May our Blessed Lord continue to inspire us in our evangelisation mission. Amen.

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2 Foyer de la Charité, an oasis of silence in Bonjongo

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On one of the hills protruding like a finger from the side of the m