REV FR. AUGUSTINE IS A CATHOLIC PRIEST OF THE CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF ORLU, THE PARISH PRIESST OF ST. JOSEPH'S PARISH ISIOZI AKAH AND THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR OF ZION ADORATION MINISTRY. HERE HE HAD A LITTLE CHAT WITH THE FORUM NEWSPAPERS LETTING THE WORLD KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER MARY AND THE POWER OF THE HOLY ROSARY.
FORUM: What have you to tell us about the import of the Blessed Virgin Mary in on-spiritual life?
FORUM: What have you to tell us about the import of the Blessed Virgin Mary in on-spiritual life?
REV FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: John in his
gospel told us that God is Spirit. Those who worship God must worship Him in
spirit and truth (Jn. 4:24-25). In the
same gospel, Jesus said to the apostles that “my words are spirit and they are
life” (Jn.6:61-13). This word that is spirit, came to many of the prophets to
confirm their mission as prophets. In MARY the word took complete flesh (Jn. 1:14). To
answer Immanuel The Word took flesh and dwelt with us. Without Mary, Immanuel
the messiah will indeed be a dream hard
to realize. She is the woman of the fullness of time; Gal 4.14 Heaven and earth
were thrown into unspeakable joy at her fiat. In our life with God she is the
centre of our salvation and the reason and vessel of our honour with God. Thus
St. Louis Marie De Montfort said, “To find grace we must find Mary who is “woman
full of grace” (JM 2-23) eminently capable of communicating grace to her
children.”
FORUM: In her apparitions, Mother Mary has
insisted on the need to pray the Rosary every day. Can you highlight your
audience on what the Rosary is all about?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: The Rosary
is one of the notable prayers in the Catholic Church. In fact outside the Holy
Mass, the most celebrated and identification spirituality of the Catholic faith
is Marian spirituality centrally built around the Rosary.
The history of the rosary is from the scriptures in the
gospel of Luke 1:28. This is the narrative of the annunciation. The Arch angel
Gabriel visited Mary and sang a song that changed the whole world and human
history. I will say it’s a song that changed human history from sadness to joy
and hope because, God opened up in Mary and sang a song through Gabriel the messenger
“Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” This song is the foundation
of the psalmody called the Rosary which the Beloved of the most high composed
with St. Dominic in the modern and most trying history of the church confronted
with heresies. It’s a song or prayer that is of the heart of God and evokes
profound and deep sentiments of Divine affection in God. This is why at Mary’s
greeting each point in History something miraculous follows. The Catholic
Church in her ageless and unassailable wisdom forged a good part of her
mystical life from the power that flows from the Holy Rosary. The Litany of
Saints made through the grace accruable from praying the Rosary and conforming
oneself with Mary’s life of sublime presence is almost interminable. Saints
Lucy, Jacinta and Francisco, Louis De Montfort are the most notable ones. St.
John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta is one of the most recent. No gain
saying the fact that any turn in the life of Mary brings you to holiness. Thus Saint
Bernard said, “When you follow Mary you will not go astray. When you pray to
her, you will not despair; when your mind is on her, you will not wander when
she holds you, you will not fall. When she protects you, you will have no fear.
When she guides you, you will feel no fatigue; when she is on your side, you
will arrive safely home.” Again, “She keeps her son from striking us; she
preserves virtue in us; she prevents our merits from being lost and our graces
from receding.”
To therefore
understand the rosary as Mary’s weapon formed from the praise’s song by the
most High in praise of his spouse, is a sublime knowledge. This is why it’s the
most combated prayers today because it possesses a very effective power to
throw open the portals of heaven. It keeps the kingdom of the devil in
perpetual agony and torture. The Rosary is about the most formidable weapon of
warfare in our Christian and Catholic struggle against satanic kingdoms and
indeed Christian should not joke with it.
FORUM: Today many Christians criticize the
Rosary and many Catholics underrate its significance, any advice on this?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: Well the greatest malaise of our day is
ignorance. Ignorance is not only lack of intellectual resources that brush
human beings and cap them with better life nuggets, but in the spiritual world,
it is lack of experience from where real life comes. The invisible sustains the
visible. The spiritual upholds the physical.
The metaphysical and supersensible provides base for the
physical. Mary is not just a human being. When she introduced the rosary, she
was no more a physical human being. She proceeded from the throne of the Most
High. The rosary is a weapon which the Queen most pleasing to God and the
repository of all heavenly treasure gave to mortals. It amounts to cheer
foolishness and arrogance not to appreciate it. Blessed Mother knows what is
most effective before introducing the history as a weapon of warfare.
Paul prayed for the gift of spiritual wisdom and
understanding for the church in Ephesus. This indeed is what we need today
against the arrogance injected into the Christian world by denominationalism
and some new age movements. The devil knows that doubt diminishes grace and
God’s disposition to answer our prayers. So he created loathsome avenues to
ridicule the most holy and ever potent and compare pensively lethal weapon the
Rosary. To neglect it or find it irksome is one plus for the devil against Christian
struggle. Catholic should say it to realize speedy answer to prayers and
quicker revelations of truth.
FORUM: Many Marian Theologians see the
Blessed Virgin as the easiest way to
God. What have you to say about this in relationship to Jesus Messianic mission?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: This is a
beautiful question. Yes this creates a vortex and brings up vitriolic arguments
like if Jesus is the messiah why emphasize the Marian position. Some have gone
the latitude of making propositions that bring Mary to the same human level as
other humans. Well Mary was full of grace before Jesus was conceived that tells
you already she is not absolutely ordinary. She was full of grace to be
qualified to pair up with Jesus in the task of salvation. She was and is
created in perfect form to connect what Eve destroyed by her disobedience.
Indeed there is no other explanation in the whole scriptures that gives a
creditable explanation of the woman of genesis in the proto-evangelium (Gen.
3:15), to crush the head of the ancient serpent through her seed except Mary.
Therefore, the Marian theologians are doing a sacred duty to combat the armies
of the devil. He is the master of all heretical teachings, apostacies and
currents of thought antithetical to the gospel truth. Jesus cannot do his
mission without Mary. God made Mary a necessary collaborator and partner in the
work of God. From conception till Pentecost, Mary was there to get things done according
to God’s will. Louis De Montfort has this to say, Mary produces in the depths
of the soul where she dwells a purity of heart and body, a singleness of
intention and purpose, and a fruitfulness in good works. Mary is a perfect
spirit today dwelling in the bosom of the father. She keeps doing her job of
mid-wifing our birth into the family and life of glory.
FORUM: From practical experiences can you
highlight us on the power of the Holy Rosary?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: Experience
has taught me that Mary has the fullness of the gospel and retains the full
content of God’s secrets. St. John realized this truth that is why among the
biblical mysteries like St. Peter, St. Paul and St. John, the later presented
us with richer and more propounded narrative of Jesus life. His revelations are
deep in rich symbols.
As such I try to go closer to our Lady through personal
devotions. On Saturdays; all her feasts are given personal attention. I follow
her as a here and now present mother. She is the spirit that brings fullness of
God’s genuine presence to me. Indeed the world is so confusing today that you
can if care is not taken get confused with the type of Christian life today
where sincerity and practical virtues are lacking.
Identifying the Holy Spirit is now difficult because of the
mess the devil has used fake workers in purported house of God in most places
today to work. Mary remained the only person to take us to the Holy Spirit
because she conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Since after her
conception, no other woman has conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. No
other child was biologically born of the Holy Spirit except Jesus the Lord,
born of Mary. At the baptism, the father confirmed Jesus "his beloved son"
in whom he is well pleased. Mary both bore Jesus and drilled him to Maturity.
To deliver my message today on daily bases, crusades and revivals and symposia,
she constantly illumines my mind and empowers me as the grand commander of the
heavenly army.
FORUM: There are many people who pray the
rosary but do not feel the impact. What do you say to them or think about the
problem?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: first, rosary as every other prayer is a
covenant activity. Like in the family you have the Blood as the bases for
family origin. Upon the blood is the bond otherwise covenant. The covenant
energizes the family spirit and drives the life of the family in process. The
rosary is a prayer for those who live in the covenant of the Blood of Jesus
Christ. These are members of his family as Paul echoed in his letter to the
Ephesians 2:13-20. When one lives in the covenant of Jesus and is aware of the
spirit of the covenant he or she possesses the needed power to pray it. The
rosary is a weapon like the gun AK47. Not every-body can carry the gun nor be
able to shoot-so is the rosary. Once you do not possess the power that proceeds
from the covenant of the kingdom, the spirit of destruction comes in no matter
who you are. So those who do not feel it nor know the power needed to go back
to the covenant of the family of believers and tie-up loose ends to step up
energy for the weapon Rosary
FORUM: you are prominent with charismatic
crusades and Eucharistic adoration. Are you trying to tell us, you are also Marian?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: The church
is a family, we are one family with Christ Jesus as the Head. There is one Spirit,
one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism and God. Who is father of all, through all and
in all.
The essences is that Mary who is the Mother of Jesus the Lord
and God and the spouse of the Holy Spirit is not divided. Today Christians try
to parcel Jesus into different parts. Some fail to realize that Jesus and Mary
form one invisible whole as Adam and Eve, the Eucharist is a product of the
union between the eternal logos and many. The word took flesh in the womb of
Mary and The flesh through the Holy Spirit. That flesh we eat, the Eucharist.
The Church is Eucharistic. What then is the cutting gap between the Eucharist,
the womb of Mary, the spirit of conception and of consecration and the
character of Jesus and His Spirit which is Charisma. Wherever Jesus the Lord is
present his power is there. That is his character – Charismata.
FORUM: Any advice for your audience
especially as we move towards the edge of the Marian year?
REV. FR. AUGUSTINE
ODINKALU: yes we are
ending the centenary celebration of Fatima apparition and not the year of the
rosary because the rosary is our weapon against evil forces given to us from
the great commander. All Christians should ask for extra grace from heaven to
pray the rosary more. We have wars and battles now more than ever in the
history of most nations, we need her constant intercession and timely
intercession for never was it known that anyone who sought her intercession nor
implored her protection was left unaided. I urge all to fly to her patronage.
Politicians can never save the world.
