“Beloved: You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.”
Excerpt, First Reading, Wednesday 29th May 2024 – 1 PETER 1 : 15-25.
So, history has it that, before the advent of Christianity, people in the world were predominantly idol worshippers.
Recall the letters of Saint Paul to Timothy? He cautioned him to be weary of a certain Alexander a cooper smith who vehemently anatomized him – 2 TIMOTHY 4:14-16.
Recall also his sermon to the Areopagites at Athens, “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god. ‘ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” – ACTS 17:23-31.
In Africa, we too, also had our various fetish practices which were mostly represented by carved wooden or clay images which our people of that era referred to as representing their gods.
Also, there were other wicked practices like the killing of twins as well as killing innocent people in the name of using them to escort a monarch who passed on.
Others were compelling a widow to pass the night alone in a room with the corpse of her deceased husband as well as making her drink the slimy water used in washing the corpse.
There were yet other social practices like getting a wife for a man who has come of age but probably living in a distant land. The supposed wife would be sent to him and the total strangers will hence live as husband and wife.
Regrettably, we still have such practices even up to this day happening. These fetish acts are going on not just in Africa but in all the continents of the world as you read this.
It is regrettable because, it could be excused during those era when we were still ignorant. However, to what can we attribute it to now that the world has known better and it has since been proven that such practices are futile and the deities are mere images without any consequences? – “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. – EXODUS 20:3-4.
Nevertheless, my dear friend, while we may decry such fetishes, we too, in some ways may still be indulging in idols or idolising.
At those fetish platforms, when an unauthorised person touches any item there, it is always regarded as a desecration and abominable. Such a person may or would be required to undergo some penance or make some sacrifices of do the both.
Now, come the era of the smart phone 📱 In the home where there’s possibly just the husband and his wife, each of them their smart phone is akin to such fetish platforms of yester-years.
Our phones are now so guarded that they have now assumed the nuances of demi-gods in our life.
The way an avowed idol worshipper would cringe when someone goes near his deities is how some of us are now affected when our spouse touches our phone.
This is despite that we have protected the phone with passwords. Yet we still fret when our supposed better half touches our phone.
The phone is usually the last thing we touch before turning in at night and the first thing we touch once we get up.
My dear friend, now that you are married, what is that thing we are doing so secretive that makes our phone to be so prohibitive to our spouse?
If between God and man we are aware that the cause of our action is not honourable, then it must not be lost on us that we are just courting a disaster that is just waiting to happen.
Today is another best opportunity to come out clean 🙌 or desist from our dishonorable ways for the sake of our sanity and that of our spouse and for the good of our nucleus and nuclear family.
When it happens, as it will most definitely happen, we mustn’t go blaming the devil. Na we bi our own devil gan-gan.
Have a fantastic day folks.
#Blessed_Carlo_Acutis! #Pray_for_us!
– Akase F. Agabo.