In Pursuit of Happiness

Source: pintrest.com

“In that Christ had suffered, and had suffered voluntarily, suffering was no longer unjust and pain was necessary. In one sense, Christianity’s bitter intuition and legitimate pessimism concerning human behavior is based on the assumption that over-all injustice is as satisfying to man as total justice. Only the sacrifice of an innocent god could justify the endless and universal torture of innocence. Only the most abject suffering by God could assuage man’s agony. If everything, without exception, in heaven and earth is doomed to pain and suffering, then a strange form of happiness is possible.”

Albert Camus (1956: 34)

The Rebel

Love is Sacrifice

Valentine’s Day has come and gone; and many a love has been won and lost, many a heart healed and broken, many a relationship strengthened and destroyed. Businesses have counted their profits.  Tons of gift items exchanged hands.  Red roses. Chocolates. Cards. Perfumes. Watches.  Diamonds.  Yes, diamonds are forever.  And a lady’s best friend?  Houses and cars made the gift list too. 

Valentine’s Day is such good business that despite the recent global financial meltdown “love spending” around the world has remained on an ascending curve. Last year [2011], according to USA’s National Retail Federation, Americans alone were expected to spend USD $15. 7 billion (N2.5 trillion naira) for Valentine’s Day on everything from flowers to trinkets and jewelry. Who says bad economy affects love?

But how many of us have actually taken the time to examine the significance of Valentine’s Day in our personal lives, in the lives of our family?  What does Valentine’s Day call us to?  As the legend goes, St. Valentine died for love, in the example of Jesus Christ.  He died that others may live, and love.  He, like Jesus Christ, sacrificed his life.

Love is sacrifice. To love is to sacrifice; and those who love sacrifice their all. Everything, on that altar of love.  Without counting the cost. John 3:16 tells us: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…”  God sacrificed the “only” thing he had, so to say.  Out of love.  That we may have life and live, in abundance.  And out of that same love, Jesus Christ sacrificed his own life on the Cross.  “For no greater love has anyone than to lay down their life for their friends” (John 15:13).  With his life, he bought us for God, making us sons and daughters, co-heirs to God’s eternal kingdom.

Remember, You're Dust...

It was quite a sight on Wednesday, 22 February (2012), as many Christians showed up at different places, offices, banks, hospitals, bus-stops, and markets across Lagos (and across the world too), with ashes on their foreheads.  That these Christians included men, women and children; a mix of high-flying business executives, bank managers, traders, market women, bus drivers, and okada riders did not help matters.  More so, for the uninitiated, the fact that the ashes traced the sign of the cross made the sight a bit eerie.  “Has any cult come abroad for some mission?” They might have wondered.

For Christians, however, it was a sobering day. It was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.  Lent is the forty-weekday period of prayer, fasting and abstinence, and almsgiving before Easter Sunday. Christians troop to churches to receive ashes on Ash Wednesdays. The ashes come from the burnt palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday.

At Christ the King, Ilasamaja, Lagos, on 22 February, the crowd was enormous.  Even with four Masses and ten priests and ministers, the three thousand-plus capacity church overflowed with worshippers at each Mass, sometimes with those outside outnumbering those inside the church. Such is the significance Christians place on the reception of ashes on Ash Wednesday, a biblical symbol of mourning and penance, of conversion and repentance. Interestingly, a good majority of those who received ashes on that day were not Catholics, or even Christians.