Turning through the pages of history one can say that some spiritual journeys are not planned.  Sometimes a person, family or a Christian community can proceed on an unplanned spiritual journey by merely following events as they unfold, without a clear cut vision as to what lies ahead, only following the orders of the hierarchy and making themselves relevant, not knowing what distance it entails and the many stops for whatever reasons.

A journey covering a period of about seventy years must have encountered some rough pathways not to mention streams and rough weather.

Such was the story of St. Michael Catholic Church Ngwoma Obube.  It was an out station under Emekuku Parish when Rev. Fr. P.P. Colnan was the parish priest.  There was a Reverend father’s house where priests stayed for the night when they came to visit the station.  I pick the time to be about 1944 for that was the year our father came home on retirement.  It may have been earlier but this was from my own reckoning.

Obube was a parish by the presence of an expatriate resident priest at Obube Secondary School.  After the civil war when expatriate Reverend fathers were ordered to leave this part of the country, Obube lost her parish status.  As they were very few parishes at the time, it was then necessary to merge churches to the closet parishes.  Obube then comprising of Ngwoma, Egbelu and Ulakwo came under St. Mary Catholic Church Obibiezena.  So that the parish priest at Obibiezena attended to the spiritual needs of the entire Obube including Obibiezena.

When Bishop Mark Unegbu, (now late) later posted a priest to Ulakwo, one can now see that the distance is shrinking.  It was at this time that there was a little agitation, Ngwoma and Egbelu wanted their own parish and were not favourably disposed with a priest coming from Ulakwo and regarded the priest as an Ulakwo priest.  During this period, Ulakwo had been excised from Obube and had seized to be part of Obube.

In January 1986, Bishop Emeritus Mark Unegbu posted a priest to SS Peter and Paul Parish Obube with residence at Egbelu.  All this while St. Michael Church Ngwoma preserved her identity as an out station but did not have a parish house.

Thanks to Amarachi A.J.V. Obinna, the Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province who at the Chrism Mass this year 2013 approved and elevated St. Michael Catholic Church Ngwoma to a parish status.  With this elevation to a parish, the journey has come to an end and to God be the glory.  Ofcourse, St. Michael Catholic Church Ngwoma now has a beautiful parish house.

___________________________

Comments

comments