Greeting: “If you O Lord should mark our sins, Lord, who could survive? But with you is found forgiveness, and for this we revere you!” (Ps. 130:3-4).
Dearly beloved in Christ, it is with these words of the Psalmist that we, the Ghana Catholic Bishops, greet our fellow Ghanaians and all men and women of goodwill who live in our dear country Ghana at this time when Catholics and some other Christians embark on this season of Lent. As you all know, Lent is a period of forty days during which the Church invites all her children to intense prayer, fasting and good deeds in preparation for the celebration of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour at Easter.
1. Lent- the favourable time: We invite you, our fellow Ghanaians, to welcome this Lenten season as “the favourable time; … the day of salvation”, to quote the words of St. Paul (2 Cor. 6:2). Lent is to remind us of the flood in the days of Noah when the Lord God washed the earth clean of all that was sinful. Lent also recalls the message of the Prophet Jonah to the people of Nineveh:“Only forty days more and Nineveh is going to be destroyed!”However, Lent calls to mind especially the forty days that Jesus spent in the wilderness praying and fasting before undertaking his mission of proclaiming the Good News of God to all.
It is against this background from Holy Scripture that at the start of this season of Lent, we invite our fellow Ghanaians to meditate on the opening words of this our Lenten Pastoral Letter, i.e. “If you O Lord should mark our sins, Lord, who could survive? But with you is found forgiveness, and for this we revere you!” (Ps. 130:3-4).
Dearly beloved in Christ, even a casual look at the state of affairs in the country and in the newspapers points to the fact that we have all sinned and fallen short of the grace of God (cf. Rom. 3:12).We therefore would like to exhort our fellow Ghanaians to spend this time of grace to reflect on what has been going wrong in the past two or more decades in our country. It is high time we each made a sincere and personal examination of conscience in order to acknowledge our fault and guilt in the present state of evil in the country. Let us then undertake a journey of repentance, reconciliation and reparation for the evil we have done by our thoughts, deeds and omissions.
Let us be inspired by the call to repentance of the king of Nineveh who made the following proclamation in the Book of the Prophet Jonah: “Men and beast, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing; they must not eat, they must not drink water. All are to put on sackcloth and call on God with all our might; and let everyone renounce his/her evil behavior and the wicked things he/she has done. Who knows if God will not change his mind and relent, if he will not renounce his burning wrath, so that we do not perish?”
2. “All have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God: ”Dear brothers and sisters, in spite of all the development we can be proud of as a country in the last two decades, we have to admit that evil and sin are blatant in our country of late. They manifest themselves in the corruption that we encounter in nearly every dealing and transaction, be it in the public or private sector; in the indiscipline and lawlessness on our roads and highways; in the fraud and embezzlement of huge sums of monies perpetrated in our institutions; in the immoral behaviour of our young and adult generations. In the face of all these evil acts, one is tempted to admit that we seem bent on destroying this country in spite of all the immense blessings and abundant natural and human resources God has given us.
With St. Paul, we indeed confess that “all…are under the power of sin…None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one”(Rom. 3:10-12). Sin and evil have indeed engulfed nearly every part of our lives in Ghana today. The accusations of corruption should not be leveled only at politicians and public officers. There is corruption, in fact, evil, everywhere in all its diverse manifestations in all sectors of our society.
Our newspapers, dailies and tabloids are replete with reports of evils such as rape and defilement of children, even by priests and pastors and the so-called “men of God”, and some by the very fathers and even grandfathers of these innocent girls. There are reports of sexual immorality among our teenagers (with its attendant infections), teenage pregnancies, abortions and the abandonment of new-born babies. Some of such evils are perpetrated by school teachers who have been entrusted with the moral formation of our school pupils and children! Mention can also be made of the incidence of child-trafficking and the ritual murder of infants, parents and even of grandparents by relatives and family members, just in the pursuit of money.
We should also mention the rising instances of drug-trafficking, of armed robberies and killings by criminals, some of whom are even state security personnel. Attention should also be drawn to fraud and the embezzlement of huge sums of public and private monies by professional crooks with the complicity of politicians, public and state officials. Chieftaincy disputes are on the increase and some traditional leaders are dissipating stool lands and destroying ancestral forests and cultural heritages (of which they are supposed to be custodians) through galamsey, etc. Mention can also be made of the ceaseless cases of ethnic conflicts and tribal animosities fueled by some aspirants to traditional leadership or political power. These are but some of the evils and forms of corruption going on in Ghana.
Yes indeed, all have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God. St. James pinpoints the source of all the evil happening in human societies thus: “Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. What you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires…”(James 4:1-3).
In short, what is happening in our country and in our daily lives, all the evils and hardships we are enduring are self-inflicted. They are the result of our sinful desires and inclinations, of our indiscipline and lawless actions, the corruption and evil in our hearts and minds, our sins of thought, acts and omissions, or inactions. We have all sinned and departed from the paths of righteousness.
3. Lent: a time of prayer, fasting and good works: This is the reason why we are calling on all Ghanaians and all men and women of goodwill living in our land to let us join Christians all over the world to follow the example of the King of Nineveh and his subjects: “…All are to put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might; and let everyone renounce his evil behavior and the wicked things he has done. Who knows if God will not change his mind and relent, if he will not renounce his burning wrath, so that we do not perish?” (Jonah 3:7-9).
3.1: “All are to put on sackcloth…:” First and foremost, let us welcome these forty days of Lent for personal and individual repentance and renewal. This is symbolized in the Old Testament by putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes. Today it is symbolized by the ashes that we receive at the beginning of the Lenten season. This is a sign of our firm resolve and promise to God to acknowledge our guilt and confess that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God.Let each one make an examination of conscience and ask God for forgiveness!
3.2: Men…are to taste nothing, they must not eat…”Let us accompany our pleading for forgiveness with fasting and abstinence from food and drinks. Jesus teaches us that certain evils and demons can only be overcome through prayer and fasting (Mk. 9:29). Jesus himself fasted and was strengthened to overcome the temptations of the devil.
We exhort you, dear brothers and sisters, to join us in fasting not only from food, but especially from our evil deeds that have brought this country where it is today. In the words of the king of Nineveh, “let everyone renounce his evil behavior and the wicked things he has done…”This is true fasting.
3.3: Charity covers a multitude of sins: In addition to renouncing our evil ways, let us do good deeds as the Bible exhorts us. Charity as almsgiving covers a multitude of sins, as St. Peter tells us (1 Pt. 4:8). But doing good works also implies fulfilling one’s duty, one’s responsibility and offering service in honesty to the state and to our fellow human being at all times. If anything is letting this country down, it is the failure to give honest service for just remuneration. Patriotism and love for neighbour are lacking today in the Ghanaian. Lent is a time when we should eschew the evils of ethnocentrism and exclusionism, a time to come to terms with the fact that all of us are children of God who in his great love and wisdom, has made us Ghanaians and endowed each with the wealth we have. He is calling on us to employ these in honest service of this country and of all our fellow men and women.
4. Conclusion: Dearly beloved in Christ Jesus, just as the Book of Jonah tells us that “God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour. And God relented; he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened”, we want to assure our fellow citizens that with true repentance, reconciliation and renewal supported by prayer, fasting and good works, God will always continue to bless our homeland Ghana and make our nation great and strong.
This is our wish for Ghana during this time of Lent. May God make this country truly a beacon of honesty, integrity, sincerity and hard work!
Most Rev. Joseph Osei-Bonsu
President, Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference and
Bishop of Konongo-Mampong