AFRICAN (IGBO) TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS: AFRICAN CHRISTIANS CAN LEARN MEDITATION AND SILENCE FROM IT

AFRICAN (IGBO) TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS: AFRICAN CHRISTIANS CAN LEARN MEDITATION AND SILENCE FROM IT

AFRICAN (IGBO) TRADITIONAL RELIGIONS: AFRICAN CHRISTIANS CAN LEARN MEDITATION AND SILENCE FROM IT

Narrating how Igbo traditional priests and worshippers comport themselves at the shrine, Mazi Mbonu Ojike wrote:

“A priest at the altar is dressed neatly and conducts himself with reverence and solemnity. He looks up to the sky when offering sacrifice to God because it is believed that the sky is the direction of God’s abode …. No thinking person will fail to be impressed with the reverence which surrounds the African’s hour of worship …. Meditation follows the sacrificial ceremony. Sometimes both the priest and worshippers leave the altar so inspired that they will not talk, look back or walk fast on their way home. They have to maintain that period of silence to commune with God, who is believed to speak to everyone in silence.”

Cf. Mbonu Ojike, My Africa (London: Blandford Press, 1955), 156–158.

African believers should relearn the decorum of religious worship from our African Traditional Religions. We have deviated so much. Today, our services are neither African nor European, Asian, or from any other continent. In Igbo land, the average Igbo Christian lacks the decorum of his ancestors in worship — and lacks that of the European Christians too. Where did we learn to be noisy?

In the spirit of the new Vatican Note marking the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, perhaps it is time for African Christians to look again at what our traditional religious heritage can teach us.