Popular radio and television evangelist, Rev. Patrick Henry
Edet has said he faced a lot of opposition, antagonism, blackmails in the
Catholic Church. The former Reverend Father who announced on his program “Grace
and Inspiration” on Planet Radio on Wednesday that he has resigned as a
Catholic priest said he lived in perpetual fear, pains, self-rejection and
depression because of several factors which he enumerated.
“26 years ago, at the age of 22, I had a personal experience
of God for the first time. An experience of forgiveness, of personal experience
of salvation and knowledge that there is God beyond just an idea and made a
covenant with God that since you have saved me, use me to save others. And that
I will do everything I can to be a blessing to others. That is the foundation
of my seeking to be ordained a catholic priest, just for one thing. What
motivated me was never the love of robe, of wearing indifferent from others,
what motivated me was not to be better than others by status or title, what
motivated me was not honour. The greatest passion and what got me incensed and
forced me to resign from the little job I had and forfeit the admission I had
in the university, a process that would lead me to the ordination as a catholic
priest. There was just one motive, to tell others about grace, that God saves,
that God can heal, that God can change lives. I have heard people talk about my
weakness, I have heard people talk about my rubbish, my humble beginnings, my
poverty, my struggle, my struggling with sin, with struggling with issues. I
have shared my story to tell someone else that in your story and in the middle
of your story there is a grace that speaks and that God is a God of grace.
“More than 11 years ago I started preaching on radio and
television. I had a vision of preaching on radio and television in the
seminary. I wrote it down, I knew my whole life I will live it in the media, I
will reach out to people. But I had thought I would first of all go abroad,
have Ph.D, learn a lot and be grounded a lot before I would be qualified to
teach and preach on radio. I was barely two years as a priest when God gave me
the opportunity to start a ministry on radio. And it has brought me incredible
blessing. It has changed my life, brought me to studying the bible, and to seek
to know God, to understand how God works with us. And to understand the call,
what it means to be called by God and to walk with God. It has also brought me
a lot of challenges, a lot of opposition. In 2006, around June/July, we started
Night of Grace in collaboration with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal of
Nigeria in Uyo Diocese.
“My whole calling to the priesthood was inspired by those
moments, of standing before people to demonstrate the mercy and the grace of
God, to bring people’s heart to God and to cause people to hope in God and to
let them know that God can do what man cannot do.
“It also brought me a lot of fame, a lot of opposition, antagonism,
blackmail. All I hear every time is that I am not truly a catholic priest, I am
not good enough as a catholic priest. It has been in conflict in my heart
because why I accepted not to marry and to have children was not just to be a
catholic priest but to do the things that I do. To be naughty on radio and
shout and laugh and inspire somebody. Cry when I want to cry, console somebody
who cries, to live my life out in my faith and in the process be a human being
who can make mistakes. The very things that I believe brought me to priesthood
has been the reason that peace has been taken away from me for years. I lived
in fear, in doubt, sometimes I doubt myself and say am I really right, am I
really in the right place. I hear people say he is too arrogant, he is trying
to say he is different, he is pretending, he is looking for money, he is
looking for fame. I have heard all sorts of things. And it has brought me a lot
of pains in the process, sometimes self-rejection, sometimes doubt, sometimes
depression, sometimes I don’t know but peace has been taken from me”, Reverend
Edet said.
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