Report reaching Trinitas News Desk says the Bishop of Aguleri Diocese most Rev Denis Chidi Isizoh,the Monks of various Monasteries in Nigeria and Lay faithful of Aguleri Diocese and beyond during the week gathered for the ceremony of blessing the Abbot of Our Lady of Angels Cistercian Monastery Nsugbe; the first of its kind for the Monastery.
It would be recalled that Archbishop Charles Heerey had borne it in mind to have different religious institutes in the then Eastern Nigeria Province as far back as 1937 when he founded Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
He founded the Brothers of St Peter Claver about that year in Uturu Okigwe but it didn’t florish, which made him invite the Marist Brothers who started on thesame ground of Uturu. That was how Marist Brothers came to be in Nigeria from Abroad.
In 1950s Archbishop Heerey sent Blessed Iwene Tansi to Mount St Bernard Abbey in England to learn monastic life such that a Monastery too be founded in the Eastern Nigeria. That vision was not achieved in his life time since Tansi Died in 1964 and Heerey himself died in 1967.
Nonetheless, Archbishop Arinze and Ezeanya kept the dream alive but only woman wing of monastic life was able to come to light then since the men’s wing was diverted to Bamenda Cameroon
Under Archbishop Obiefuna, the dream of having a Monastery for men in Onitsha Archdiocese came to be. It started as a small monastic community, then a Priory and finally an Abbey in January this year, an Abbey now not in Onitsha Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction but of Aguleri Diocesan Jurisdiction. For being raised to an Abbey, they’re now to have an Abbot and today what AB Heerey wanted in 1937 (that’s 86yrs ago), is finally a reality.
To God be the Glory.
