By Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo*
After all the struggles and pains we go through in life, the shattering disappointments that sometimes bring us on the verge of despair, and after our successes in this world if any, the inevitable question is, ‘what next?’
This question is embodied and implied in every project, big or small, which we undertake!
This same question reveals also the limitations and weaknesses of our human powers and potential! For when we think of death, and ask, ‘what next?’ We come to a halt! Our cognitive and imaginative powers hit the wall! And all our psychic forces and capabilities, both conscious and unconscious, reach their extreme limits!
What lies beyond our earthly life is inconceivable! The very fact that we know neither the specific and decisive moment when we shall breath our last nor where and how we shall die, is enough to demonstrate that at a purely human level, we have no idea whatsoever of what lies beyond earthly life! If we knew that specific moment when we shall die, that would at least bring us very close to peering into the mystery of what lies beyond the grave!
And the fact of the decomposition of the human body at death, and the termination of all ordinary and normal communication with the dead, makes it even harder and more difficult to believe that there is life after death!
It demands therefore, consultation or getting in touch with an intelligence that is more powerful than ours, an intelligence that is omniscient to know what happens next after our death! In other words we have to get in contact with the Transcendent!
But does the Transcendent, the all knowing Intelligence exist? Being transcendent, being beyond all our psychic powers and ordinary experience, we have no scientific or experimental way of proving or refuting its existence!
And this leaves us with only three possible answers or solutions all of which are just matter of faith, namely: to believe that it exists, or that it does not exist, or that we just do not know whether or not it exists! This groups all human beings into three categories: the theists, the atheists and the agnostics! And no one has a right to condemn anybody for the position they hold! This is what we call freedom of conscience or religion or worship.
As for me, I situate myself in the camp or category of theists! I believe in the existence of the Transcendent! I acknowledge the presence of ‘The All Knowing Intelligence,’ active in each person’s life and in the universe at large! And this means that by getting in touch with it, this Transcendent and ‘All Knowing Intelligence,’ I can have at least a vague idea of what next, after our life here below!
But it is important that I share the reasons why I personally prefer theism to atheism and agnosticism! In other words, I have to answer the question, why theism appeals to me more than atheism and agnosticism. This is a long story and a search that has been tedious and sometimes very painful through the labyrinth of conflicting ideas, contradictory opinions and irreconcilable doctrines.
I was born to Roman Catholic parents. They were not very devoted Christians, but all the same they often went to Church, and we too their children followed. But this is not the reason why I believe in the existence of ‘The All Knowing and All Powerful Intelligence!’ For at some point during my youthful years, I had a terrible inner crisis that nearly forced me to abandon my faith and become an atheist!
In brief it happened like this, one day during my third year of philosophy in the Major Seminary, as I genuflected before the Blessed Sacrament, I was cast into the worst and darkest spiritual nightmare of my life! For the first time in my life I doubted the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
How could a whole person, a fully grown up human being that Jesus was, squeeze or compress himself and be contained in such a small host! I wondered. The doubt then extended to his historical existence. Did Jesus really exist? Could the Jesus story not be just one of the legends told from generation to generation? All these questions crossed my baffled and puzzled mind!
For the following three months I went to the library nearly every day and read books big and small, I read commentaries on the scriptures, theological and philosical books in search for a satisfactory answer to my questions. Unfortunately, I found none! But my conscious search for the Transcendent as a mature person had began.
Up until then I had taken Jesus Christ as the centre and meaning of my life, but here I was my faith in him totally shattered! And could find no answer to those deep questions about his historical existence and real presence in the Blessed Sacrament! So I decided that it was no longer meaningful for me to continue being a believer and a Christian!
It was therefore necessary for me to redirect my life! I had to take another path! And the path that my head proposed to me was to join the notorious army of Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada Ssalongo, CBE (Conquerer of British Empire) and Life President of Uganda! And my next move was to throw away my Bible and all the religious articles like the rosary and medals which I had in my possession.
Very soon the day for throwing away all these things that had become meaningless to me came. I gathered them and piled them on my table! But for reasons beyond my grasp when I looked at my Bible as it lay there on the table, I said to myself, «Before I throw away this Bible, let me open it for the very last time in my life!»
And a miracle I will never forget as long as I live, the miracle that saved my faith and so retained me in the camp of theists happened! For when I opened it, my eyes fell on (Jn. 14 :21) which reads : «Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me; and anybody who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I shall love him and reveal myself to him.»
When I read this verse, my heart told me not to abandon my faith. For Christ had promised to reveal himself to us! And all along what I had wanted was exactly that, to have just a glimpse of this Christ! And in a way I cannot explain, interiorly all the doubts that had assailed me about the real presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and his historical existence vanished like smoke!
But even then, I am still just at the beginning of my search for the Transcendent. For I have not yet experienced that big bang of total inner transformation which those who clearly heard the Voice of the Transcendent underwent! Radical and profound changes in their lives clear not just to themselves, but to everybody!
The following are some of the great and prominent figures that underwent such a radical change after hearing the transforming Voice of the Transcendent:
Samuel: «Yahweh then came and stood by, calling as he had done before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Samuel answered, ‘Speak, Yahweh, your servant is listening’….
Samuel grew up and Yahweh was with him…and the word of Samuel went out to all Israel.» (1 Sam.3 :10-21. 4 :1)
St. Paul: St. Paul says this of himself, «You must have heard of my career as a practicing Jew, how merciless I was persecuting the Church of God, how much damage I did to it.» (Gal.1:13). But this same Paul on the road to Damascus heard the Voice of the Transcendent and a big bang of transformation took place in his life! And he became one of the greatest pillars of Christianity! In the Acts of the Apostles we thus read:
Suddenly, while he was travelling to Damascus and just before he reached the city, there came a light from heaven all round him. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ he asked, and the voice answered, ‘I am Jesus, and you are persecuting me….’(A/A.9 :3ff)
After hearing the Voice of the Transcendent, Paul’s life changed totally! He made a U-turn! The change was radical and visible! And everybody was astounded!
Blaise Pascal: This great French philosopher, mathematician and scientist, on the night of November 23, 1645, he had a big bang of inner transformation, a spiritual experience that completely changed his life! He heard the Voice, the Word of Jesus Christ and promised never to forget his Word! For at the end of the account of this experience which is called: Blaise Pascal’s night of fire, he wrote, «Total submission to Jesus Christ and my director. Everlasting joy in return for one day’s effort on earth. I will not forget thy word. Amen.»
After the night of fire, Pascal’s life radically changed and this was clear to all those who knew him! It was a real big bang of inner transformation! And from then on he spent most of his time not on Mathematics, Philosophy and Science, but on moral and spiritual matters.
*Dominic Vincent Nkoyoyo, Monastery Val Notre-Dame, Canada.
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