Fr Louis with the Knights group. There was a jubilant atmosphere as Navan parish in Co. Meath celebrated the 25th year of ordination of Fr Louis Illah, who arrived from the parish of St Peter and Paul in Egume, Nigeria in 2013.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic after the celebratory Mass, which saw Fr Louis presented with gifts from Navan Parish Pastoral Council, Navan African Catholics’ Association and The Knights of St Columbanus, a typically effusive Fr Louis expressed his gratitude to God and for those who have made such a celebration possible. “I am excited and very happy first and foremost for the opportunity to be alive and celebrate this holy Mass,” he said. “It is an opportunity for me to offer thanks to God and also express my gratitude to all of the people back home in Nigeria and also to all of the people in the Diocese of Meath, who have been so supportive and helped me every step of the way.”
Hymns
The concelebrated Mass, which featured prayers in the Irish language led by Fr Louis and African versions of hymns, was also attended by Bishop of Meath Tom Deenihan and his predecessor Michael Smith. The Mass epitomised the inter-cultural element that Fr Louis and his fellow African Catholics have brought to the Faith in the Diocese of Meath as it was disclosed that Fr Louis’ arrival and his outreach to African Catholics in the Navan area encouraged many former African Catholics, who had been attending other Christian denominations in the region, to enter a Church that did not initially resemble their own personal brand of Catholic worship.
Commenting on this new dimension to the Faith in Ireland, Fr Louis attributed the foothold that African Catholics now have in the Church in Ireland to the pioneering tenets of the Second Vatican Council and Pope St John XXIII. “If you go back to the famous prayer of St Pope John XXIII at the beginning of the council, he prayed for the Church to embrace a new way of life,” he said. “In his own words he said that ‘the windows of the Church need to be open to let the fresh air of the spirit blow through’, so essentially for a new vibrant renewal to occur. One of the things that we treasure so much back home in Africa is our way of worship; it is very much in tandem with the cultural outlook and that is what we have brought here with us.”
Although recent studies demonstrate that devotion to the Catholic Faith is decreasing in Europe while conversely the trends in Africa reveal a Faith that continues to flourish, Fr Louis is adamant that Ireland still possesses strong convictions on the basis of what he has encountered in his eight years in the country and states that his time here has been worthwhile. “God will never abandon his people,” he stated. “This is such a beautiful country and this is the country that brought the Faith to us in Africa, to millions of people. Missionaries, both men and women were happy back in the day to go out to preach and share the good news of salvation. I believe in the depths of my heart that God has his own plan and the good Lord has his own way of drawing people back in and I have witnessed it here,” he said.