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Year of Publication: 1974
The past fourteen years have found me a faithful occupant of the enclosed walls of the seminary. It has been fourteen
years of slow but steady attempt to move from the pew to the altar.
Firstly, entering the big church, piously genuculating, humbly sitting on the last pew, being gradually promoted
from pew to pew until the nearest pew to the sanctuary and, finally, to the altar. A tedious journey indeed.
It has been years of rain and sun, hope and despair. In short, the weather has been highly changeable.
Within this span of fourteen years, I have passed through Rectors of different moods, through Spiritual Directors
with differing views about spirituality. I have passed through a local Seminary , a National Seminary and an International
Seminary. I have studied in a National as well as in an international University.
Within these years, I have been to different parts of the world either to study or to pray; I have been to Ghana,
Guinea Bissau, Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy.
I have lived in the Vatican City for five years. These years have also brought me into contact with people from
Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and America. Not merely street contact but living in the same building and studying
in the same lecture rooms.
These fourteen years have been twice interrupted; firstly when I was sent on a probation to teach in a secondary
school and lastly, when, in the heart of the Nigerian Civil war, I was obliged to suspend everthing and help the
refugees.
It has been fourteen years cramped with hard experience.
In our age when everthing is rapidly passing through the crucible of criticism, there is yet a section of our society
which is still an undiscovered fourth world. It is our Seminary community.
It is strongly hoped that this memior written to mark my ordination to the priesthood will serve as a crack through
which the genuine enquirer can peep into the seminary world.
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