story and photos by Eric Styles, SJ

I SAT IN THE international airport in Milan, waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago, after six weeks in the West African country of Nigeria. I was returning to a land of iPods, working traffic lights, and intact sidewalks, a very different world from the one I had just left. There were philosophy and theology books awaiting me at Loyola University Chicago, but having the freedom and the space to study in the States is still a privilege.

Sitting next to me in the terminal was an African-American family-husband, wife, and three sons-clearly of some means. They were returning to Philadelphia after a European vacation. I always enjoy seeing African-American families out and about, engaging one another with affection and care, but my recent experiences in Nigeria made this encounter extra special. Their faces of various, subtle shades of brown were reminiscent of those that I had just left. Their affluence stirred within me speculation about what the future holds for the resilient, ever hopeful, but restless and sometimes exasperated people I met in the heart of Africa.

"Wait until you get to St. Joseph's," author Eric Styles, SJ, was told. "It's the busiest parish I've ever been to," he said. The choir played a prominent role in the ordinations Styles attended, as did dancers. It took a 72-page program to list all the participants.

I'm African-American, so this first trip to the continent of my ancestors was especially significant. Africa holds a place in my heart that was always in need of direct experience to give it real weight and grounding. Fr. Bob Thesing, SJ, my superior, listened intently as I struggled to articulate my desire to gain that grounding. He knew of my aspirations to study liturgy and the roots of African-American culture, so it was not difficult for us to agree that my spending a summer in Africa absorbing as much as possible would be worth it.

Jesuits Chioma Nwosu, Ubong Attai, and Kelechi Ahamefula were ordained to the priesthood, and Amaechi Ugwu to the diaconate.

I spent my first few days in the country in Lagos, at the Jesuit provincial offices and residence. That's where I met Fr. George Quickley, SJ, the first provincial of the new and growing North-West Africa Province, which comprises Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gambia. George, also an African-American, originally from Maryland, took time out to talk to me about his ten years in the country. He had a packed schedule, just like all provincials do, filled with lots of traveling to see the men under his charge. I was lucky to catch him during a couple of days in between interviews he held with two groups of candidates for the novitiate.

I arrived late one night, and he invited me to join the candidates and him for Mass at seven the next morning. I knew I could catch a Mass later in the day, but I wanted to meet the candidates before they left. When I made my way into the small chapel, still half asleep, there they were: five wide-eyed young men, looking as if they had been up for hours. When you are interviewing with the provincial for admission into the Society, it doesn't hurt to impress. George introduced me as his "brother Jesuit from the States," and they all greeted me with great respect. We all took our places on low wooden stools. My assumption was that this would be a short Mass, over before I actually woke up completely. Well, when we got to the Eucharistic Prayer and George started singing and all five of the candidates burst into powerful, harmonically rich response, I suddenly realized that this really was a different world.

Oh Lord, I am very, very grateful
For all you have done for us!
Oh Lord, I am very, very grateful
I am saying 'Thank you, Jesus!'

Who sings the Eucharistic Prayer on a Friday at seven in the morning? Apparently Nigerians. I had experience after experience like this one throughout my time in Nigeria. I never stopped being amazed at how the people prayed.

Fr. Paul Mathew is a Jesuit from India serving as an assistant parish priest at St. Joseph's.	It's customary for some Nigerian women to dress similarly on special occasions.
Traffic jams, or go-slows, add hours to simple journeys in Nigeria's cities. Decayed infrastructure, crime, and corruption are other problems the country faces.

In the first two days I went to four Masses. I traveled with George to the Pacelli School for the Blind, where Jesuits preside at daily Mass. Traffic jams in Lagos, called go-slows, are like nothing one could ever imagine. We had to add a couple of extra hours to our trip since you could never tell what time you might actually arrive somewhere.

We were headed after that to an ordination, so George told me that he would not have time to preach at the Mass at Pacelli. The sisters and laywomen who run Pacelli quickly greeted me, helping me find a seat in the long narrow chapel, behind rows of waiting children. George disappeared. All of a sudden, with what seemed like no verbal instructions, the children stood up and began singing in a natural harmony. George reappeared in vestments and whisked down the aisle at an almost frantic pace that I soon learned was actually normal for him. With a huge and booming voice, he began Mass with the familiar words: In the name of the Father and the ... Good morning, Pacelli! ... Good morning, Father! It was almost like a movie. The colors were bright and the sound was amazing.

When it was time to travel to Benin City where I would spend the bulk of my six weeks, George sent me on the road with some young Jesuit scholastics. Gabriel, one of the province office drivers, was going to drop the scholastics off at a conference and then take me on to my destination. I soon learned that they were very much like my classmates back home: deeply devoted to God and the Society's mission, very smart, and just a tad mischievous. They made it clear that if I had been impressed with the liturgies in Lagos, "wait until you get to St. Joseph's."

The North-West Africa Jesuit Province draws novices, including these who were about to make first vows, from Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Gambia. The novitiate is in Benin City; it and a retreat house on the grounds share a chapel.

Fr. Aghadi Onu, SJ, assistant to the novice master, studied at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass.

A busy parish

St. Joseph's, in some respects the central Jesuit parish of Nigeria, sits in a bustling and vibrant section of Benin City. It's the busiest parish I've ever been to-three daily Masses during the week and eight services on Sunday (four in the parish church, two in satellites, two in prisons).

Five Jesuits-three priests and two scholastics-staff St. Joseph's. From day one, people greeted me with reverence. It took a good while for them to get used to seeing a Jesuit with dreadlocks. "Good afternoon, Brother," would always be accompanied by bows and curtsies and the brightest smiles.

On my first Sunday in the parish, a priest and a scholastic were out of town, so I asked Fr. Jude Odiaka, SJ, how I could pitch in. Having had some experience in the novitiate with jail ministry, I was sent to two prisons to lead Communion services. I remember thinking OK, now I'm in over my head. What could I, having been in this country a little more than a week, have to say to Nigerian prison inmates? So I took a cue from the name of one of the young men who works in the parish, God's Power. Indigenous Nigerian names always have a meaning, so indigenizing English by naming someone God's Power makes sense. "Say it with me sisters and brothers," I nervously exclaimed. "My name is God's Beloved."

I learned some hard lessons that first Sunday: First, never leave the house to preach and preside at two liturgies in Africa without eating breakfast. Second, just because Africans don't mind staying in church for a while doesn't mean they are interested in listening to everything you've ever thought. And third, speak slowly and distinctly-if you think they sound funny, imagine how you sound to them.

"Looking back at the photographs I took," says author Eric Styles, SJ, "I see dignified human faces hoping to be recognized for who they are: children of God."

Ordination

Of all my experiences in Nigeria, nothing could top being at the ordination of Jesuits at St. Joseph's. People from all over the country descended on this mighty parish to experience what might be the very best of Nigerian Catholic worship. The parish had been planning for at least a year; if all the names listed on various committees in the 72-page souvenir program were any indication, everybody had a part to play.

With Archbishop John Onaiyekan of the capital city, Abuja, at the helm, we danced, sang, listened, laughed, ate, and prayed our way into God's presence. A Scripture scholar and longtime friend of the Society of Jesus, Onaiyekan gave a homily that managed to admonish, entertain, and encourage everyone in the church. After Communion, all the Jesuit brothers, scholastics, and priests, clad in full vestments or white cassocks, took turns dancing up the aisle in the Nigerian Catholic custom of "thanksgiving," praising God for the four newly ordained men. Four hours later, I was delightfully exhausted.

I could write about the ugly side of the country. From the deeply corrupt government to the dangerously neglected infrastructure and the hostages taken in oil-rich regions to the nonexistent state-sponsored social welfare system, Nigeria has its share of problems, and life there is not easy.

But when the woman and her children who sold food in a wood plank shelter next to St. Joseph's Parish called me over to take their picture (opposite page, top center), what came through with such august beauty demanded to be accompanied by an equally hopeful story. Looking back at the photographs I took, I see dignified human faces hoping to be recognized for who they are: children of God.

Carvings such as these, done in a typical Nigerian style, adorn the chapel doors at the Jesuit novitiate in Benin City.

Let my intent here not be obscured. The complexity of Nigeria's history and its peoples' struggle to reconstruct a livable and flourishing human society defies all naïve stereotypes of fascinating natives or noble savages. Nevertheless, so many of the people I met looked like my parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, that the occasional double take-seeing in the eyes of Nigerians the subtle intimations of a relative or friend-made it clear to me that I had been invited by the Lord, not on safari, but on pilgrimage.

Eric Styles, SJ, a native Chicagoan, has degrees in African-American studies and electronic media from the University of Cincinnati. Before joining the Jesuits in 2004, he worked in parish liturgy and theater management. He is now in First Studies at Loyola University Chicago.

This trip into the Heart of Africa, as the Nigerian government calls it, was also a journey into my own heart-a trip home to God. In the gospel of Luke, Jesus asks, "What profit is there for a man to gain the whole world yet lose or forfeit himself?" That African-American family on their way home from an international vacation made me wonder what profit or progress is really all about. If it doesn't come with the kind of human dignity that the people of Nigeria so often struggle to maintain, then the iPods (one of which I own), the working traffic lights, and the intact sidewalks may in fact all be for naught.