Miracle Of Grace: Vocation Booms In Mbaise Catholicism. January 6 Get-Together Photograph In Ahiara

The Holy Ghost Fathers' missionaries who introduced the Catholic Faith to the Igbo people in general and to Mbaise people in particular nicknamed Mbaise land the "Ireland of Nigeria."This is not a fluke but a true reaction to the numerous vocations that always surge from among the Mbaise people. Mbaise land is a perpetual fountain of Catholic vocations. It would appear as if Mbaise land was the tribe of Levi among the Igbo people who claim to be Jewish in origin. If not for injustice, discrimination and all what not that have always been employed to cut down and curtail vocations in Mbaise land, Mbaise Catholicism could have been boasting of nearly three to four thousand priests and religious today.

There is always a huge supply of laborers for the vine yard of the Lord from Mbaise land. According to an analysis based on the centenary registry and estimates of 2012, Mbaise Catholicism has about 700 priests [both diocesan and religious] and more than a thousand lay religious men and women at present. This is the best output of a church the size of Mbaise land in the continent of Africa.

The whole concept of vocations boom that is commonly used throughout Nigeria today finds its origin in Mbaise land. It dates as far back as the late 1930s when about 30 or more young girls trained by the venerable Mother Mary Coleman and her team entered the Juniorate of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Mother of Christ Congregation at once to bust the taboo against Igbo young women and men entering religious life en masse.

That was the known beginning of the mass movement into the seminaries and convents for the purpose of dedicating one's entire life to the service of the Lord as a priest or a religious which is today called vocations boom in Nigeria and Africa at large. Until then it was hard to convince Igbo young men and women whose ambition was solely to get married and have children to abandon all that because of their Catholic faith which needed some of them to sacrifice their entire lives in the ministry of total and undivided services to God and humanity.

In spite of the great odds stacked against her, Mbaise Catholicism continues to produce religious vocations in large numbers. Since the conspiracy came into full force against Mbaise people in Nigerian Catholicism, there has been a movement to cut down to the barest minimum religious vocations streaming from Mbaise land.

All the major religious congregations in Nigeria appeared to have keyed into the discriminatory policies long practiced by many Igbo/Nigerian dioceses which is to refuse applications from Mbaise candidates seeking to realize their vocations in dioceses or congregations other than their home diocese of Ahiara. This has been the reality of young Catholics from Mbaise since the late 80s. But the God of harvest knows how to bring as many vocations as possible from Mbaise Catholicism into the vine yard of the Lord. So, today, religious vocations continue to surge from Mbaise Catholicism to the greater glory of God.