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“Mercy will promote harmonious families”

By Ekwy P. Uzoanya
04 June 2016   |   1:22 am
Dr. (Mrs.) Celine Njoku is a counselling psychologist. She is a Fellow of Counselling Association of Nigeria (FCASSON), member, Worldwide Marriage Encounter, Nigeria (WWME) ...

NJOKU-kk-3--4-6-2016

Dr. (Mrs.) Celine Njoku is a counselling psychologist. She is a Fellow of Counselling Association of Nigeria (FCASSON), member, Worldwide Marriage Encounter, Nigeria (WWME), and the Head of Department, Counselling, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos. She talks about how to make families run peacefully.

For Dr. (Mrs.) Celine Njoku, getting the family running on a smooth and harmonious path is an issue that she is restless about. Realising this goal, she says, is crucial to the overall wellbeing of the society.

A counselling psychologist, Njoku who was given the award of District Motivational Professor by the Education District V, Lagos, last week for her “diligence, forthrightness, loyalty and support to the development of education in the district” harps on this point at various religious groups, schools, social gatherings and other fora that the family needs to be properly nurtured for the larger society to be stable.

She is gratified that it is now being amplified in the Catholic Church, which is marking 2016 as the Jubilee Year of Mercy. According to her, the Catholic Church did the same exactly 50 years ago and deemed it fit to revisit the theme this year because families and the society have “left the substance and we are now battling with trivialities.”

Central to the declaration is the act of showing mercy, which she says will engender peace in the family. “Our pope, Pope Francis launched it (Jubilee Year of Mercy) last year and we are going to end it in November this year. So, if Pope has said that we should show mercy to everybody – neighbours, enemies and families, we Catholics decide to imbibe it all.

“We have the narrow door to pass through and without mercy we can’t pass through it. That is why the impact is already being felt in our homes now because we are having seminars and workshop on the subject. People are getting in touch with mercy, show mercy – spiritual mercy (you pray for people, you love your enemies), and corporal mercy (something you do with your heart), and it is yielding dividend in the church.”

Stressing the importance of showing mercy, she says: “If family is the vital strength of the society; if family is the domestic church, school, market; if there is an element of mercy showed to everybody in the family, then society will be in harmony. Therefore, we cannot talk about mercy without the family, and we cannot talk about harmony without mercy, and we cannot talk about family without mercy. Mercy is very significant if we want harmony in the family and society.”

Interestingly, Njoku a member of Worldwide Marriage Encounter, Nigeria (WWME), and Fellow of Counselling Association of Nigeria (FCASSON) is a key figure in the treating of the matter at the different levels of the church’s activities where she delivers lectures on family issues.

“For this year alone, I have covered almost 20 parishes talking about conflicts, in marriages, in families, with mercy to get resolution, harmony. Even the Archdiocese of Lagos hosted the second national meeting of families, which all the bishops all over Nigeria attended at St. Agnes Maryland in April 11 – 14, 2016 where this mercy we are talking about was unveiled in many ways.

“It was at that gathering I learnt that our girls these days sell their reproductive eggs; no mercy at all. If a young girl can go to the hospital every month to go and sell her reproductive egg, the boys go to sell their kidney to make money, it means there is no mercy in the home, and there will be no peace.

“Even some of them engage in abortion; some of them enlarge their breasts. That person has murdered sleep because they will be coming back with consequences like health complications as adolescents, when they are getting married because you are adulterating what God has created and there will be no harmony. So, we are using this year to tell people who have done these things that you can rectify them with your creator; go to confession and then and go ahead with your life.”

She emphasises that “we are lacking in mercy” and such simple etiquette that translate to costless acts of mercy should become part and parcel of everyone.

“Something happens to somebody and nobody says sorry but what you see is that everybody starts to laugh at that person, and this person grows up never to show mercy, kindness… We need to pardon one another. We need to recognise that we have individual differences in the home, so we begin to apply simple etiquette like, you pour somebody’s water away, just say, ‘I am sorry,’ you want to make use of somebody’s item, say, ‘Excuse me please,’ somebody does something for you, say ‘Thank you.’ If we imbibe all these then there will be harmony in the society and family. So, we are lacking in mercy.

“We need to go back to homes where rules and regulations are guiding us because majority of us are coming from houses. If you look closely, you will see that some of these young women getting married these days are not ready to show mercy to their spouse, the same with the young men; it starts from the home. So, the home should go back and sit down and ask themselves question; where have we got it wrong? If the home gets it right straight from parenting (that is paying rent to your creator by taking care of the children because they are adopted children from God), then God will be happy with you, and you will have that harmony.

“With mercy we will come back to the original plan of the family; there will be peace, harmony, love. Love that flows from the father to the mother and to the children. What is happening is everybody is claiming right, judgemental; you did this, you are bad, you shouldn’t have done it, you are always doing it. If we remove that judgemental mentality, if we remove this thinking of you being the saint and the other person being a devil, then there will be harmony.

“The way a person behaves, that is the way he/she should behave at that point in time. So, you need to forgive; keep forgiving. As we are talking now and you slap me, and I say why did you slap me and you slap me again, I keep my mouth shut because you have decided to slap me. I forgive you because you don’t know what you are doing.”

She notes that disagreement is part of family but advises that it should be effectively managed. “Conflict is bound to be there because I can’t have conflict with somebody I don’t know; I can only have conflict with people I live together and share things with. When it happens, we should come to the drawing table and forgive one another.”

She sounds some words of caution for women, especially in the area of relationship with their husbands. “There is also need to talk to my fellow women because most of them are disturbed with trivial things. The man you marry is not your relation; he is coming from a different background. So, you don’t expect him to behave like your father or brother. There is one case I am handling now; the woman has lived with the man for 21 years and she are still complaining, you should be able to be forgiving this man.

“The women who are breadwinners are not making things easy in the homes. When God made Adam he made Eve a helpmeet. So, when it is your turn to help out, you should not shout; don’t let the whole world know that the family is broken. Anybody who is capable can carry on with the work. Most of the time, it is the cause of lack of mercy in the family that is the cause of such conflicts.

For the men, she says: “Men show mercy to your wife because many women are dying emotionally.”

Concerning the elders, she admonishes families to “show mercy, love and commendation to the elderly ones. Many of the elderly ones are sick not because they have an ailment but because they lack love.”

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