In the News ... "A Sacred journey: How a priest born in Nigeria came to Abilene"

ARN Photo by Ronald W. Erdrich

• New place, same mission

By Loretta Fulton, Reporter
• Abilene Reporter-News

ABILENE, TEXAS - In Nigerian culture, the first-born son traditionally is named for the father.

But not always.

Albert Ezeanya Jr. was the second-born son. His father had told God that if he had a son, he wanted him to be a priest. Logically, the first son would have been named Albert Jr. and would have been steered toward the priesthood. But that didn’t happen.

“I think he knew,” Albert Ezeanya Jr. said of his father.

At 10, Albert Jr. also knew. At that tender age, he felt moved by the Holy Spirit to enter the priesthood. Raised Catholic in Uturu, Nigeria, Ezeanya heard a priest deliver a homily about preaching the word of God to people who have never heard it.

“I said, ‘I want to be like him,’” Ezeanya recalled.

After several moves in Nigeria and again in the United States, Ezeanya has landed at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Abilene ...

• Read the rest of this ARN report ...