By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
It’s a humbling experience to bear witness to the rendition of a miracle before one’s very eyes. Forget the exotic theatricals of TV evangelists who have turned the matter of miracle-fixing feats into farcical money-making ventures through manufactured witch-catching and sundry high jinks.
The real miracle happens without noise. It happened that on All Souls Day, November 2, 2025, a dear friend of mine took me to the Thanksgiving Mass to celebrate the recovery from sickness of Rev. Fr. Chidi Jude Ozumba, the priest in residence at St Dominic’s Catholic Church, Mbaukwu in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, a hilly pastoral town steeped in history.
The mid-morning was humid at about 10:30 when I made my entry into the church. The parish priest, Rev. Fr. (Dr) Boniface Obiekezie, was as ever a larger-than-life presence. Priests were gathered in their numbers on the altar to celebrate with their colleague, Fr. Ozumba.
Eventually, all eyes fixated on Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Martin Tochukwu Onwudiwe as he told the recovery story of Rev. Fr. Chidi Jude Ozumba by way of a profound homily that resonated with the All Souls Day essence.
Ozumba and Onwudiwe had met at the seminary as young trainee priests, and have remained friends ever since. Both priests have shared their triumphs and travails over the years. Father Onwudiwe reeled out about a handful of occasions when Father Ozumba miraculously cheated the Grim Reaper when he came calling. Heart failure has finished off not a few personages, but it could not come out tops when it challenged Father Ozumba. In another trial, in the dead of night, Father Ozumba had a horrible accident in Ufuma town in Orumba South Local Government Area, and the car was completely wrecked such that nobody believed that any mortal could come out of the wreckage alive. Father Ozumba came out of it unscathed, and a total stranger came passing by in a car and undertook to take him home even as alarmed members of his family were making plans to come for him.
Earthquake hit Italy when Father Ozumba visited Father Onwudiwe who was then living there, and the building was shaking monstrously, but not even the abominable Richter scale could lump off the brother priests.
The miracle that occasioned the celebration happened in this year of Our Lord. Father Ozumba was ill and had to undergo multiform tests in Nigeria. The doctor decided that he had to go under the knife for a complicated surgery in which his gall bladder needed to be removed! A frail and dying priest had to be ferried to the United States by his family, and it was incredible that he was able to enter the plane and make the travel. The American doctors attended to the “walking corpse”, and as many as 10 physicians were on his matter. After all the tests, the doctors stated that nothing was wrong with his gall bladder as to ever necessitate undertaking a surgery to remove it! There was not even any malaria parasites in his system, because if he had any malaria in the USA he would have been quarantined as a first course! In the end, he was just stabilized and discharged after being given only a few tablets.
It was indeed a rejuvenated Father Ozumba that delivered the vote of thanks at St. Dominic’s Church, Mbaukwu. The spirited Father Ozumba who hails from the nearby Enugwu-Ukwu town was full of thanks to his family of four men and two women who always stood by him, and readily consented to his decisions even as he was the second to the last-born of the family. He called up his doting eldest brother, the firstborn Emeka Ozumba, to the altar to render his familial appreciation.
Anambra State Deputy Governor, Dr. Onyeka Ibezim, a lionized original of Mbaukwu town, who was at the Mass revealed that Father Ozumba was the teacher of his wife, and pledged to support the building of the Calvary structure that the celebrating priest had promised to build in the premises of St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, Mbaukwu. The popular Hon. Dozie Nwankwo (Onyendozi) also pledged millions in support of building the structure.
The Deputy Speaker of the Anambra State House of Assembly, Hon. Chukwuma Okoye, was amongst the prominent guests at the Mass.
There was so much to eat and drink after the Thanksgiving Mass, and the guests were held spellbound by the dexterity of Father Ozumba while dancing to the beats of Egwu Igede, the ancestral traditional dance of his native Urunnebo, Enugwu-Ukwu.
The rootedness of Rev. Fr. Chidi Jude Ozumba bears testimony to the truism that heaven and earth blends via communion.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is the author of God of Poetry.
