Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Amos | August 12, 2026
One of the most profound truths about death is its paradoxical nature: it is both ubiquitous and yet singularly feared; it belongs to every human being and yet, whenever it comes, it seems to visit us for the first time. It is the universal appointment from which no mortal can obtain exemption, the final summons before which kings and subjects, bishops and beggars, the celebrated and the obscure must all eventually stand. Shakespeare captured something of this mysterious contradiction when he wrote that death, “a necessary end, will come when it will come.” And come it does, indifferent to our pleas, our plans, our titles and our fears.
But the death we contemplate now is no ordinary passing, nor will the funeral that follows be an ordinary funeral. When a Catholic Archbishop dies, the Church does not merely bury a man; she solemnly accompanies a shepherd whom she had entrusted with the sacred munus of teaching, sanctifying and governing, commends his soul to the mercy of God, celebrates the Eucharistic Sacrifice for him and gives thanks for the gift of his episcopal ministry. The funeral of a Metropolitan Archbishop is therefore at once a liturgical celebration, an ecclesial convocation, a historical commemoration and a profound act of Christian hope.
Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubeze was the second indigenous Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Benin City, the pioneer and inaugural Bishop of the Diocese of Uromi, a Metropolitan who occupied a significant place in the recent history of the Catholic Church in Nigeria, and a shepherd whose ministry brought him into ecclesial communion with four Successors of St Peter through ad limina Apostolorum visits. His earthly pilgrimage has ended; the Church now gathers to write its final liturgical chapter around his mortal remains.
And what a chapter it promises to be.
The morning will begin at 7.00 a.m. at St Paul’s Catholic Church, where the mortal remains of the Archbishop will be solemnly received by Bishop Donatus Ogun for the lying in state. It will be a moment of extraordinary poignancy. The coffin, bearing the remains of the late Metropolitan, will enter the sacred precincts in the stillness that surrounds death. The man who once entered churches in procession, vested in the splendour of episcopal dignity, carrying the crozier and presiding at the altar of God, will now be received in the silence of mortality, surrounded by clergy, the religious and the lay faithful.
The reception itself will carry a symbolism that words can scarcely exhaust. The Church receives her son. The Archdiocese receives her shepherd. The people receive, for the last time in this earthly pilgrimage, the mortal remains of the man who once walked among them as their Archbishop. There will be no homiletic flourish capable of matching the eloquence of that moment. Death itself will preach.
Then will follow the lying in state, that solemn and deeply human moment in which the Church allows her children to come near the remains of their departed shepherd. Here, the great and the small will stand together. Priests who served with him, religious men and women, family members, friends, parishioners, colleagues, former students, members of ecclesial associations, representatives of institutions and countless lay faithful will file past in reverent succession.
Some will kneel. Some will bow. Some will make the Sign of the Cross. Some will remain for a moment longer than others, as though reluctant to leave. Some will pray audibly; others will carry their prayers in the sanctuary of their hearts. There will be those who will look upon his mortal remains and remember his voice, his laughter, his homilies, his episcopal interventions, his firmness, his generosity and the innumerable occasions on which his path crossed theirs.
The ranks and files of the Church will come. Associations and organisations will come. Guilds, societies, movements and apostolic groups will come in their distinctive identities. Clergy will come in ordered fraternity. Religious will come as witnesses of consecrated life. Knights and Dames of the various Catholic orders will come with their solemn insignia. Representatives of parishes and institutions connected to his ministry will come. The faithful will come in their multitude.
And as they approach the casket, the distinctions that ordinarily separate people will seem strangely diminished. Before death, earthly titles become silent. The Archbishop, the priest, the religious and the lay faithful stand beneath the same mystery: Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Yet the Church does not permit this moment to become merely an exhibition of grief. Even as she gazes upon death, she prays towards life.
At 9.00 a.m., the sacred atmosphere will deepen as the Office for the Dead begins. The transition will be unmistakable. What was hitherto a silent procession of mourners will become the audible prayer of the Church. The solemn chanting of the psalms and antiphons will fill the sacred space. The ancient cadences of the Office will rise and fall with that peculiar beauty which belongs to Catholic liturgical prayer: at once mournful, majestic and consoling.
This is one of those moments when the Church’s ancient treasury of prayer reveals its extraordinary power. The psalmist speaks from the depths. The Church responds with hope. The human heart remembers its mortality, while the liturgy directs that mortality towards eternity. The sacred texts become the voice of generations of Christians who have stood beside the dead and discovered that the Church possesses a language for grief that does not surrender to despair.
The presence of the ranks and files will make the Office even more magnificent. The clergy, religious, associations, organisations and the faithful will participate not as spectators but as the praying Church. The great ecclesial body will gather around one of her shepherds, and the ancient prayer of the Church will become, in that moment, a living act of filial affection. Have mercy on me, o’ God, in your kindness, in your compassion, blot out my offences
When the Office has concluded, the atmosphere will gradually change. The solemnity will acquire movement. The Church will begin to process.
This procession will be unlike an ordinary ceremonial march. It will be carefully ordered and harmonised according to the rubrics and the proper ecclesial protocol, with each rank, office, association and group assuming its appropriate place. Nothing will be left to confusion. The apparent complexity of such a vast gathering will be transformed into liturgical order.
And that order itself will preach.
The cross will lead. The ministers will follow. The clergy will move in their appointed ranks. The faithful would have been long seated beside the retinue of priests and religious would have been seated for want of time and the grace of orderliness and decency.. The procession will thus become a visible image of the Ecclesia peregrinans, the pilgrim Church journeying towards the heavenly Jerusalem.
There will be something almost ineffably poignant about seeing the mortal remains of Archbishop Akubeze being positioned with the Paschal candle standing by. In life, he had led processions as shepherd of the people entrusted to him. Now the Church will lead him. He who had walked before the flock will now be carried amidst the flock. He who had blessed the people will now be surrounded by the prayers of the people whom he blessed.
The procession will within the precint of the magnificent Church of St. Paul the Apostle, Airport Road.
For everything that has gone before now converges upon the altar.
The lying in state has allowed the people to encounter their late shepherd. The Office has given voice to their prayer. The procession has gathered the ecclesial body into one ordered movement. Now the Church comes to the altar, where the earthly farewell is placed within the eternal Sacrifice of Christ.
The Funeral Mass will be the heart of the day.
The bishops will gather in the fullness of their episcopal fraternity. Priests will concelebrate around the altar. Religious men and women will be present. The faithful will fill the sacred space. Political and traditional authorities will occupy their places. Christian leaders and representatives of other religious traditions will be present. Choirs will lift their voices. The sanctuary will assume the solemn splendour appropriate to the final liturgical farewell of a Metropolitan Archbishop.
Then the incense will rise. It will curl upwards in delicate, fragrant clouds, surrounding the casket and ascending towards the vaulted heights. It will be a visible reminder of the prayer of the Church: Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
The Word of God will then speak into the silence created by death. Scripture will proclaim what human philosophy cannot finally establish: that death does not possess the last word. The Church will listen, not merely as mourners, but as believers. She will hear again the promise of resurrection, the assurance of eternal life and the victory of Christ over the grave. At the funeral of Archbishop Ekpu, Bishop Elue said it was a convocation ceremony, one wonders will the homilist will call this. The Church is a market place of rich vocabularies.
Then will come the Eucharistic Sacrifice.
Here lies the incomparable genius of Catholic funeral theology: the Church does not gather merely to remember the deceased; she gathers around Christ. The Archbishop’s achievements, titles, honours and earthly accomplishments recede before the altar. The one thing necessary now is Christ, crucified and risen.
Upon that altar, the Church will offer the Eucharistic Sacrifice for the repose of his soul. The same mystery which he celebrated countless times as a priest and arch/bishop will now be celebrated for him. The hands that once lifted the Sacred Host will have become still; but the Church will continue the Sacrifice of Christ in which he spent his priestly and episcopal life.
At the moment of Holy Communion, the living Church will receive the Bread of Life while commending her departed shepherd to the mercy of the One who is Himself the Resurrection and the Life.
And when the Eucharistic celebration reaches its solemn conclusion, another ancient moment will arrive: the Final Commendation.
The Church will stand around her dead son for the last time in the sacred liturgical assembly. There will be prayer. There will be incense. There will be silence. The final farewell will be spoken, not as an absolute goodbye, but as the Church’s entrustment of her son into the hands of God.
Then the coffin will be taken from the parish Church of St. Paul to Holy Cross Cathedral. A procession that will mirror eternity and the orderliness of the Catholic Church.
And perhaps this will be the most eloquent procession of all.
The Church will accompany the Archbishop beyond the sacred threshold, towards his place of burial. The bells, the prayers, the solemn movement of the clergy and the presence of the faithful will transform the final journey into an unmistakable proclamation that the dead are not abandoned. The Church walks with her children to the very edge of the grave. The rosary will be prayed, others will chant the libera me
The cathedral crypt will then receive what remains of the earthly pilgrimage.
There, beneath the open heavens, the final prayers will be offered. Earth will receive the body that once walked the streets of Benin City, entered churches, mounted pulpits, celebrated Masses, ordained priests, professed religious, confirmed the faithful, blessed children, counselled families, addressed bishops, met political and traditional authorities and carried the burdens of episcopal governance.
Dust will return to dust. But Christianity refuses to end there.
For beyond the grave stands the Resurrection, and beyond the gloomy darkness of death, lies the glorious dawn of immortality. Beyond the crypt lies the heavenly Jerusalem.
Beyond the setting sun is the eternal dawn. Beyond the final earthly procession is another procession which no camera can capture and no journalist can fully describe: the triumphant procession of the redeemed into the presence of God.
There, received by the mercy of God into the company of the blessed, the Archbishop will encounter the Chief Shepherd whom he served. The pilgrim will meet the Homeland. The servant will stand before the Master. The priest will encounter the Eternal High Priest. The bishop who spent his life teaching others to contemplate Christ will, by grace, behold Him face to face.
And so, as we stand at the threshold of this great ecclesial farewell, we say:
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat ei.
May the angels lead him into Paradise. May the martyrs receive him at his coming. May the choirs of angels receive him, and with Lazarus, once poor, may he have eternal rest.
Rest until that glorious dies sine fine, that day without evening, when the pilgrim Church shall become the triumphant Church, when every tear shall be wiped away, when death shall be no more, and when Christ, the Eternal King, shall be all in all.
Adieu, Most Rev. Augustine Obiora Akubeze.
Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Amos
*Priest of the Catholic Diocese of Uromi & *Lecturer, Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA), Port Harcourt, Nigeria*
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