According to research done by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Nigeria holds the honor of being the country with the highest rate of Mass attendance. Fully 94% of Nigerian Catholics report that they attend Mass weekly or even more often. Next in line is Kenya, at 73%. The study looked at Mass attendance in 36 countries across the globe. Only seven of these countries could boast a regular Mass attendance of 50% or more. The United States was near the bottom, at 17%.

Researchers noted that countries that have higher GDP and are more economically developed suffer fewer Catholics attending Mass regularly. They don’t venture into the reasons for this. My own speculation is that those who live in countries where their lives are more comfortable and their faith not often challenged tend to lose interest in practicing the faith, perhaps out of a misguided sense that they don’t need God, since everything seems to be going okay. Of course, divorce rates and abortion rates would belie that myth. Those in economically developed countries, I suspect, tend to be less thankful to God and more convinced that their good fortune or success is entirely due to their own efforts.

Cardinal Peter Ebere Okpaleke leads the Diocese of Ekwulobia in southern Nigeria. It is a new diocese, only created in 2020. He has his own thoughts on why Nigeria’s Catholics are so faithful in their Mass attendance. He attributes such to Nigeria’s traditional worldview, which recognizes God as deeply embedded and active in the lives of the people, and not some remote transcendent being only thought about occasionally. The role of the family, Cardinal Okpaleke says, plays a large part in the life of Nigerian Catholics, where they regard the family as the domestic church, and where parents consider themselves responsible for teaching the faith to their children. Finally, a strong sense of community in parish life keeps Catholics connected to the parish and the sacramental life of the Church.

The fact that Nigerian Catholics are so dedicated to the practice of their faith says a great deal about their faith and fortitude, for Nigeria has suffered intense persecution at the hands of Islamic extremists in the country. According to data from the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law, which is a Nigerian-based investigative organization that has monitored religious violence in Nigeria since 2010, at least 52, 250 Nigerian Christians have been murdered by Islamic militants over the last fourteen years. Over those same years, 18,000 Christian churches and 2200 schools were burned to the ground. The culprits are Boko Haram and Fulani Muslim herders. Along with the thousands killed, thousands more have been displaced from their homes. In spite of this, the U. S. State Department refuses to list Nigeria among countries suffering religious persecution.

The second-century north African theologian, Tertullian, said, “The blood of martyrs is seed.” St. Augustine of Hippo, another north African theologian, expanded on the idea: “The earth has been filled with the blood of the martyrs as with seed, and from that seed have sprung the crops of the church. They have asserted Christ’s cause more effectively when dead than when they were alive. They assert it today, they preach him today; their tongues are silent, their deeds echo round the world. They were arrested, bound, imprisoned, brought to trial, tortured, burned at the stake, stoned to death, run through, fed to wild beasts. In all their kinds of death they were jeered at as worthless, but ‘precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints’” Notwithstanding Cardinal Okpaleke’s thoughts on the matter, which I have no doubts cut to the core of the matter, I can’t help but think that the faith of Nigerian Catholics is not at least somewhat nourished by the blood of their martyrs. It seems counterintuitive, but the more comfortable Christians are in their lives, the less interest they have in faith, while those who suffer for their faith hold to it like their lives depended on it – likely because they do.

From the Book of Wisdom:

The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them. They seemed, in the view of the foolish, to be dead; and their passing away was thought an affliction and their going forth from us, utter destruction. But they are in peace. For if to others, indeed, they seem punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself. In the time of judgement they shall shine and dart about as sparks through stubble; They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the LORD shall be their King forever. Wisdom 3:1-8

Lent is a time of sacrifice. While we can hardly claim that our meager Lenten sacrifices compare to the persecutions suffered by our confreres in Nigeria (or Nicaragua, or China, or in the Middle East, and elsewhere), we can remember them in our prayers when we remember why it is we sacrifice during Lent. We can also look to their example of what it means to be dedicated to Christ and to the sacramental life of the Church.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.