I, however, call on our Christians as individuals and as communities to open their eyes to the needs of their neighbours
4.3 Lexical choices for thetheme of repentance
Theme of repentance is the third major theme in the bishops‘ letters. The bishops are disturbed by the wide gap between religion and morality in the Nigerian society. They decry the irony that while the society continues to witness proliferation of churches, prayer centres, crusades, night vigils, and other religious activities, there is no corresponding improvement in the moral and spiritual lives of the people. Instead vices such as greed, bribery and corruption, materialism, idolatry, occultism practices, armed robbery, stealing, adulteration of products, and other forms of immoral acts continue to be on the increase. This, the bishops argue, is because Christianity, for some people, has nothing to do with how they live their lives. They submit that it is not enough to observe pious or religious practices but that religion must be rooted in good works. They therefore call on the faithful to repent from their sins and live a life that is in consonance with the faith they profess.
The theme of repentance is conveyedin the bishops‘ letters through lexical choicessuch as repentance-related words, antonyms, synonyms, and lexical repetitions.These constitute 22.4% of the total frequency of theme-related lexical choices deployed.
4.3.1Words signifying the theme of repentance
To communicate the theme of repentance, the bishops have selected lexical items relating to repentance. These constitute 67.8% of the total frequency of repentance related lexical choices deployed, which is 183. Such words include conversion, reconciliation, forgiveness, sins, indulgence, Lent, purification, atonement, salvation, penance, confessional, renewal holiness, transformation, change, surrender, submission, etc. This way they keep their message in the constant focus of the faithful thereby ensuring its understanding. Consider the choice of the word conversion in text 25:
Text 25:
This story of the prodigal son is the classical story of conversion. Any event of conversion is a return journey to the Father. (CTC, p.7)
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The word conversion means change of the form or functions of one thing into another, change from one religion to another, from one currency to another or from one measuring system to another. The functional word here is change; change from one state to another. Conversion in the context of the above text is strictly related to repentance. It means a change of focus from the world to God, a change from sinful life to a life of righteousness, a change from bad old ways to new and good ways of life. The word conveys the theme of repentance which is one of the preoccupations of the bishops in their pastoral letters. The story of the prodigal son gives a clue to the meaning of conversion inthiscontext. The prodigal son, after squandering his father‘s wealth through bad life, realises his mistakes and returns to his father asking for forgiveness. Conversion is thus a return journey of a sinner to the Merciful and Loving God who is ever willing to accept him back. In this sense, conversion is synonymous with repentance, which is a change of heart, a feeling of remorse for wrong doing. Through the word conversion the bishop admonishes the faithful on the importance of holiness of life in securing a peaceful relationship with God and man and in gaining eternal salvation.
Similarly, the words Lent, repent, sins, and change are appropriately chosen in text 26 to project the theme of repentance.
Text 26:
:
Each Lent, Our Holy Mother Church calls us to repent of our sins and change lives. She calls us to make serious efforts and turn to God completely. (GCTR, P.36)
Lent is a liturgical season observed by Christians between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday to commemorate the forty-day fasting of Jesus Christ as well as his suffering, death and resurrection. In the context of the above text, Lent is used to mean a season of repentance, a season when Christians mourn for their sins and make efforts to change from their old sinful life to a new life in Christ. The words repent, sins and change thus relate to this meaning of lent and together they constitute lexical collocates of repentance. The meaning of repentance is restated in the second sentence, as indicated by turn to God completely. By choosing these words, the bishop emphasizes the theme of repentance and persuades the faithful to renew their lives.
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Again, the word salvation in text 27 below projects the theme of repentance:
Text 27:
The danger of losing one‘s eternal salvation is real.
Pursuing the promises of temporal well-being, prosperity and material successes being dangled before people, one can lose the precious inheritance which God has kept for those who are faithful. (FFF, p.81)
Salvation means rescue from harm or danger. In the Christian religious parlance, salvation is the liberation of man from the influence of sin and its consequences. In the context of the above text, salvation refers to the precious inheritance which God has reserved for those who are faithful to him. To be faithful to God means to live a life that is in accordance with his divine will, a sin-free life, a life of holiness. It is only people who live this way that would inherit eternal salvation. The choice of the word salvation in the bishops‘ letters is therefore significant in projecting the theme of repentance; for without repenting of one‘s sins, one cannot inherit eternal life, since according to the Scriptures nothing impure shall enter the Kingdom of God.
The bishop considers it a point of duty to remind the faithful of the reality of the danger of losing eternal salvation, and that is spending eternity in hell fire. This is aimed at persuading them to repent of their sins.
4.3.2 Antonyms
The theme of repentance is again manifested in the bishops‘ letters through the use of antonyms, and these make up 12.0% of the total frequency of repentance-related lexical choices, which is 183. Examples of repentance-related antonyms deployed include evil-salvation, forgiveness-sin, doctrine-practice, repair-damage, renounces-gains, Christian-unchristian, vices-virtues, light-darkness, life-death, eternity-time, strength-weakness, triumph-despair, good-evil, ability-inability, struggle-success, commission-omission, spiritual-corporal, lose-find, folly-wisdom, earthly-heavenly, perishable-imperishable, restless-rest, hard-easy, rich-poor, etc. By means of antonyms such as these, the message of repentance and reconciliation is communicated to the faithful, as exemplified by text 28 below:
Text 28:
St. Augustine gives us the reason for this intense longing for God when he wrote that God made us for Himself and
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our souls are restless until they rest in Him. (RBGN, p.
21)
The words restless and rest are antonyms in text 28, which is a quotation from St. Augustine.
The bishops have quoted the Saint in order to validate their message that yearning for God is a sure sign and guarantee of repentance. Restless, which is an adjective,means without rest, without peace, without comfort; while rest, which is a verb, means to have peace and comfort.
The former characterises life outside God, while the letter is associated with life in God. We find rest and comfort in our home. When we find ourselves in a place that is not our home, we tend to become restless and uncomfortable, until we go back home. God is our home where our comfort and rest lie. Outside him, we become restless and uncomfortable. The antonyms are thus used by the bishops to make clear to the faithful the consequences of life in God and life outside God and to emphasise the role of repentance in giving rest to the restless soul of man.
Through the choice of the antonyms the bishops demonstrate to the faithful that it is only in God, the originator of their lives, that their souls can find rest, hence the need for them to repent of their sins and submit their lives to God. Repentance thus becomes the link from a life of restlessness to a life of rest. The antonyms are thus appropriately deployed to advance the theme of repentance and reconciliation.
Text 29 below is another example of the use of antonyms to express the theme of repentance:
Text 29:
…baptism is the principal place for the first and fundamental conversion. It is by baptism that one renouncesevil and gainssalvation. (CTC, p.7)
Here, renouncesevil is contrasted with gains salvation. These antonyms are lexical collocates of repentance and so are appropriate in projecting the theme of repentance. To renounce means to give up, usually what is not wanted because it is unpleasant, and in this case it is evil that is renounced; while to gain implies to avail oneself of something advantageous, something profitable, and here it is salvation that is gained. While the former is a negative verb that choses a negative complement, the latter is positive verb which chooses positive complement. The antonyms are used by the bishops to draw a sharp contrast between the old way of life which the faithful are called to give up and the new way of life which they are enjoined to embrace.
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The old way of life is associated with evil and so should be abandoned, while the new way of life is associated with salvation and so should be embraced. The ladder through which to move from the old evil way to the new way of salvation is baptism. The message here is on the importance of baptism in spiritual renewal, in repentance and reconciliation with God. The occurrence of the word conversion in the co-text strengthens the theme of repentance.
In text 30 below, the theme of repentance is also underscored through contrast between the highlighted pairs of words:
Text 30:
Our Christians must swim against the prevailing current of moral and spiritual decadence by mounting the noble platform of true Christian living. They cannot do this unless they are truly converted. Conversion means a change of the centre of joy from self to God, from hatred to love, and from vices to virtues. (GCTR, P.16)
The antonyms are self and God, hatred and love, and vices and virtues. These antonyms are associated with conversion which implies a change from one state to another, a change from
‗moral and spiritual decadence‘ to ‗true Christian living.‘ The antonyms are used to mark the wide gap that exists between the opposing states. One state is characterised by self, hatred and vices, the other by God, love and virtues. Conversion thus becomes the means of moving away from the unpleasant state which is the former, to the pleasant state which is the latter. The bishop defines the meaning of conversion by means of these antonyms so as to emphasise the change that is needed in the renewal of life--change from a sinful life to a righteous one. The change expected is from negative attributes which are self-centredness, hatred and vices to positive ones which are God-centeredness, love, and virtues.
4.3.3 Synonyms
Just as synonyms are used to advance the themes of faith and loyalty in the bishops‘
letters, they are also used to convey the theme of repentance. Repentance-related synonyms constitute 10.4% of the total frequency of repentance-related lexical choices deployed.
Examples are conversion-repentance, sinfulness-foolishness, sin-evil, holiness-sanctity, sinned-turnedaway, penance-mortification, sin-death, authentic-genuine, suffering-misery,
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temptation, gentleness-mildness, misfortunes-setbacks, etc. The use of synonyms to advance the theme of repentance in the letters is exemplified by text 31:
Text 31:
By denying oneself of legitimate pleasures through fasting and abstinence, one prepares oneself to be able to stand firm in times of turbulence and temptation. (RBGN, p.24)
Here fasting and abstinence are used synonymously, and so are turbulence and temptation.Fasting and abstinence imply denying oneself of something, usually by way of prayer, while turbulence and temptation in this context share the meaning of trouble or tribulation. The first pair is presented as a remedy to the situation denoted by the second pair, a situation which is capable of leading one to sin. The two pairs of synonyms are used in the context of the bishop‘s exhortation of the faithful to engage in fasting and abstinence so as to deepen their relationship with God and derive enough spiritual strength that will enable them to withstand any trial that can shake their faith and lead them to sin. The synonyms are thus appropriately deployed to intensify the theme of repentance.
In text 32 below, we find another example of the use of synonyms to foreground the theme of repentance in the bishops‘ letters:
Text 32:
The Holy Spirit impels us to develop a sense of sin by returning into ourselves and thus see the need to go back to the Father‘s house (Lk. 15:17-20). The call for ongoing conversion as the indispensable condition for authentic Christian witnessing in our society is very important because we seem to be destroying the very foundation of an ethically correct version of human existence. (GCTR, p.15)
Here returning, which is a gerundand go back, which is an infinitive, are used synonymously.
They imply a turnabout, a reversal of direction. These qualities are associated with repentance.
The need to make a U-turn or to reverse one‘s direction may be as a result of the fact that one has been on the wrong direction. The wrong direction in this context is sin and the right direction is God. Sin has taken man away from God, which is the right direction. The bishop‘s call is for a change of direction back to God. He calls on the faithful to make a U-turn in their
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lives from sinfulness to righteousness. Since by their sins they have turned away from God, they need to return to God in righteousness. The synonyms are thus jointly synonymous with conversion, which, in this context, means a change of life from sinfulness to righteousness. The bishop has used these synonymstherefore to emphasise the theme of repentance and reconciliation with God.
Again, in text 33 below, the theme of repentance is foregrounded through the use of the synonyms sin and evil:
Text 33:
It is our objective in this pastoral…to promote the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness among us as a Church by addressing the divisions in the presbyterium, in parishes and among the religious…This entails the call for conversion on the part of all because division is only an indicator of the presence of sin and evil in our hearts.
(GCTR, p.6)
The words sin and evil connote unwanted behaviour. Unwanted behaviour, from the spiritual point of view is termed sin, while from the social point of view, it is termed evil. What is considered to be a sin or an evil is therefore seen as abnormal, spiritually or socially. As such there is need for a change to the expected behaviour. Divisions constitute the unwanted behaviour here which is associated with sin and evil, and the change required is genuine repentance and reconciliation. The synonyms are used in the context of the bishop‘s statement of his objectives in his pastoral letter, one of which is to promote the spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness among the faithful by addressing the division among them. According to the bishop, achieving this particular objective entails calling the faithful to conversion. The bishop has deployed the synonyms for the purpose of emphasizing the negative nature of divisions and the need to get rid of them in the pursuit of genuine repentance. The theme of repentance is further strengthened by its lexical collocates such as conversion, reconciliation,and forgiveness.
4.3.4 Lexical repetitions
As in the case of the theme of faith and loyalty, lexical repetition is also used to convey the theme of repentance. Repentance-related lexical repetitions constitute 9.8% of the total frequency of repentance-related lexical choices deployed. Examples of the words repeated
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include: Lent, conversion, repentance, sins, renewal, Christ, reconciliation, holiness, new, forgiveness, ashes, etc. In text 34, for example, the word Christ is repeated eight times to emphasize the theme of repentance:
Text 34:
Our pastoral plan during this Lenten Season is centred on Christ and aims at leading our faithful to know, love and imitate Christ so that all may live the life of the Trinity and with Christ transform history until its fulfilment in the heavenly JerusalemIt is through fidelity to this that we all can live the life of Christ, the life from Christ, the life in Christ, and the life with Christ. This will then enable us to proclaim Christ, mould our communities with the hue of Christianleaven, and bring the incisive values of Christianity on all segments of our society and cultures.
(GCTR, pp.4-5)
Here, the word Christ is repeated eight times. By means of this repetition the bishop emphasises the transforming power of Christ and the need for the faithful to avail themselves of this power by embracing Christ. Christ died to set man free from sins. He has thus delivered man from the shackles of sin and condemnation. Embracing Christ therefore is an acceptance of this freedom and a rejection of sin and its deadly consequences. It will result in the renewal of lives in all ramifications in line with Christian values. The word Christ thus connotes repentance, salvation and transformation. The rhythm formed by the repetition makes the message sticky and memorable. The essence of the repetition therefore is to emphasise and foreground the theme of repentance and reconciliation with God, and keep it in the consciousness of the faithful to enhance understanding.
Emphasis on the theme of repentance and reconciliation is also achieved in text 35 through the repetition of the word reconcile.
Text 35:
Our history as men and women is a wonderful history of reconciliation: the reconciliation whereby God as Father, in the blood and cross of his Son made man, reconciles the world to himself and thus brings into being a new family of those who have been reconciled. (GCTR, p.15)
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The word reconcile is repeated four times here: two times as nominal and two times as a verb in its simple present tense form and past participle form. To reconcile with a person means to be at peace with him or her usually after a fight or a quarrel. The people involved can reconcile with one another or be reconciled by an external person. Emphasis is on peaceful existence.
Reconciliation like repentance brings about renewal of life and relationship. Reconciliation in the context of the above text is between man and God after the Fall of Adam, and is achieved through the death of Jesus Christ. By means of the repetition of the word, the bishop emphasises the need for the faithful to be at peace with God, their creator and with their fellow human beings. This reinforces the theme of repentance and reconciliation. Achieving peace with God and man can only be made possible through genuine repentance.
In text 36 below, the lexical item new is repeated three times to foreground the theme of repentance:
Text 36:
This [the Lenten period] is a period of a new beginning, a new birth, and a new spring time in our spiritual life.
(GCTR, P.32)
New implies change from the old ways. Although the new way may sometimes be unpleasant and therefore unacceptable, the new way implied in the above text is pleasant and attractive.
This is indicated by choice of the words birth and spring which denote phenomena that are happily welcomed. The word new together with beginning, birth, and spring connote newness and freshness of life. This is what repentance from sins means. By repeating the word new in the above text, the bishop emphasises the significance of the Season of Lent as a season of renewal of life, a season of repentance and reconciliation with God, and draws the attention of the faithful to the need for them to renew their lives by repenting of their sins especially during this season of renewal.