A few days ago I was able to talk with one of the most inspiring men I have ever met. His name is Fr Philip Addo and I was delivering some medical supplies to him. The journey to visit him was a bumpy one for much of the way, for he lives in a rural community in Ghana (where I am writing this) that can be reached only along a terrible road: the community is way out in the bush because it is a former leper colony, and lepers used to be shunned. The place is called Ahotokurom, which means ‘Healing Town’, and while leprosy is now curable, there are still people living there with the physical consequences of the disease along with people suffering from other major disabilities. Fr Philip is in this second category: 24 years ago he was crippled in a car accident on his way to celebrate the ordination of a fellow seminarian who was a year ahead of him.
Even before I met Fr Philip for the first time a few days ago, I already knew something of his story because, some years ago, the charity that supports my work in Ghana, the Nankesido Education and Welfare Trust, had provided an electric wheelchair for him following his accident, and, in addition to that – for it’s a small world – the daughter of some parishioners, Trudy Kilcullen, knows Ahotokurom well, having for many years supported the work of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph who then ran the community. It was at Trudy’s request that I was taking the medical supplies to him.
Fr Philip’s story is one of extraordinary courage and faith. The car accident that changed his life had paralysed him from the neck down, and left him in traction, unable for some time to breathe unassisted. It was clear from the casual indifference he received from doctors and nurses alike that, as far as they were concerned, he was a write-off – they told his family as much – and, his main interest to them was as a teaching aid to medical students. For two months he suffered often excruciating pain and his body began to stink from putrefying bed sores. But he never gave up. Such was the state of him that two bishops who came to visit him were reduced to tears and speechlessness. He told them, as he told all his visitors, that he hoped in the Lord because, ‘The joy of God is my strength’ (Nehemiah 8: 10b). Only then were the bishops able to find words for him.
One night, while still paralysed, he had a vision of himself lying in a coffin, surrounded by mourners. That same night the local Catholic Charismatic Renewal group came to visit him. He told them of the vision and asked them to pray for him. Here is what happened next, in his own words: ‘Lo and behold, that night my whole system began to shiver. Eventually, I fell from my bed. How could a ‘motionless’ body fall from a bed?’ The ward assistant wanted to inject him, but he refused, and his body became so uncontrollable that the injection was impossible to administer. Soon after, by now certain that the treatment he was receiving was making things worse, he was discharged into the care of the Daughters of Mary and Joseph at Ahotokurom. With their wonderful and heroic support, and that of many other good people, his recovery began. He was then able to receive treatment in London, things improved further and, to his great joy, his Archbishop was soon able to ordain him. Although he is confined to a wheelchair, and is in continuing need of medical attention, he can now function more normally and serves the community of Ahotokurom whose fellow residents have disabilities to compare with his. He serves in other parishes too, and people come from far and wide to see him for counselling and encouragement.
When I met Fr Philip to hand over the medical supplies, I was struck, as Trudy had said I would be, by the joy that emanated from him, and the calm, and by the deep, deep love he has for God. ‘Do you know what is the greatest miracle in my life?’ he asked me, ‘it is my ordination.’ All through his ordeal (and I have only given a brief outline of it here) he never wavered in his certainty that God would see him through it all, and the crowning joy for him was that, despite all the odds, God made it possible for him to fulfil his boyhood call to his vocation as a priest. Those words of Nehemiah Fr Philip always held on to, ‘The joy of God is my strength’ were first uttered when Jerusalem and its Temple were being rebuilt after their destruction by the Babylonians: for Nehemiah, things were already on the up for the inhabitants of Jerusalem: the green shoots of recovery were there to be seen: no wonder Nehemiah could speak of joy. For the young seminarian, Philip Addo, lying paralysed, week after week, in constant pain, written off and despaired of by all but a few, there were no such hopeful signs to encourage him, except his unshakable faith in God.
Deacon Seán
