"Chidiugo, go and lead the prayers." Ms finally spoke, minutes after we had all been filed downstairs and lined according to our houses for the morning prayers.
It was the Thursday of the same week of the Big disgrace.
I felt the huge surge of relief I always had when I wasn't called upon for the morning prayers. I didn't know them. They were a series of prayers way too long to memorize and I kept postponing learning them.
"Please open your spiritual pathway to page 36." Chidiugo instructed after reciting a series of prayers.
The Spiritual Pathway was a book containing each days gospel in it for a whole month.
"A reading from the holy gospel according to Matthew." She began after some moments of silence, apparently to give everyone some time to turn to the page.
Everyone joined in reading out loud from their own individual Pathways as was the custom. I didn't though, because I didn't have a Spiritual Pathway; a consequence of not resuming early.
"The Gospel of the Lord!" Chidiugo declared at the end of the reading.
"Praise be to you Lord Jesus Christ." Everyone chorused.
Silence!
"Uhhmmmm..." Chidiugo voiced after a long silence. "This gospel is talking about..." She paused with a blank look on her face.
This was another reason I feared being called for the morning prayers. You didn't just read out the gospel, you had to explain what you read, what the gospel talked about and it's underlying meaning then afterwards relate it to the everyday school life.
I could easily do that in my head, but definitely not with the crowd of people watching. Well they were just my mates, but still...
The Gospel of the day was the renowned one about Jesus and the woman with the issue if blood.
"So like it's talking about..." She continued, after another long pause of looking into her spiritual pathway.
"It's talking about faith. If you have faith in God, you pray and you really trust him and believe in him. Everything will work out for you because faith moves mountains." She paused again, cautiously looking over at Ms who was on her usual position on the blue plastic chair at the back of the line.
"So relating it to our school life...if we...if we pray to God and have faith in him and really trust him, success will be ours..." She stuttered then stopped abruptly, looking towards Ms again.
"So...so we pray today that God strengthens our faith in him to be able to trust him at all times and all situations."
Uncomfortable silence.
"Through our Lord Jesus Christ." She added after a while.
"Amen." Everyone chorused.
I didn't quite agree with what she had said because I didn't have the believe that life was all about faith. Faith to me went hand in hand with hard work. You couldn't just have hope in God and then not do the needful, that didn't make any sense! And a lot of persons used faith as a justification for their laziness.
"Faith moves mountains fireeee!" Ms finally started after a lengthy, tense and killing silence.
I chuckled.
"So you just have faith right? You don't do anything, just faith and God will come down from heaven and help you? You must be stupid to a fault." Ms hissed.
"No..after readi...reading you'll naw have..." Chidiugo stuttered then stopped abruptly, probably realizing how stupid she sounded.
I looked at the ground to hide my laughter.
