It was in the evening of Ascension Day, May 24, 1979, a day after I began writing my secondary school certificate examination.  For years, I had nursed the desire to become a Dominican.  On that day, I decided not to go to Mass at St. Leo’s Catholic Church, Ikeja, where I became parishioner when my family moved from Ebute Metta to Ikeja in February 1976.  I went to Mass at St. Dominic’s Church in Yaba, Lagos.  My purpose was to introduce myself to the Dominicans as one who aspired to become Dominican.

Mass that evening was offered by Fr. Lawrence Agu, OP of blessed memory, whose priestly ordination I had witnessed just a few days to Ascension Day.  At the end of the Mass, I stood by the door to the sacristy, with the intent of introducing myself to the first Dominican to come out of the sacristy.  And the first to come out was Fr. Gilbert Thesing.  I greeted and introduced myself to him and disclosed my intention.  “Father,” I said, “I would like to be a Dominican.”

He looked at me intently.  Then, he said, “Follow me.”

We went into the old priory building at St. Dominic’s Yaba.  There he asked me to wait for the Director of Vocations.  A few minutes later, a Dominican came down to meet me.  “Good evening. My name is Fr. Ayo Maria,” he said.  “I heard you would like to join us.”

“Good evening, Father,” I replied. “Yes, I would like to enter the Dominican Order.”

“What is your name?”

“My name is Anthony Akinwale.”

He looked at me and said: “I know your father.”

We had a brief conversation about what I was doing.  He took my home address and promised to send me a form to fill.  My desire to become a Dominican was beginning to be fulfilled.

A few months later, he called me and asked: “Will you be free to go to Ibadan on October 2 to attend the first profession of two Dominican brothers?”  The two were Brother Francis Isichei and Jude Upaa. October 2, 1979 was the day after the first exit of the military.  President Shehu Shagari was sworn in on October 1. 

I answered in the affirmative.  I wanted to see what the famous Dominican Community in Ibadan looked like.

Late afternoon of October 2, we set out for Ibadan.  What I saw in Ibadan made a deep impression in me.  Dominican fraternal life and liturgy, particularly the simplicity of the liturgy of first religious profession, further convinced me I had made the right choice.

On a Saturday afternoon in June 1980, a few days before Fr. Ayo Maria left for studies in Rome, and a few days before I began my postulancy, he invited me to St. Dominic’s Yaba for a chat.  That conversation showed the detribalized person he was.  He had entered the Novitiate in 1970, the year the Nigeria-Biafra War ended.  Right after the war, there in the Dominican Community in Ibadan were young men from both sides of the war living together in the peace and harmony of Dominican fraternal life.  That was for me an inspiration.  And so, I was not surprised when he said to me on that Saturday afternoon, “When you get to Ibadan, don’t be tribalistic.”

A detribalized person is one whose love is not confined to any ethnic boundary.  A person whose love transcends ethnic boundaries imitates God who is love, God whose love transcends all boundaries.  And a person who imitates the boundless love of God is a saint.  Such was the kind of life he lived as a Dominican, a Novice Master, and later as Bishop of Ilorin.  His friends and his spiritual sons and daughters are found in different ethnic groups.   And if it is true that the kind of friends we keep point to our own personality, it has to be said that the fact that his friendship transcends boundaries points to his detribalized and saintly personality.

So much has been said about his prayer life, his saintly life.  When news of his transition broke, there were those who shouted, as the Pleb shouted at the funeral of Pope St John Paul II, “Santo subito!” On my part, I must not fail to testify that I have been in his presence while he prayed. 

Early on a Tuesday morning in May of 1986, I had flown into Lagos from Kinshasa having received news that my father was dying.  Arriving at St. Dominic’s Yaba early that morning, I received news that my father had died the previous day.  In sadness, in need of consolation, I went into the Chapel to pray.  There in the Chapel I witnessed how Fr. Ayo Maria groaned while praying.   He was so lost in prayer he did not notice I was there.  I too can testify that, indeed, he was a man in tune with God.

His prayer life found a powerful expression in his preaching.  And in this, he showed himself a true son of St. Dominic.  Of St Dominic it is said that he seldom spoke, and that when he did, it was either with God or to others about God. This too can be said of Ayo Maria: He seldom spoke.  And when he spoke, he either spoke with God in prayer, or to others about God in preaching.  He desired God in contemplation, and he spoke about God in his preaching.  He thus lived out the Dominican motto beautifully inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas: “To contemplate and to share with others the fruit of contemplation”.  To contemplate is to desire God.  Bishop Ayo Maria lived his life desiring God. He lived in time preparing for eternity.

There were times I wanted to take some decisions, and he talked me out of them.  Even when I was not convinced of his argument, and I must say we were not always on the same theological page, out of respect for him, it was difficult to say no.  Without his advice, I would not have accepted to be Pioneer Vice Chancellor of the Dominican University.  “You have made many sacrifices for intellectual life in our Order.  We want you to make more.”  Those were his words to me as we argued on this until way past midnight in August of 2017.

A few hour after that argument, it was a Sunday morning, I met him in the Priory Chapel at St. Dominic’s Yaba.  I requested of him to be Chief Celebrant of the Sunday Mass.  He asked me to say the Mass.  The First Reading was about Elijah in the storm.  The Gospel was about Peter in a violent wind.  I requested of him to preach after the Gospel was read.  “No,” he said.  “You preach.”

A week before he died, I was by his hospital bedside.  I knew his condition was critical.  But I still hoped and prayed that, as it happened many times in the past, he would pull through.  On the morning of March 8, 2025, I woke up early and received word about an emergency situation at Augustine University.  I was still attending to that in the afternoon when I received news that he died.

“For your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven” (Preface I For the Dead). 

This then, in those words, is the assurance that the liturgy gives to us: that, when Bishop Ayo Maria Atoyebi died on March 8, 2025, he continued to live.  And if I were to write an epitaph on his tombstone it would be this: Here lies Ayo Maria who lived in time preparing for eternity.

Father Anthony Akinwale, OP