Love and Service

There is an inextricable relationship between love and service, each one mutually supporting the other. Only love can give birth to genuine service, and therefore genuine service to humanity at large is nothing but an embodiment of true love. Service sans love is a mere selfish motive, not targeting at the wellbeing of the other, but oneself. Love and service are oriented towards enriching the other, even at the expense of causing damage and decay to oneself. This is so beautifully exemplified in the celebration of Maundy Thursday.

Tony D’Mello in his collection of anecdotes entitled, The Prayer of the Frog (Vol. 1) narrates this moving illustration. There is this soldier who is pleading with his boss, so that he could return to the battlefront to look for his friend. The boss assures that the friend might have been dead by now, and that the soldier should not risk his life. The soldier goes all the same, and returns after an hour mortally wounded, and carrying the corpse of his friend on his shoulder. The angry boss tells him, I had told you he was dead; was it all worth going out there to bring a corpse? The soldier replied, Oh, it was, Sir! When I got to him, he was alive. And he said to me before dying, Jack, I was sure you would come!

Where there is true love, we don’t mind taking any amount of trouble, risk. The wellbeing of the self is only secondary before that of the other. It is not easy to suffer for the one we love, but ultimately it is this which brings us true happiness. Look at the little five year old Johny who is informed that he has to give blood for his little sister. He is troubled at first and agrees. The next day when the transfusion is done, Johnny looks at his father with tears in his eyes and tells him, Daddy, tell me when I should die! Maybe for youngsters it comes so naturally. Small kids may go through any amount of pain and suffering to release a dog or a cat.

We learn best by seeing, not merely by hearing. That is the reason why Jesus demonstrates what service is all about. It is to climb down from our pedestals, and don the attire of the servant, and kneel down to wash the feet of those of our neighbors, whom we despise and neglect. This is no easy test. This in fact is the perfect test of all of his disciples – washing the feet is merely a symbol, what is more important is to place ourselves at the bottom of the ladder and accept it joyfully to serve those above us. Jesus is setting a model for us all.

Maundy Thursday recalls the sacrificing love of the Lord, who is prepared to lay down his life, so that humanity may have life in its fullness. Life does not come by itself. It has to be parted, shared and received. The example of the grain of wheat which can have life only when it dies, is so very applicable to Jesus and that is what he is inviting us to ‘do this in memory of me’ – to break ourselves and to shed our blood so that we may share in his new life!

Turning a New Leaf

The young man came to me spontaneously, and asked me where the Father was, and when I told him that I was the one, he was a bit surprised, but after a few seconds introduced himself, how he reached this alcoholics/drug-addicts rehabilitation center. Hailing from one of the Seven Sisters in the North Eastern India, he had been addicted to alcohol and drugs for the past eight years. For a 23 year old man, eight years of life with alcohol and drugs is not a short period, but when he decided to try this rehabilitation center, just outside the City of Joy, I suppose he really meant to amend his habits and turn a new leaf. I could see that this young man was serious about his life, though many of them had been just wasted uselessly.

But not all is lost, and the young man wanted to change things and all that he wanted heartily was the support of the people who mattered to him. He had not been a good-for-nothing young lad, who only wanted to waste the hard earned money of his parents with bad company; he had good education, which had fetched him a government job as computer operator with Air India. Who could think of such a lucrative job, which he had to resign, when he could not manage his compulsive need to have drugs, and now he regrets for having resigned the job, and wonders if he would get the same job, after returning home sane and sober.

He was not the kind of young man who did not think about his parents; when he said that his cousins and nieces are engineers and computer experts, he was not even earning a decent salary. As the first child of his parents, he had greater responsibility towards his two other siblings, one brother and one sister, but with his alcoholism and drug-addiction, he could hardly think of looking after himself. What was so very interesting for me was the fact that he was able to recall to mind what had happened to him, and how he could make things new, if only he gets an opportunity to prove his self. But he was not sure if he would survive the full course of the rehabilitation package, which may last as much as six months.

The lady who had been behind the starting of the center, whom I had gone to meet, did not share with the kind of feelings this young man had poured out to me. She had seen him for a month, and she would know about him much more than me. It is possible that my feelings were rather soft towards him, but not for the lady, who almost chased him from me, when she saw that he was talking to me, before she entered her office. Then what she told me about him shocked me: that he was jumping over the wall to get drugs, and was quarrelsome. She even said that soon they would send him away, because according to her, no one was happy with him.

The young man had a lot of complaints about everything possible: food, accommodation, toilets, the lady director, the priest who is supposed to be counseling them, the program proper… He poured himself out, and I listened to him patiently, but without making much comments. One thing was clear for me, more than psychological therapy and medication to keep him free from the desire for alcohol or drugs, what the young man required more was compassion. I have heard stories where empathy and compassion could work miracles, which no human science can explain. I wish the lady and the priest counselor concentrated more on winning the hearts of these helpless victims of circumstances, rather than offering them something which cannot really change them. There is no greater weapon to change than love and compassion.

Thank you...

Sharing has always been associated with a sign of love in action; the world around is the gift of God to the humanity that He/She loved so much. St Ignatius of Loyola in his famous Contemplation to Attain Love in the Spiritual Exercises, opens the contemplation with the words that Love expresses itself in action, and the world is God's great gift. But how often we forget that every thing we enjoy on earth is the gift of some one or other. The clothes I wear, the wrist watch I wear, the shampoor I bathe with, the cream I apply, the shoes I wear, the foot I eat... every thing. There is no exception to this.

Have I ever thought of this? This sharing of the things I take for granted each day, does not happen automatically, as if they were meant to be so. I so take it for granted that every time when I open the tap, water will flow. But one day if the porter had failed to put on the water pump, then my world crumbles... I feel the pinch. I take it for granted that every time when I go to the dining table, there will be enough for me to eat. But what if one day it does not happen so?

I dare not think of a day when I get up one fine morning and find that there is no Sun... or a night without moon and stars. Is it not so very natural for us human beings to take things for granted. Even our very existence. Today I would like to pause for a moment and think of all the people who have crisscrossed my path today, who had made my day, all those who made me take the day for granted... the bakers who unfailingly bake the bread without fail, the farmers who cultivate the vegetables I eat, the corporation who provide water, the technicians who make sure we have uninterrupted power supply, telephonic connection, my parents who provide all I need... The list will be endless, as you imagine each and every one of them.

Can I possibly do anything in return for them? Most of these people are faceless and nameless ones. They may not even want to be identified and thanked. But today I wish to think of each of them and whisper deep in my heart... Thank you baker for the sweet bread you offer each morning, thank you shopkeepers for providing the provision I need each day, thank you farmers for the vegetables, thank you washermen and women for the clothes you wash and press, thank you Municipal corporation employees for providing all amenities, thank you papa and mama for the food and drink, thank you friends for the company...

Thank you God for this wonderful life that I enjoy each day, for the sun and moon, the light and shadow, the flowers of the trees and the birds of the sky, the blue sky and the dense thickets... The world is charged with your grandeur O God, I thank you from my heart.