Rocking Boats!

Two of my community members cannot accept me as the Rector of this place, complained a priest to me, when I went to meet him regarding one of our men who is undergoing some kind of apprenticeship under his care. I had known that the priests generally do not discuss with men of other congregations about the inner conflicts, but this priest was quite vocal. And to my surprise one of his strong enemies is known to me quite closely, and I was not surprised that this priest was having problem from him. Looking at people through cultural glasses is one of the most common maladies plaguing the Church in several parts of the country. I wonder if there is any quick remedy to this malady!

It is not surprising that this kind of feelings are felt and expressed in many of the religious communities. The fact is that in most cases, the members make the utmost effort to hide these inner conflicts and division among themselves. After all, no one wishes to wash their dirty linen in public. I was not shocked or surprised that this kind of inner resistance is expressed so clearly at the dining table, even in the presence of members of other congregations. I was not surprised, because such is the case even in many of our communities, and I am sure that such a thing will continue to exist for many more years to come; the only reason why this is something impossible for us to remedy is because we form human communities.

Luckily we are not saints, nor are we hardcore sinners; we are just ordinary, mediocre men, who think mostly in human terms. Though we have left behind all our families, friends, yet at the core of our being we have our own silly inclinations, what Ignatius of Loyola called, inordinate attachments. This human craving for self-promotion is so basic that it may pop up at the moment when we least expect. And I cannot believe a person who says that he/she does not have any desire or attachment, which is not lopsided. No one can be exempted from thinking in this line; the very fact that we are human persons, makes it obligatory for us to be bound by our attachments.

For the most part, we are not in full control over ourselves, our actions, thoughts and words; our attachments, desires determine everything we think, say and do. It may need careful observation on our part to realize the truth-value of this statement. I am driven not by my thoughts, but what I deem is essential for my very survival, and those are the deep-seated cravings, many of which might not have been acknowledged. Unfortunately many of us live and die, without ever realizing what we are bound with, leave alone attempting to free ourselves from these bonds. If only we realize that we are prisoners of our desires and cravings is already the starting point of our journey in freedom.

I know the inner conflict within the religious community will continue to rock their boats, until the concerned persons realize that by trying to rock other’s boats, they are in fact rocking their own, and it might not be too late before they realize that their own boats are sinking. It is impossible to explain to these over-grown men that each of them is holding on to his rock-forts which he hopes will protect him from all assault, but unfortunately that does not happen that way. It is only when they realize that while trying to pull down their companion from the seat of “power” they are only binding themselves more and more to their own demons, which may sometime or other make a prey out of them.

Sweet to Sour Story

I have been quite disturbed by the story of a former religious nun taking a Jesuit priest to the court, alleging illegitimate sex, leading to abortion! This news apparently had been entertaining the people of Tamil Nadu for quite some time, the former nun publicly washing her private linen, adding fuel to the fire, and the priest living in underground, in order not to be caught by the public eye, and the ever vigilant journalists and photographers. It would be quite unfair on my part to make any value judgment about this case, since what I know is perhaps just the tip of an iceberg, and a greater part of the truth may be buried for all eternity.

What had transpired the two of them to part ways is something which is unknown to most of us; what had prompted them to seek one of the most cruel forms of punishing in public is also something that most of us cannot think of. I am quite confident that whatever be the present situation, in the beginning there should have been genuine love for each other. Over the days and months that love could have led to greater deepening, ultimately leading to crossing the religious frontiers, to indulge in what is forbidden. I would not contest the idea that the priest and the former nun did not indulge in the most intimate form of human love, but would better leave it without debating about the authenticity of this fact.

One thing that I fail to understand in the entire drama of love between these two persons, where the sweet had turned into sour, within so few years, is my conviction that there should have been genuine love between these two at some time or other during their relationship over the past years. I cannot think that the former nun would have contemplated extorting a huge sum of money as compensation for what he had done to her; there are some people who propose this angle, but my heart says, during a genuine loving relationship this kind of ideas generally do not surface. In that case what had gone wrong in their relationship?

If the former nun had genuine love for the priest, how did she dare to go so far, demanding not only the expulsion of him from the religious congregation, but also a huge sum of money as compensation towards the damage caused to her. It is possible that there are other more dominant angles in the story – one being the caste issue, and another political, but my contention is this : if this lady had true love for him, she could only think of what is good for him; what would make him happy, even if she is disrobed of her religious status, and had to struggle in the unfamiliar world she is thrown into. Has her love for him evaporated then?

I feel sad for the priest, who could think that his love for her had become a public commodity, or worse still a yellow journalism. It is possible we might never come to know the different layers of their relationship, because it is only God who could fathom the hearts of people. While we await the legal procedures to take their own course, it is impossible to condemn anyone; who knows what had forced the former nun to resort to this extreme form of cruelty to the one who had loved her beyond all measure! It could be social or political pressures, or even psychological ones. I would like to remember both of them and place them before the Lord of all consolation that he might bring peace in the hearts of these two in a special way today!

Singing with the Spirit

It was so very wonderful to hear about one of my friends share her experiences, while attending a workshop for her sisters on planning for the early formation in their congregation. She shared with me on how different persons had to make adjustments in order to bring the discussions to fruition. Each person had something to share, and she had a greater share to contribute, thanks to her far-sightedness and down-to-earth experiences with girls at early stages of formation. The coaxing and prodding of one of her friends to go deeper, had also helped her to think differently, positively and innovatively, which had added color to their discussions.

I believe every one of us has got something to contribute to common meetings and deliberations, but often we come across persons who may not dare to open their mouths, and it may be quite annoying for the organizers to find such persons in big number. There may also be persons who feel shy to speak out what they feel deep within, and therefore keep their insights locked up within their selves. There are others who feel that their viewpoint would be quite sub-standard in comparison with others, and so would not dare to speak out in public meetings and discussions.

I feel that if a person is not able to speak out in meetings or deliberations and contribute his/her view points, that person is not being faithful to the Spirit which moves him/her. No one can say that he/she has got nothing to say about any point whatsoever. It may be possible for a person that it is not easy to grasp the content being discussed, but in that case one can at least say that he/she finds it hard to grasp the content. But keeping mum can only mean that one is closing one's heart to the promptings of the Spirit.

We also come across persons who know how to divert the discussions to the areas they are comfortable with, and thus hijack the entire discussion. It is my practice not to speak more than what I should, even when I know I have more important things to contribute, unless I am specially invited to voice my opinion. There is a tendency in some to parade their knowledge and erudition by intervening too many times during meetings and deliberations, much to the annoyance of everyone else. I need to know how much I should contribute, and should not think that I am the only person to contribute towards the fruition of the discussions.

The people who are overly smart and over confident may be tempted to divert the discussions to areas which are different from the one primarily aimed at, and it would do good if these persons sometimes deliberately keep quiet, and let the spirit move other members of the group. Thus it is not necessary for me to talk, every time I feel inspired; the Spirit too may require some moments of quietness and silence. This would also give me time to realize that I should not hijack even the Spirit, or speak in the name of the Spirit. The Spirit can move anyone in the group to bring home vital points for discussion, and we have no right to tamper with the movements of the Spirit.

The Road not Taken

There is a sense of guilt as I pass by dozens of cars stopping by a prestigious convent school close to our house, to drop girls attending this school. Looking at the cars, one cannot be mistaken that most of the girls of this school come from the “top cream” of the society, and the people who manage the school are proud to educate these students, who might in future take leadership roles in the country! But I would be blatantly wrong if I were to brand only this nuns-run school and spare the schools run by our own congregation in the city! There is an unprecedented rush to admit boys into our school; and the first choice of any well-off parents, business persons, government servants, and political leaders is to seek admission in our school for boys and of counterpart Sisters’ school for girls.

Sometimes I ask myself, is this for which we have been specially called – to educate the rich and the powerful in society, who have all the money and influence to buy the best of education in the country? Where is our preferential option for the poor? I understand we console ourselves saying that we have certain per centage of the seats each year reserved for the economically backward, and certain number of seats for dalits and tribals. But can we justify running school for the most moneyed people in the city, while our special call to be prophetic voices might imply we do something else? I feel deep within, we forget our prophetic voices, or carpet them, and continue to run schools which may bring us both money and good results.

Very few religious congregations dared to close down their first class English medium schools and start vernacular language schools for the children of lower income groups, and for the socially neglected and marginalized groups. There are a hundred and one problems in running schools for the poor, especially in a metropolitan city; the students are sure to become a liability, and the school is bound to incur heavy loss and may even face bankruptcy; there will be uproar among the people who had been availing our generous service all these years; we might get miserable results, and the discipline may be at stake, and the school may become quite unmanageable! These are the fears which inhibit us from taking a positive step forward to look beyond our noses.

It is unfortunate that we do not look at the education of many neglected sectors of the society; say for instance, have we ever thought out the education of the thousands of children living on the roads and slums? The children of rickshaw pullers, the domestic workers, the manual laborers of the corporation who clean our streets, even before we wake up from sleep; the vegetable vendors, the hawkers! If we care for these neglected groups of people, who may never taste the kind of education we impart in our schools. I appreciate the efforts of the convent school closeby, which has given shelter to street children to reside on the terrace of their school, and have made them avail the English medium education to them.

It is a challenging task to close down the top schools that we are running in the heart of the city, but can we not think of opening some other schools where we would reverse the admission criteria? Here are some of the criteria that I would think would make a difference : the parents do not have a house of their own (i.e. living in a one room rented house), the parents have no job security, their combined income is below rupees 5,000 per month (needs to be verified physically), daily laborers, people who do not have an almirah to keep their clothes, and no bank accounts, who do not possess any vehicles, not even a two-wheeler, who go to work even on Sundays, who do not have any savings for future… It is a challenge, but if we cannot accept the challenge, then who will?

Mother Dear...

Spending an hour of quiet moments at Mother's tomb is not only a rare privilege, but also a precious opportunity. I must be honest to accept that I was not a fan of Mother when she was alive; I had my own reservations about her way of looking at reality, and sometimes I had a divergent view. But over the past one year, my appreciation of Mother's works and her life has changed much of my thinking. Going through 'Come Be My Light : The Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta"', edited with commentary by Brian Kolodiejchuk, had disturbed me a lot, so much so I had to seek the help of my spiritual director.

I was not much fascinated by the name and fame that she acquired due to her work for the poor and the neglected in society; but I was touched by the simplicity and transparency with which she went through the dark nights of her soul. Even in the midst of darkest clouds, she was able to sight the silver line, and that was her great consolation. She was on the verge of losing her faith in God, and was often assailed by meaninglessness in life, and yet she knew that the hand of God would lead her through. That unshakable faith in God of life is what I often look up to.

As I sit a few feet away from the place where her mortal remains had been buried, I would like to imagine a current passing from her mortal remains to my body, instilling in me, a fraction of the spirit she carried wherever she went, fearlessly standing for what she was convinced; she could not be stopped by anyone, neither soldiers, nor guns, neither religious fanaticism nor regionalism. She was above all that divided the society, and her service flowing out of love for her Lord and Master, made her a sui generis. Today I should be asking myself if my service to humanity is in fact flowing out of my love for the Lord to whom I have committed myself for life!

I look up, and see a stream of people entering into the hallowed ground, touching their heads on the marble stones, which have hugged the saint of the gutters, so that no one can do her any harm, and I feel these people know no religion. Mother Teresa, though a professed Catholic, but to the people of other faiths, she gave not Christ, but His love, service, and ever abounding care and concern. Most often in life, she was able to go beyond the narrow categories we have made for our own survival. Today we will be able to find answer to many of the ills haunting our society, if only we are able to go beyond our narrow religious limits.

I try to seek a few quiet moments in her presence, whenever time permits, and what do I seek from God through her intercession? I have been born poor, and had been living like a poor, but there are all the dangers for me to distance myself from the poor I had been growing up. My education, social status (as a religious priest, belonging to a particular congregation), my contacts, all of them have made me a separate class. The poor when they stand close to me, think that I am no more one of them. This is what I dearly seek through the kindness of Blessed Teresa, that I can tell even on the verge of death knocking at my door, that I was born a poor, lived the life of a poor and was dying like one too. What great honor could I then expect?

Dance of the Peacock

Sometimes it is difficult to say the truth, especially when we know that the truth is sure to prick the conscience of the listener. There are many whose conscience are made of thick skin, and so they may not mind whatever people tell about them, and we shall leave them in peace and would not venture to disturb them for a while. We do not say that people of this sort can be left scot free, just because they are stiff-necked people who would not listen to any one, even if God the Father were to appear before them and ask them to change. We have to find some way of letting them know that they cannot decide for the whole world; at least once in a while, they have to be human.

Today is the golden jubilee of a few nuns, and I had been invited to attend the celebrations, which is comprised of the Eucharist presided over by the archbishop, felicitation to the jubilarians, a dance drama of Tagore and festive dinner. I could make out that it would take at least five hours to complete these programs, and I did not want to waste my time sitting there doing nothing. It is not that going to attend the program would be useless, but I thought if it would be worthwhile. It would have been an occasion for me to meet some of my friends, and I had known at least two of the jubilarians, who wanted me to attend the function. But one of the most important questions that I was asking myself is : should I go there to attend the function, just to please some?

Yesterday as I visited the place and told one of the friends there that I would not be going for today’s program, she told me I could not afford to miss the program. After a little while, one of the most famous jubilarian came to tell me that I should attend the celebrations, since I was partly involved with the preparations. When I told her that I would not, then she jokingly said they would not be able to forgive me if I miss the program and dinner, for which I retorted I would not require their forgiveness. Later on the hind sight, I thought I should not have been so blunt to the nun, but I found no other way of communicating to her what I hope to tell her one day.

I was told that some 600 to 700 persons would take part in the dinner today, and I was just imagining how much it would cost to feed all of them, and having known the way how these nuns host dinners, I am quite sure it would cost them a fortune. Theirs is a poor congregation with a very limited resources, and I was told that all the convents of the congregation would be required to contribute for the celebration. Some of the convents are too poor to contribute, and yet they would have no other option to dish out from their bare necessity for the dinner. I was asking myself if such a dinner should be organized at all?

Often such dinners and programs are organized to show off, and to exhibit to others how important they are. I would have readily agreed to join them for fifty golden years of service to God and people, if the celebration were organized in a small-scale with only some friends and acquintances. I know that my attending or not attending the celebrations is not going to change any of their programs; they all will go on as planned; but I would be able to share with them the real reasons for my not attending the program, if they wished to listen to me. I had seen the dance of peacocks, and do not require to see yet another one dancing!

Road to be Taken

[Initially conceived as a response to a mail, it is posted hoping it might help someone else too]. I feel you should not much worry about salary or about leave; ultimately what matters is you are able to do what is most required by your province, through your sister. But be open to what your Provincial may decide; in a sense you should be positively indifferent to both the options : to rejoin the school or to continue looking after prenovices. To worry about the leave or salary maybe missing the mark. After all, you have not joined to congregation to earn salary for the congregation.

It will be nice if you just leave the matter to your superiors; it is said that God speaks to us through our superiors (though I suspect it does not happen all the time!), and even if some of them have a bias towards one option rather than the other, leaving the decision to them makes us less anxious. What is most important is that I am not tilted towards one of the two options. If you are in favor of one of the options, and if that does not come through, then you are bound to be drowned in regret, angry with the superiors who made the decision, and ultimately half-hearted carrying out of the decision.

Ultimately I feel you can serve God through both the means, and you can be sure that both are valid means to that end for which you have been created, and joined the congregation. In the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola invites the exercitant to enter into the spirit of indifference to 'inordinate attachments' and he lists three illustrations : neither riches nor poverty, neither sickness nor health, neither short life nor long life, and tells that I am to choose the one which will better suit the end for which I am created. But that is not the end. He continues to exert the exercitant slowly though, to choose the tougher option of the two... to deliberately choose poverty, not only the spiritual poverty (indifferent to riches), but also to voluntarily choose privation.

It may be hard to find which is the tougher option in your case. But if you pause for a while and reflect for a while, you may be able to see for yourself which is the comparatively difficult thing for you to do of the two options. Your heart may be drawn towards one of the options, and there maybe a temptation to move towards it, and find more reasons to support your leaning towards it, even if it may not be the better option in the light of the need of your province or the greater common good. So, if you are able to find which of the two is the softer option, you can consciously and willingly distance yourself from it, and that may make you in a better mental and spiritual disposition to be open to what may better serve common good. About resigning the job, if you can better serve your congregation and people, why not? You should be happy to do it.

Today I pause for a while to spend a few minutes on the softer options that I am drawn to, and wish to become conscious of them. There is nothing wrong in liking one kind of job than another; I may like teaching in a school rather than looking after young girls and shaping their minds for a life-long journey. But it is important that I become aware of it, so that if I am asked to do the other job, which I may not like so much, I may give myself to do it whole heartedly. My happiness is not so much in doing what I very much like to do, but in carrying out the job that others may joyfully entrust to my care. And ultimately if I can give myself fully and unconditionally to the job I am assigned, I am sure to find God in it!