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 Stories are powerful tools to affect changes in us. That is why I would like to very briefly choose a theme on the Christmas Spirit from Louisa May Alcott’s: “A Christmas Dream and how it came to be true”.  It is based on the story of a rich 10-year-old child, Effie who is bored with the thought of Christmas, whilst she watches her mother arrange a pile of gifts two days before Christmas. Her mother reminds her about Charles Dickens’ protagonist, Uncle Scrooge, who hated Christmas until a strange dream showed him how dear and beautiful it was and that made a man of him.

When Effie’s mother asks her why she is tired when it should be the happiest time of all the year, the little child responds that perhaps it wouldn’t be so, if she had something new this Christmas. The little girl tells her mother that it seems poor children have a better time than the rich at Christmas, because they are freer from the entrapments of the rich. Effie wistfully says she would like to be like a beggar girl.

That night Nursey, the little’s girl’s nurse, tells her the best of tales so that when she goes to bed, her head becomes a curious jumble of Christmas elves, poor children, snow storms, sugarplums and surprises. Effie dreams of herself sitting on a stone, alone, cold, thirsty, tired and totally forgotten by others, in the middle of a great field. In her dream she hears a voice and sees a light that steadily gets brighter and then encounters a Christmas Spirit. The Christmas Spirit tells her that he was on a holiday to find children from all parts of the world once a year, to make them merry. The Christmas Spirit then shows her the place where he lives and where she sees all the other Christmas Spirits getting ready to go on a holiday. On this one day, they are allowed a holiday to roam about the world and bring happiness to children who would let them in.

Janina Gomes

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When freshers are appointed as Treasurers, they are often at a loss because they have no knowledge of the Income Tax rules applicable, no knowledge of accounts, no idea as to what is to be done and how to go about the procedures. This article is to help such people in the area of the income tax rules applicable to us.

The first thing that we have to understand is that unlike other individuals and legal entities who have to pay Income Tax on their income if it is beyond the basic exempt limit of Rs 2,50,000, the registered society we belong to is registered for Income Tax exemption under section 12AB of the Income Tax Act, because we are charitable in nature. It means that income of the charitable societies is exempt because of the charitable works they are involved in. This is the basic difference between the business groups that exist for the purpose of making money and charitable societies which exist purely with a service motive for the needy public.

But the tax exemption that we enjoy is not a blanket exemption. Our exemption is based on certain terms and conditions. As long as the activities of our societies remain charitable and we comply with the terms and conditions given in the Income Tax Act, we will enjoy the tax exemption. Some such basic conditions can be listed as below:

Fr Alex G., SJ

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Sunday Liturgy, the premier liturgical publication, turns golden this month. Published by the Indian Province of the Society of St Paul, the periodical was launched in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, the mother house of the Congregation in India in November, 1972, coinciding with the beginning of the approaching liturgical year. The goal of the till-now four-page leaflet was/is to help the Catholic faithful to participate more actively in the Sunday Eucharist. It was also intended to help busy pastors to prepare themselves for the celebration of the following day’s Eucharistic Liturgy.

His Eminence Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the Archbishop of Mumbai, will be the main celebrant at the Golden Jubilee Eucharist, and at the other festive programmes to be held at the Blessed James Alberione Hall, St Pauls Media complex, Bandra, Mumbai, on November 27, coinciding with the liturgical feast of Bl. James Alberione, the Founder of the Society of St Paul and the Pauline Family.  In addition to felicitating the Paulines who edited the Sunday Liturgy, through its glorious journey till date, His Eminence will also release the golden jubilee edition of the periodical, with the new larger user-friendly format, and many other new features.

Fr Alfonso Elengikal SSP

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From 15-19, November, 2022, Prison Ministry of India (PMI) organized its National Convention at Joseph Vaz Pastoral centre in Goa. Sr. Inigo Joachim gave a motivational talk on the occasion. Based on excerpts from her presentation, Janina Gomes interviews her on her views on Prison Ministry and her experience of the same. 

1. You were present at the Synod of Bishops, “Vita Consecrata” in Rome. What struck you most at the Synod?

I was at the Synod of Bishops in Rome on the theme “Vita Consecrata”. Mother Theresa was also there as a special invitee of Saint Pope John Paul II. Some of us were allowed to make an intervention of 6 minutes each in the Synod Hall. When Mother was handed over the microphone, what she spoke for 6 minutes surprised us all; she spoke only these few words: Love Jesus and Love the Poor. All the Cardinals and Bishops were looking at Mother intently and listening in pin drop silence as she said this. All of us can say these few words: “Love Jesus and Love the poor.” But from whom these words come is important. The one who really loved Jesus and the one who really loved and served the poor had the guts to say these words. Her mantra was: Be a sign of God’s love and God’s compassion.

2. What motivated you to join the Prison Ministry?

 The Word of God challenged me: The first message in the vision Statement of Jesus was: “I have come to release the prisoners” – Lk. 4: 18. The last message of Jesus according to Mt: 25: 36: was. “I was in prison and you came to see me”.

 As I was finishing my term as the leader of our Congregation, these words gave me a clear vision of my future ministry. I was inspired by my Foundress’ vision of uplifting the rejected, illiterate, rural girls. When I translated her vision in the light of today’s changing situation, I found the prisoners are the most neglected, rejected and forgotten people who are the least, last and the lost.

Sr. Carmelita, one of our sisters had already been involved in Bangalore Central Jail and I got an opportunity to visit that prison during my periodical community visits; this gave me first-hand information of who those people were and how they would need my involvement. On the prison walls it is written: ‘Hate the crime and not the criminal’.

Mrs. Kiran Bedi, the first woman IAS Officer posted as Director General of Tihar prisons, was also my inspiration; she was the one who changed the jail into an ashram as she spoke words of wisdom. “A Prison is not a place of punishment but a place of correction and reformation”. She opened the gates of Tihar prison to NGOs, to enable them to meet the inmates and bring a change in their monotonous life and outlook.

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I come from a country where half of the public holidays are related to major Catholic religious feasts. And even if you are staunchly anti-Catholic, you will still enjoy such commodities—we celebrate 10 February as the day when St Paul was shipwrecked on the island, 19 March – St Joseph’s Day, Good Friday, the Feast of St Peter and St Paul, the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and Christmas. But these are not the only feasts that are celebrated in Malta. In an island which is barely 316 km there are about 90 parishes and each celebrate their traditional festa of their patron saint, to which the church is usually dedicated. Festa celebrations start weeks before the actual day, with the decoration and lighting of the village streets. But the Festa proper usually commences on a Monday with the statue of the saint coming out of the glass niche where it is usually kept safe during the year. There are bands playing, fireworks burnt, new clothes bought, and the woman of the house makes sure that the house is well cleaned and decorated and kept open during the week for passers-by to take a peek—always from outside! On each day of that week different aspects of the life of that particular saint are re-enacted; For instance, the mythical slaying of the dragon by St George (in the case of my parish).

On the other hand there are the religious celebrations inside the church with Masses being offered for the dead parishioners, for children, for married couples, and for the sick and the elderly. There is the traditional triduum (on the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) with a priest giving talks over three days, extolling the virtues of the saint, and on Saturday the Te Deum is sung early morning. But the big day is Sunday, which usually starts with the Marċ il-Kbir (the Big March) when the parish band goes around the town, while festa aficionados often get so drunk that they cannot make it back home. (Special crews of people immediately take up the cleaning of the streets from the thousands of beer cans that these aficionados leave behind.) And all this happens while the High Mass with the long-winding panegyric and incense and bells is being sung in the well-adorned-for-the-occasion parish Church.

Brother Carmel Duca MC

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Ela Bhatt was one of those rare individuals whose death was bound to make millions of women teary-eyed. Her death, after a brief illness, in a hospital in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on 02 November 2022, evoked an outpouring of grief all over the country and heart-felt tributes from all over the world.  Elaben, as everyone called her, was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, but grew up in Surat. Her father, Sumantrai Bhatt, was a successful lawyer, while her mother, Vanalila Vyas, was an activist, fighting quietly for women’s rights. After her school, she joined a college in Surat and did her B.A. in English and later went to Ahmedabad to study law. She won a gold medal for being first in her class.

She fell in love with Ramesh Bhatt, a student activist, and married him. They had two children, a boy and a girl. Having taught English at SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai for a short while, she joined the legal department of the Textile Labour Association (TLA), which was one of India’s oldest unions for textile workers in Ahmedabad. In 1968 Ela was asked by the TLA to head its women’s wing. She went to Tel Aviv, Israel where she did a three-month diploma programme at the Afro-Asian Institute of Labour and Cooperatives.

M.A. Joe Antony, SJ

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Dear Sister, I am Sr. Carmen belonging to a Religious Congregation of Pontifical right. I have completed a postgraduate course in Counseling. At present, I am teaching in a primary school of our Congregation. I am also invited by an NGO to work as a part time counselor for their firm. I have agreed to undertake it, but now my Superior has mentioned that I am prohibited from taking up this service. Can I continue to render my service in the NGO?

Canon 671 of the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Rite (CIC) speaks that “Religious are not to undertake tasks and offices outside their own institute without the permission of the lawful Superior”. There is no similar canon in CCEO (Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Rites). This canon embodies two fundamental principles of consecrated life: the vow of obedience and the incorporation into the religious institute through the profession of faith. Incorporation through the profession of vows entitle religious to dedicate their physical and moral faculties to the institute; they become members of the singular body, becoming part of and belonging to it. As a consequence, they must devote all their energy, action, and skills, both intellectual and manual, to and for the benefit of the institute.

Sr Navya Thattil OSF

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Magdalena: Released from Shame (2007) -82 minutes.

Director:    Charlie Jordan Brookins

Cast:    Rebecca Ritz, Shira Lane, Jewell Cartales, Brian Deacon, Fran Gable, Paulah May, Gigi Orsillo.

Brookins’ movie takes his Magdalena story direct from the Gospel narrative and stays close to it. The movie is almost like a Gospel according to Mary Magdalene and specially emphasizes women’s perspectives. It helps us realize the significance of those women whom Jesus encountered at various points during his public ministry and became part of the band of disciples who accompanied Jesus throughout his life, though only a few are directly mentioned in the Gospels. The movie narrative opens years after the Gospel events.  Mary Magdalene recalls the story of her experience with Jesus to the children of her friend Rivka and some other women. She sets the story against the background of the Biblical narratives starting with the creation story and passing through the story of Abraham and Israel leading up to Jesus, presenting him as the fulfillment of God’s ancient promise of a Messiah. Magdalene’s life with Jesus begins when he encounters her in the street and heals her of madness. He addresses her as “daughter of Abraham”. Mary witnesses the several healings and miracles such as the cure offered to the woman with hemorrhage, resurrection of the dead and the miraculous feeding of the multitude. Above all she highlights how he honoured and cherished the “shamed and unimportant” women whom he encountered everywhere. Magdalene points out to her listeners how Jesus restored their dignity and worth as part of the Kingdom of God that he preached. His encounter with the Samaritan woman is radical because he broke down an ancient wall of separation. When the woman caught in adultery is brought before Jesus, one of the bystanders asks: where is the man who according to the law is deserving of the same punishment? The conspiracy and betrayal, the trials and crucifixion and the ecstatic encounter with the resurrected Lord are recalled. The little listeners ask Mary: “why did they have to kill him?”

Christmas Grace. (2013) 84 minutes

Director: Keith Perna

Cast: Ryan-Iver Klann, Tim Kaiser, Rebekah Cook, Ann Filippis, Christy Storey, Rich Swingle, Daniel Knudsen, Rachel Sparks.

The movie tells the story of two competing Toy stores in an American town and their fortunes providing a strong message of Christian love and charity that is embodied in the spirit of Christmas. Gary and his wife maintain a customer friendly toy store with modest profits and excellent customer relationships when suddenly one Christmas season a large rival toy store is opened by the ruthless Mr. Tollman who tells Gary that he will destroy his competitor. Gary is troubled though he does not retaliate. Mr. Tollman bribes two of Gary’s delivery boys to hide away a whole batch of new popular toys and not deliver it to Gary and forge fake delivery notes, thus making Gary lose a lot of customers. Mr. Tollman’s underhand dealings succeed for the time being when Gary is forced to shut down. Gary comforts his pregnant wife telling her that God will find a way for them to keep their life going. Tollman’s hostility is not only reserved for Gary but also to anyone who would try to be friendly with him.  When one Christmas season a group of youngsters try to wish him merry Christmas singing an old carol in front of his office Tollman shouts them off angrily. The true reason for his shocking behaviour is later revealed to us, exposing the trauma of his orphan childhood which is recalled in two places. Gary is blessed with a boy child. He invents a new game toy that is patented and put on the market through his reopened store financed by the manufacturers.  His store begins to prosper, while Tollman’s store goes bankrupt and the partners fall apart. Though Gary comes to know of his competitor’s earlier underhand dealing that destroyed his business, he considers his own blessings and chooses to forgive.  How Gary helps the struggling Tollman in secret during the Christmas season that follows forms the climax of the movie.  A must watch indeed as we move into the joyful season of Christmas.

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The Pilgrim’s Regress – C. S. Lewis

The Pilgrim’s Regress is an adventure story set in the world of ideas and invites comparison with John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.  It is written in the form of a dream allegory with a modern twist, and is a veiled spiritual autobiography. The story takes us through the life of John, the author’s fictional counterpart who journeys through the world of modern philosophical and political ideologies, leaving them all behind as inadequate or unsatisfactory. John finally returns to the ancestral ruined cottage in “Puritania” where he once lived with his parents. John is the type of modern intellectual and earnest seeker. Like Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, in Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress, John’s journey takes us through different lands. John starts from Puritania under a tyrannical yet distant Landlord (God) bound by its “rules”. He has dreams of an island for which he has a strange longing, inspired by his sense of beauty. Initially he suspects this yearning as sexuality personified as “brown girls”. Realizing the mistake, he escapes from Puritania first accompanied by Mr. Enlightenment (19th century philosophy),  a worshipper of science and technology – who effectively chokes out John’s remnant faith in the Landlord. In the cities of Thrill and Eschropolis (city of ugliness), John sees personifications of romantic love, modernism and Freudianism. He also encounters a group of artists of the bohemian type in the town called Claptrap and is imprisoned by the ‘Zeitgeist’ (spirit of the Age). His dream island is not realized through aesthetic experience, only damaged by these characters. Realizing the error, he abandons the cities where his pursuit of truth was hindered. He resides in the house of Mr. Sensible a champion of “the simple life”. Sensible’s house without foundations is perched on the edge of a canyon into which it falls, but the two travelers escape in the nick of time.  At one point, John realizes “the real shape of the world we live in-how we walk on a knife-edge between Heaven and Hell”.  The book engages the reader, with its lucid style, wit and humor in places, while commenting on the cultural conditions of our time and how faith is challenged.

Way to Inner Peace – Venerable Fulton J Sheen (1995)

This book directly addresses the issues and illnesses of modern humans, from the point of view of modern psychology and New Testament spirituality. With characteristic wit, wisdom and humour, Sheen observes how humility, love, repentance, patience, charity and a healthy sense of humour could provide us with what all humans really seek- peace and joy here on earth. It contains 59 short chapters under nine separate themes like Inner Peace, Goodness, Happiness, External Influences, Virtue, Learning, Wisdom, You and Faith.  The very first chapter is about the deepest sickness of the human soul – Egotism – which Sheen describes as the “enemy of inner peace.” He points out how the popular ways of expressing the virtue of humility such as “never brag, never talk about yourself… never use people to your own advantage” are not enough. We should be able to go beyond such gestures, “humbling ourselves before others to recognizing our own littleness in comparison to what we ought to be.” Humility which gives preference to others is not very popular today, principally because people have forgotten the Greatness of God. Our refusal to pray or contemplate God or love Him, makes us proud.  Egotism is expressed in the training of children by parents who make them believe that they are smarter than everyone else. He stresses how important it is to educate the child from early on. Two ages which are most important in education – the ages between three and four for psychological development, and the beginning of the teens for ethical development. Faithfulness in great things is not uncommon, but faithfulness in little things such as a husband’s attention to the convenience or happiness of his wife is “a more eloquent proof of tenderness.” Our age is the age of immense wealth and power, but so little peace, so much education but “so little coming to the knowledge of the truth”.  Since its original publication in 1949, this book has run into several international editions.

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In this Christmas issue of Magnet, we have the review of two remarkable movies.   Christmas Grace and Magdalena: Released from Shame – both representing the two faces of change – New Beginnings – that call for our attention.  Christmas Grace urges us to become genuine, compassionate and forgiving people.  Christmas is about love, laughter, forgiveness, openness, peace and the ability to go beyond, to take an extra step to reach out especially to those suffering and those marginalized by society.   Mary the beloved Mother of Jesus and ours had to take many extra steps to ensure the basics for herself and for her Son to be born.  Openness was not what she experienced from the world, in fact she was knocking on closed doors and the doors remained closed despite her knocking.  For Jesus to be born, Mary and Joseph could only find a place in the midst of animals and nature.  It was in the open space of a stable that Jesus was born. Openness is the essence of nature; largeness is the core of the Divine.

The second movie is Magdalena: Released from Shame which for me depicts the importance of critically evaluating some of the patterns of personal and collective behaviours that are unjust and therefore oppressive to society in general and some groups of people in particular. There are many stereotypes that we have got so used to and have been made natural through our cultural and religious upbringing, which needs our critical evaluation. As religious, as committed men and women, we are responsible for instilling positive changes in our minds, hearts and personal lives, and in communities, families, parishes and in society.  There is immense violence not far away from us, in our society, in our church, within us and all around us.

How can we make Christmas a time to open our hearts to joyfully accept and receive everyone?   What are the ways in which we need to come together to reduce the violence that is becoming a common feature in our society?  How can we as committed people go beyond ourselves to create communities of peace and harmony?

This issue of Magnet contains stories of committed people who have gone beyond making it possible to give birth to the new in the lives of many.   We have experiences of passionate involvement in the lives of the poor and energizing tips for growing in spiritual and psychological freedom.  In this edition there are examples of men and women who dared to do the impossible, histories of spiritual masters who helped others find God in and through their day-to-day experiences, analysis of policies and proposals with social, political and economic impact on our lives and that of the people among whom we work.  In short, this edition too is a package with enormous dynamism and wisdom.  I hope you will relish reading it just as we loved preparing it for you.

To create boundaries is human, to go beyond, divine.  Christmas happened, because God decided to transgress, to cross, reach out and touch humanity with a love so intense.   Change happens only when we go beyond our comfort zones and allow the new to break forth.

Thanks to Prof Gigi, I am planning to watch both the movies he recommends, hope you too will.  They are both available for free on the internet.  Enjoy them and let us be open to the change God wants to create in us.  Have a transforming Christmas 2022.

Pushpa Joseph

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