A Moving Experience
The video impressed me. Fifteen to sixteen thousand people holding lit candles and praying devoutly. The occasion: Easter Vigil somewhere in India. Can you guess where? Can you guess who these people are?
I could not have. Hardly any parish has such a large number of members. Where could this be?
In Varanasi.
The people who gather are not Catholics They are Hindus. They call themselves Krist Bhaktas (“Devotees of Christ”). They are over 30,000. They outnumber the total Catholic population of the diocese of Varanasi.
Thousands of them go to pray at Maitri Dham Ashram run by the IMS Fathers. In Lent, the crowds are larger. You must see the devotion with which these “Devotees of Christ” make the Way of the Cross. The numbers and the devotion at the Easter Vigil will move any witness. Catholics taking in part are deeply edified.
A middle-aged Catholic mother from Kerala who attended this Vigil said she felt rejuvenated. “It has challenged my traditional Catholic faith. I wish my children, who watched this event with rapt attention, be gripped by faith in Christ,”
The Bhaktas come from Varanasi and from farther away. Some come and return on foot, walking twenty or twenty-five kilometres either way.
They experience healing. Their devotion to Christ is evident and moving.
They experience Jesus as alive.
Do we?
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Fr Joe Mannath SDB
