I have always been amazed by God’s ways and amused by His sense of humour when I read through parts of the Bible. God’s choice of the simple young shepherd boy David to overcome the mighty Goliath and become King of Israel has always moved me, and kept me in awe of His ways. In contemporary times, we find the same paradox in the diminutive Mother Teresa who as a novice we are told was not tall enough to light the candles at the altar for Mass. But with God’s blessings she opened missions in some of the most challenging places in the world, and brought succour to thousands of suffering people all over.
God’s Sense of Humour
My own vocation story too reveals God’s enigmatic nature and His sense of humour. Who would choose a boxer – one who has stained many a ring with the blood of his opponents as well as his own – to join a religious order engaged in bringing love and compassion to the destitute and downtrodden? In me, this God of surprises chose a man of little faith, and entrusted me with his exciting mission of serving Him in the poor as one of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers (the male branch of the MCs founded by Mother Teresa). This was a congregation that, astonishingly, I had not heard of before, until I actually met the Brothers in a garbage-filled plot in the heart of Chennai, where they were living with a few destitute patients in a thatched-roof hut with a rented toilet close by.
As a young boy growing in a big Catholic family in the 1960s, I went to the Jesuit-run St Xavier’s School, Kolkata, where I made my First Holy Communion. In those days it was common for a child in a Catholic family to become a priest or nun. When my parents asked my elder brother what he wanted to become he replied, a priest. This pleased my parents a lot, and so, when they asked me the same question, I dutifully replied I wanted to become a priest too. But in the same breath I added that since a priest’s life was somewhat boring I would prefer to become a policeman after all! They laughed at this, though they also realized that, with robberies being common, I was choosing a necessary and practical career. Twenty years later, however, my pious elder brother became a metallurgist and got married. I, on the other hand, qualified as a social worker and special educator, and joined the Missionaries of Charity as a professed Brother.
Swimming and boxing
At High School, studies and sports filled my days, and the swimming and boxing teams which I captained won the state school championships for two years running. When I finished school I felt a call from God to religious life but my parents felt I should finish my studies before considering my vocation to religious life. I spent some time reading to the blind students and teachers at a nearby blind school and found the experience very satisfying. It was then that I began to think of a career in teaching the blind. I went on to college with the idea that I might be able to teach blind students after acquiring a degree. In college, sports and extra-curricular activities took up the time I could spare from my studies. Again, I put on my boxing gloves, and represented my college and university successfully at various state and national championships. At the same time, the hospital visits I did on Sundays as a Legionary led me to realize that my life should be spent in serving others. But I found that I still couldn’t teach in the blind schools without teaching qualifications.
At that point, I hung up my gloves, and embarked on an M.A. in Social Work so I would be able to teach the blind and serve the poor. During my holidays I had spent a month with the Jesuits in Nepal helping in their schools and orphanages. But still I had not discovered God. While I was returning from Nepal I happened to have a few hours’ wait in Kolkata and decided to visit Mother Teresa’s first home in Kalighat. During my visit, the shocking reality of the dying destitutes was brought home to me, and I felt that if I truly was called to be a Religious this was where I should come to serve. I had realized too in the course of my M.A. that care for the mentally challenged in India was sorely inadequate, and so I should try to serve them. I was offered a scholarship to undertake a training course in Japan right after my post-graduation and spent five months in Japan acquiring the skills needed in caring for the disabled.
On returning to India I began to plan a centre for the mentally challenged. But God had other plans for me. I was then a rather faithless man and challenged God several times to see if he was really calling me. In the end, I just could not deny His call to follow him. I visited the Sisters of the Missionaries of Charity to do some voluntary work. It was they who directed me to the Missionaries of Charity Brothers. It was only weeks since the Brothers had opened a community and were living in a thatched shed on a piece of land which was used as a dumping ground. Life was very difficult as the Brothers lived a very frugal life and yet I knew that this was where God wanted me to be.
Seems Like Yesterday
Thirty-five years have passed since I joined the MC Brothers though to me it seems like yesterday that I joined. For a few years I was the General Secretary of the Brothers and frequently met Mother Teresa to get papers signed or visit different offices. Her total trust in God inspired me greatly and I realized how God used this simple holy person to achieve so much by His grace. Wherever I went with Mother, doors opened and work was done. During these last six years I have been elected General Servant of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers and that has allowed me to travel all over the world and join the brothers in relief work at many disaster sites. During my travels to our communities in different parts of the world, there have been all kinds of problems and hurdles, and yet God’s providence has seen me reach my destinations. I have had the experience of going to the wrong airport, having wrong bookings, travelling in a plane which had to land as it was low on fuel, a wrongly issued Visa, many flight delays and luggage losses and even a wrong ticket. Yet all my journeys finally worked out well. The only time I could not get a visa was for Romania, and due to that I was able to get a Vatican Passport which allows me to travel outside India to all the Catholic countries. So God had it all worked out in his own way.
Our faithful God did not let me down in spite of my earlier faithlessness, and made my dreams of serving the mentally challenged come true. A few years later I was allowed to do a specialized course to teach and manage the mentally challenged. I was allowed to set up a rehabilitation centre, a training programme and set up a sheltered workshop for the mentally and physically challenged. Over the years hundreds of MC Brothers and Sisters have been trained to care for, educate, and train the challenged, and now some of these persons have been able to marry, settle down and live independent lives. So this amazing faithful God, with His mysterious sense of humour, has all the time been leading me to do His will, choosing an unusual route which included years spent in boxing and competitive sports. Then he showed me the better way of love and compassion, so I could find the joy of the Gospel, and begin to live it among the poor. Just as I come to the conclusion of my vocation story, a quotation from the Bible comes to me from a newsletter I have just received. Writing to the Philippians, St Paul expresses his confidence that…
“He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”
(Phil. 1: 6).
What more could I ask of our faithful God?
– Brother David M.C.
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