He was an upper-class man, educated in the best schools of the day, and rooted in his religious tradition. He found this new sect abhorrent—daring to follow or even worship a publicly executed young man. No wonder he went around to have them arrested before they could mislead others. Today, he was on his way to a city to catch those following this foolish abomination, as he saw it, and throw them into jail.
On the way, something totally unexpected happened. A bright light blinded him, and he fell to the ground. An unknown voice called him by name, and asked him, “Why are you persecuting me?”
“Who are you?” he asked back, utterly taken aback.
“I am Jesus of Nazareth, who you are persecuting.”
This changed Saul of Tarsus. This well-educated, confident bigot, now struck blind, was actually losing his hate-filled blindness. He began to see.
He would fall in love with this Jesus. He would write words which only lovers use: “For me, to live is Christ,” “I long to be dissolved and be with Christ,” “Christ Jesus came to save sinners, of whom I am the greatest.”
We know what Saul, who became Paul, did later. But we cannot know what he experienced on the way to Damascus. We cannot enter into his inner experience. We can see its effects—not the experience itself.
Other Sauls meet the Lord today, and are transformed.
I guided a doctoral thesis at Madras University which studied the religious experience of 138 educated grown-ups. They met Jesus, and their lives were transformed. Amazing stories emerged. Persons from various professions, religions, age groups, cut through personal and group prejudice and experienced the new life that Jesus gave them. Joy, confidence and meaning marked them.
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It is cold in Delhi. Cold and heat are not theories. They are real. We know their meaning from experience.
So, too, with the taste of food, pain and sickness; motherhood and fatherhood; friendship and loss of dear ones. These not theories. We know them from direct experience. A mother knows the meaning of motherhood. She has not read books about it, nor can she define it, or put it into beautiful words. But we can see it in her face, as she looks at her children; in her tears when they suffer; in her energy when they need her help.
Experience is deeper, fuller, stronger, harder, more life-giving than a hundred theories.
This goes for our experience of God as well.
If we miss it, we miss out on the best we can get in this life. It would be like being blind and deaf and missing out all the beauty and sounds around us.
See the cover stories in this issue. Check out how others have been transformed beyond their expectations—how they moved from despair to new life, from anger to serenity, from boredom to enthusiasm, from sickness to health.
Organized religions are supposed to be vehicles for God-experience. Organized religious life is meant to bring together groups of people who want to make God-search and God-experience their main “profession.” We may be busy with different external jobs—teaching, nursing, writing, social work, …–but our real full-time job is our God-search, and our eagerness to share the life-giving joy of it with others.
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New year. I want to thank the outgoing Managerial and Editorial Board of MAGNET. The three sectional presidents of CRI constitute the Managerial Board. Since their team is over, and we have new executives in place, the new team forms our Managerial Board. So, Sister Maria Nirmalini AC (the CRI National President), Brother T. Amalan FSC (the President of the Brothers’ Section) and Fr Thomas Thekkel CMI (President of the Priests’ section) form the MAGNET Managerial Board.
The Editorial Board comprises competent volunteers who agreed to help us through helpful feedback. I thank the outgoing Editorial Board members—in alphabetical order, Sr Celine Vas BS, Bro Conrad D’Souza CFC, Mr Edwin Gracious Thomas, Bro Jesudass Amirthan SSP, Ms Juby Thomas, Fr Learoy Rodrigues SJ, Sr Marina Thomas SU and Fr Stanley Kozhichira.
Let me welcome the new Editorial Board Members (in alphabetical order): Dr Ann Agnes Mathew, Sr Celine de Cunha FMA, Bro Conrad D’Souza CFC, Fr Vincent Swami MSFS. Three others will join later.
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Happy, meaningful new year! May we learn from the good experiences and the mistakes of 2021 and enter the new year with a sense of expectation. Expect good things from God, from others, from yourself. The good far outweighs the bad—even if scandal-hungry media will make us think otherwise. In every setting we will enter, in every person we will meet, in every group we think of, there is more good than bad. It is up to me to strengthen the good, weaken the evil through good deeds, and get together with people of good will to make God’s dreams for us come true.
Fr Joe Mannath SDB
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