True Stories

When I met her some years ago, Sr Magdalene (name changed) was the superior of a home for the aged sisters of her own congregation. The conversation inspired me. Two things stand out in my memory.

“I am happy to look after our seniors,” she told me. “They are the ones who built up our province and all its institutions. Whatever we have today, we owe it to their hard work and committed life. Today, they are old, and some of them need looking after. I feel really happy to do what I can for them.”

Sr Magdalene had worked in the US and in Africa, and then come back to India. She was aware of the situation of elderly people in various countries. She brought this knowledge to help the senior sisters in her care.

She added one other point.

“I learn much from them,” she said. “For instance, we have a senior sister who has had surgery for breast cancer. I do the dressing of the wound. I know she has pain when we change the dressing. I ask her, ‘It hurts, doesn’t it?’ She will reply, smiling, ‘There is some pain, but that is OK.’ She does not complain or show a long face.”

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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I write this article while on holiday in my native country. I haven’t been back to Malta in five years, and obviously I do notice a lot of changes—more vehicles, more flyovers, more high-rise flats, more trees are cut and destroyed, more pollution, and . . . . more money in the hands. There are more African immigrants sweeping the streets or hanging on scaffolding at construction sites for a pittance, more Indians and Filipinos slaving themselves as care workers or nurses (without being represented by any union), more Italians running coffee shops, more Eastern Europeans involved in what seems to be shady businesses, more Maltese politicians involved in corruption and money laundering, and . . . . more money in the hands of natives. Some people are making more and more money (irrespective of its origin), and all this against the backdrop of the pandemic. For the past month, all non-essential shops and churches were closed, we could only walk two by two on the streets and we could barely meet in each other’s houses. Police and other authorities can, if they want, inspect our homes to see that we are abiding by their directives. More and more instructions are being issued on a daily basis. But at least, the number of infected people is finally going down. It is really a strange time to take a holiday.

Bro Carmel Duca MC

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All of us owe so much to doctors, nurses and hospitals, as well as researchers who invent medicine (just think of surgery before the development of anaesthesia!). There are genuine heroes and saints and other noble souls in the medical profession (just as there are money-minded and uncaring practitioners, as in every other profession.) Here is a quick look at some of the medical heroes I have personally known. Each of them does far more than the little I can highlight here.

A Legend While Still Alive

“A legend in his/her lifetime” is an expression about famous people with dazzling achievements.

Dr T J Cherian of Chennai was one such legend. There was always a long queue of patients waiting to see him, including several with complicated medical histories that puzzled other doctors. Dr Cherian was, without doubt, a wizard for diagnosis. Many (including me) found that whatever he said without doing any tests was generally more accurate than what tests showed, or what other doctors opined after tests.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

The true story of a woman who faced incredible odds, and came out tranquil and triumphant.

I knew Mrs Liza (name changed) for a long time, from her days as young mother until her death. I met her many times, listened to her and felt inspired. There are so many striking things about her journey through life, that I do not know where to start.

When this Catholic wife and mother died in her sixties, the pastor of the neighbouring CSI church preached about her: “Neither in her Catholic parish, nor in our church, was there a woman as inspiring as Mrs Liza,” he said.

I have changed her name and hidden other identifying “markers,” to respect the privacy of persons involved in this story.

Liza grew up in comfort, a princess for her doting father, who was a famous lawyer and public figure. Beautiful and intelligent, she was married off at eighteen to the son of a well-known family. Both the families knew each other. What she had never expected, however, happened: the husband turned out to be a severe alcoholic, who never did a bit of work, and would come home dead drunk so many evenings.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

Here are two true stories that illustrate the condition of India’s millions of migrant workers. They move hundreds of kilometres from their home states to wherever they find—usually to a city, but more and more to the Southern States, especially Tamilnadu and Kerala. With 45.36 crore migrants in India, every third citizen of the country is a migrant. Of these, 69 per cent are women, majority of whom have cited marriage or having migrated with their husbands as the reason for their translocation.
“The socio-economic development of the southern states is considerably higher and that attracts people. Another factor is that because of better education levels and awareness, local residents of these areas get drawn towards better economic opportunities. This vacuum that gets created gets filled up by people from outside. These developed areas face a crisis of manpower, especially for low-skilled jobs, which leads to migration,” says Dr Abdul Shaban. Some other states too have high numbers of migrants. (The Indian Express, Dec. 5, 2016)

Lalita’s Story
Mrs. Lalita, 35, lost her husband in 2016. She has three school-going children. Lalita and family live in Palam, Delhi. She used to work for three or four families. Her husband was a security guard and was given the Guard’s room for their stay. One morning Lalita found her husband lying below the stairs, unconscious. She got him admitted in the hospital in a Government Hospital, since she could not afford a private hospital. He passed away after three days. Lalita had no means to take his body to Bihar, where they came from, but she had to go there for the ceremonies associated with his death. When she came back, she lost her job, and now had no place to stay. Where will she and her three children stay? How will she feed them and clothe them?
This is the story of most of the domestic workers in India. They work far from their native villages.

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Sr Marie Gabrielle Riopel SCSM

A Child’s Courage
No one probably has explored the inner lives of children as deeply and as consistently as psychiatrist and Harvard professor, Robert Coles. Sociologist and best-selling novelist Andrew Greeley described Coles as “scientist, humanist, political activist, psychiatrist, minstrel, wandering storyteller, mystic, wise man, poet, dissenter, and yes, I’ll use the word, secular saint.” According to Alvin P. Sanoff of U.S News and World Report, “Robert Coles has told us more about the diverse and complex lives of children than any other scholar of his generation.” After his much-acclaimed five-volume Children of Crisis, Coles went on to write The Moral Life of Children, The Political Life of Children and The Child in Our Times. The culminating work of the series is The Spiritual Life of Children, in which Coles brings to an end some thirty years of well-researched writing about children.
Coles dedicated much quality time and persistent effort to listen to children and learn from them—something most adults fail to do. One dramatic example is his meeting with Ruby Bridges, a six-year-old black child whom Martin Luther King Jr. called a “hero of the civil rights movement.” During the months of desegregation of schools—when the US government forced schools which earlier admitted only “white” children to admit children of all races, Ruby walked to school facing crowds of white parents who hurled the worst imaginable insults at her, and threatened her. How did she get her courage? This is what her (white) teacher had to say:
‘I watch her walking with those federal marshals, and you can’t help but hear what the people say to her. They’re ready to kill her. They call her the worst names imaginable. I never wanted “integration,” but I couldn’t say those things to any child, no matter what her race. She smiles at them—and they’re saying they are going to kill her. There must be 40 or 50 grown men and women out on those streets every morning and every afternoon, sometimes more. One of the marshals said to me the other day: “That girl, she’s got guts; she’s got more courage than I’ve ever seen anyone have.” And he told me he’d been in the war; he was in the army that landed in Normandy in 1944. He told me Ruby didn’t even seem afraid—and she sure remembered how scared they all were sailing to France. I agree with him; she doesn’t seem afraid. There was a time, at the beginning, that I thought she wasn’t too bright, you know, and so that was why she could be so brave on the street. But she’s a bright child, and she learns well. She knows what’s happening, and she knows that they could kill her. They look as mean as can be. But she keeps coming here, and she told me the other day that she feels sorry for all of them, and she’s praying for them. Can you imagine that!’ (1)
The greatness of Coles lies at least in part in this, that he listened to children like Ruby, without trying to fit them into his psychiatric categories. In fact, he left their experiences and witness challenge the dogmas of his profession. When Ruby would reply to his quizzing about whether she was not afraid by saying, “I do what my granny says; I keep praying,”

What the Poor Taught Mother Teresa
In one of her talks, Mother Teresa told the audience how much she had learnt from the poor.
One day, when she came back to the Mother House after travels, a sister told her about a poor family that had not cooked for days. Immediately, Mother took some rice, dal and vegetables—whatever a poor family would need for preparing a meal—and rushed to give it to them. The woman who lived in that hut came out, accepted what Mother Teresa had brought, and went in. Mother Teresa thought she would start cooking, since she and her children had had no food for three days. Instead, the woman rushed out of the house, carrying something.
Mother waited. When the woman returned, Mother Teresa asked her, “Where did you go? I thought you would start cooking immediately.” The poor woman replied that one of her neighbours had not cooked anything for three days, and so, she had taken half of what Mother brought and given it to that other family.

Incidentally, the two families belonged to two different religions. One was Hindu, the other Moslem.
(1) Robert Coles, Harvard Diary: Reflections on the Sacred and the Secular (New York: The Seabury Press, 1996), pp. 113-114.

What Struck John in India
A young American called John came to India to study Mahatma Gandhi’s thought, and to do voluntary work. He spent several months in India, helping in various centres that looked after the needy. When I met him in his home town (Boston) the next year, I asked him, “John, what impressed you most in India?” He gave me an unexpected answer: “The generosity of the poor.” “How?” “Going from the US to India, I came across dire poverty. I had never seen such misery. But what struck me most was the generosity of the poor. A poor person or family have so little in their tiny hut, and they are ready to share that. Amazing hospitality, for instance. I had never seen such generosity.”

The Salesian Who Decided to Quit
Joseph Buzzeetti was a young man who got to know Don Bosco, liked him and his work, and became a Salesian Brother. He was one of Don Bosco’s first helpers.
Later, a few of the boys Don Bosco looked after, joined, and supervised the boys. As seminarians, they wore a cassock and held responsibilities in the institute.
Joseph Buzzetti did not like some of these changes. Being impulsive and somewhat hot-tempered, he said, “These are fellows whose noses I have wiped, and now they are the big shots here.” He felt less important than before, and decided to leave.
Without consulting anyone, he went out, and found a job. Then, he went to Don Bosco to wish him good-bye.
What happened next moves me each time I narrate this episode to groups.
Buzzetti told Don Bosco, “Don Bosco, I am not happy here. I have decided to quit. I have found a job. I came to wish you good-bye.”
Don Bosco did not lecture him on vocation or such matters. He did not blame the young man for taking all these decisions without consulting him. He told Buzzetti, “Joseph, I am glad you have found a job. But, although you have a job, at the beginning there will be hardships.”
Don Bosco then opened the drawer of his desk, and told the young man, “Joseph, you know this desk better than I do. Take from it whatever you need. And, whenever you need something, don’t hesitate to come and get it.”
Then he looked at Joseph Buzzetti with great love and added, “Joseph, we have been friends. I hope you will not forget me.”
Joseph Buzzetti burst into tears. He never left

– Fr. Joe Mannath SDB is the National Secretary of CRI and the editor of this magazine

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Roslyn Coelho shares her friend’s prayer experience!

Lisa. Pray for Lisa. It was the strangest thing, this urge that suddenly came over me. It was as if an actual voice had spoken, firm and commanding. Pray for Lisa? I prayed for my six-year-old daughter every night, just like I did for her brother and sister. But why now?
We were on the road, headed to my parents’ house for Christmas. Lisa was riding with my brother Bobby up ahead. I was following along in my car with my two other children.
Bobby was holding the speed limit, just like I had asked him to. Lisa turned to wave at me through the back window. Everything seemed fine.
Pray for Lisa. Now. The voice again, even more emphatic.
A chill ran through me. Lord, please watch over Lisa. Keep her out of harm’s way. Wrap your protecting arms tight around her. 

Up ahead, Bobby slowed. I could see a semi-truck directly in front of him. Its trailer was weaving back and forth. Something was clearly wrong with it. The trailer bounced and then fishtailed. Bobby’s brake lights flared.
Then, to my horror, the trailer detached from the driver’s cab. “Lord, keep Lisa safe!” I cried.
Bobby swerved. Just enough to escape a collision with the runaway trailer.
Thank God, Lisa was safe. Thank God for the voice, I thought.
But I could only watch helplessly as the trailer slid into the other lane—smashing into an oncoming car.

Bobby and I both pulled over and rushed to the demolished vehicle. The backseat behind the driver was completely crushed. “Is everyone okay?” I gasped.
“I think so,” the driver said. He, his wife and their teenage daughter climbed out, shakily, but unharmed.
The man stared at the backseat and let out a deep breath. “We just stopped a couple of minutes ago and my daughter switched places with the Christmas gifts,” he told us. “If she had still been sitting there…” He didn’t have to say more.
The man then introduced himself and his wife.
“And what’s your name?” I asked their daughter.
“Lisa,” the girl replied.

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