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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

The exceptional story of a courageous doctor serving victims of horrendous violence in what is known as the most dangerous country for women.

“It was in 1999 that our first rape victim was brought into the hospital. After being raped, bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs. I thought that was a barbaric act of war, but the real shock came three months later. Forty-five women came to us with the same story. Other women came to us with burns. They said that after they had been raped, chemicals had been poured on their genitals. I started to ask myself what was going on. These weren’t just violent acts of war, but part of a strategy. You had situations where multiple people were raped at the same time, publicly—a whole village might be raped during the night.”

These are words spoken by Dr Denis Mukwege, one of the two who were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018. A gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor, Denis Mukwege was born on 1 March 1955 in a country that is said to be the most dangerous country in the world for women – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). His father was a Pentecostal minister and he studied medicine because, he said, he wanted to heal the sick people for whom his father prayed.

After he got his medical degree from the University of Burundi in 1983, Mukwege worked as a pediatrician in a village hospital. In order to help women patients, he studied gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Angers, France, completed his medical residency in 1989 and returned to the village hospital in Limera, DRC. Describing what happened when a civil war broke out, he said, “Thirty-five patients in my hospital in Lemera in eastern DRC were killed in their beds. I fled to Bukavu, 100 kilometres to the north, and started a hospital made from tents. In 1998, everything was destroyed again. So, I started all over again in 1999.” Helped by Swedish aid agencies, he founded the Panzi Hospital that year.

Mukwege evolved a system of caring for these helpless women, most of whom came with nothing—not even clothes.  So, after the surgery or treatment, his team helps them develop their skills, find a job and find a school for their children. His team includes lawyers who help the rape victims file cases against their assailants.

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Fr M A Joe Antony SJ

4 February: International World Cancer Day

The Celebration raises awareness of cancer and how to prevent, detect or treat it. The primary goal is to significantly reduce illness and death caused by cancer. It is an opportunity to raise our collective voice to end the injustice of preventable suffering from cancer.

Cancer is a leading cause of death around the world, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), which estimated that 84 million people would die of cancer between 2005 and 2015 without intervention. Low-income and medium-income countries are harder hit by cancer than the high-resource countries. It is essential to address the world’s growing cancer burden and to work on effective control measures. This calls for a strong alliance between researchers, health-care professionals, patients, governments, industry partners and the media to fight cancer.

New strategies and programmes need to be implemented in India to fight and control this deadly disease. More than 12.7 million are diagnosed with cancer. More than 7 million die of cancer every year. The various types of cancer and death ratios per year are liver cancer (6,10,000), lung cancer (1.3 million), colo-rectal cancer (6,39,000), stomach cancer (8,03,000), breast cancer (5,19,000).

People need to be instructed to check its symptoms, follow its preventive measures, protect oneself from environmental carcinogens and be saved from the risk of this disease. Risk factors causing cancer are use of tobacco and alcohol, overweight, low fruit or vegetable intake, less or no physical activity, sexual transmission of HPV-infection, air pollution in urban areas, indoor smoke, genetical factors, over-exposure to sunlight, etc. People are also made aware about the vaccination method against the human papilloma virus and hepatitis B virus.

There are social myths that cancer is contagious and communicable by touch, so that patients are sometimes ostracized and treated as untouchables, whereas in reality they need a lot of support, care and concern, comfort and understanding.  Patients have equal rights to live like normal persons in society with self-respect and a normal environment in their home and society. Their wishes should be fulfilled by their relatives even if they have less chances of survival. Yet over-sympathy or pity may only increase their pain and fear. A new positive approach that cancer is curable is needed to boost their courage to fight the disease.

14 February: Valentine’s Day

 Valentine’s Day originated as a Western Christian feast day in honour of the Saint, a Roman priest martyred in 270 AD and considered the patron saint of lovers. He was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers, who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to persecuted Christians.  Valentine was interrogated by the  Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and attempted to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing Julia, the blind daughter of his jailer, Asterius.  He wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell.

The expression “From your Valentine” was later adopted by modern Valentine letters. According to legend, Julia herself planted a pink-blossomed almond tree near his grave. Today, the almond tree remains a symbol of abiding love and friendship.

Another legend has it that to remind these men of their vows and of God’s love, Saint Valentine is said to have cut hearts from parchment, giving them to these soldiers and persecuted Christians, a possible origin of the widespread use of hearts on St Valentine’s Day.

The celebration of Saint Valentine did not seem to have any romantic connotations until Chaucer’s poetry about “Valentines” in the 14th century.  Marking the beginning of spring, Valentine’s Day has more recently been celebrated as the day of love.

In spite of its obscure origin, this day has become a very popular day dedicated to love and friendship, fidelity to marriage and the family. A day to remember and cherish. It brings out what is most beautiful in human life and relationships.

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Sr Esme Da Cunha FDCC To subscribe to the magazine, click Subscribe

 

For everything that is understood and sensed is nothing else but the appearance of what is nonapparent, the manifestation of the hidden, the affirmation of the negated, the comprehension of the incomprehensible (Periphyseon, Bk.3)

Scotus Eriugena was as his name suggests born in Ireland.  However, he would become famous in France where he found favor with Charles the Bald and would be deeply involved in the theological debates of the day.  When John was made the Master of the Frankish Palace School in 846 he was already a well accomplished person.  His breath of learning was immense and he knew Greek, Latin, medicine, liberal arts and astronomy.  Though he belonged to the Western tradition, he was able to integrate the insights of the Western tradition based upon Augustine and Ambrose along with Eastern writers such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor.  A major focus of his writings dealt with the relationship between God and the cosmos wherein he pointed out that though the visible cosmos reveals to us the hidden God, God will always remain the incomprehensible and transcendent mystery.

The initial works of John Scotus were translations of Dionysius and other Eastern classics by Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus.  His major work would be the Periphyseon considered to be his Summa and is in the form of dialogues.  This work was later called De Divisione Naturae and contains two contradictions which are held in tension.  On the one hand there is the ineffability of God – i.e, the mystery of God as being too great to be expressed or described in words.  Affirmations, even affirmations of God’s love can only be made metaphorically or analogically.  This point of view relates to the apophatic tradition – a view that God can only be known through negations.  But on the other hand, John Scotus also underlined the view that God is present (though not identified) in created reality.  God ‘descends’ into created reality so that the visible manifestation or revelation of God takes place.  This point of view relates to the cataphatic tradition – a view that approaches the reality of God through affirmation.  John Scotus is one of the few spiritual writers in the early centuries who is able to speak of God using a language which fuses and transcends both affirmation and negation.

The spirituality of John Scotus responds to two important questions: a) what is the purpose of creation? and b) how does the progressive movement of salvation history take place? The purpose of creation is the manifestation of the Divine where God is simultaneously experienced as illumination (light) and darkness.  Both, light and darkness simultaneously coexist in human experience and find an echo in the human experience of the Divine.  It needs to be recalled that within all created reality, the human person has a special place because of the possibility of participating with the Divine or Creative Wisdom.  Regarding the second question John Scotus affirmed that the death and Resurrection of Christ takes forward the history of salvation.  History is a circular movement where the starting point is oneness and harmony.  Sin has resulted in fragmentation, disharmony, illusion and ignorance and can only be overcome through the Creative Wisdom in the person of Jesus Christ.  The process of reconciliation has begun and all reality is now moving towards a new point of fullness and glory.  The stages of purification, illumination and union are interpreted historically with the cosmos being progressively ‘purged of all ignorance, illuminated by all wisdom and perfected by all deification’ (Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy, 10).  John Scotus Eriugena draws upon the best wisdom from both the East and West and offers a method of progressive union with the Divine – a union which is already being experienced in the here and now and will be fully accomplished in the time to come.

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Fr Francis Pudhicherry SJ

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In a short span of over a decade, social media has changed the way we communicate today. Facebook was launched in 2004, then came YouTube, Twitter, Orkut, Instagram and other social media platforms. Today, social media plays a significant role and is being used in ways that shape politics, business, education, social issues, world culture, careers and many more.

As per Digital Economic Value Index, 25% Of the world’s economy will be digital by 2020 and the estimated worldwide digital advertising expenditure will be around $335.5 billion.
Internet users spend more time on social media sites than ever before. The more time we spend on something, the greater influence it has on us. As of now, almost one fourth of world population are on facebook and many millions are on whatsapp, twitter, linkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram etc.

Source:  https://dustn.tv/social-media-statistics/

Influence of Social Media

Digital revolution has changed how people gather and consume information. Social media has the potential to shape public conversations and perceptions, opinions, brand awareness,  and to attract customers and potential partners. Gone are the days when people had to rely on companies to tell them what to buy and Church to tell what faith habits they have to wear. Faith related discussions not only happens in the church and  families but also among reliable friends and digital resources. This is where the relevance of social media plays an important role – in making available relevant content to re-evangelize the nominal Catholics.

 Catholic Church and  Social Media

When the reach of social media is among billions of people from various cultures, how can the church ignore its potential to influence the cultures and people.  It is our responsibility as Catholics to bring church’s teachings to this vast population and fulfil the great commission that Jesus had given to each one of us. The Vatican has taken a serious study of this impact and it has a significant presence and influence across major social platforms.

Pope Francis is one of the most followed world leaders on Twitter with almost 18 million followers.  When Pope opened Instagram account, he set a record by gaining more than a million Instagram followers in under 24 hours. Some of the dioceses in the US and Europe have followed the trend and have a digital marketing team to concentrate on social media platforms to bring the communities closer to Jesus. However, the digital marketing initiatives are currently at infancy, in many of the Indian dioceses.

Digital addiction and social media overuse are a cause of worry especially among today’s youth. Though Pope Francis has been making the people aware about the dangers of social media overuse, he himself encourages Catholics to embrace digital media platforms to start a dialogue of faith and promote a culture of respect. “It is not technology which determines whether or not communication is authentic, but rather the human heart and our capacity to use wisely the means at our disposal,” the Pope said. Pope Benedict XVI  also advocated the use of social media to communicate the Gospel message to the tech-savvy younger audience.

Some of the  catholic channels and groups have been making good efforts to keep the audience involved through some relevant and creative content.

Evangelizing young people

If we look at the great evangelizers, we observe that they were in a place where people were and communicated to them in their own language. Today’s younger generation spend a lot of their time on their computers and mobile phones. They are in their own digital space. We need to be there where they are, speak to them in their language about the topics that engage them and provoke them and challenge them.

Opening a social media account/page and posting some pictures and posts is not enough to fulfill the purpose of reaching out to your prospective audience. To be an effective evangelizer on social media, we need to take care of at least the following 10 points.

1. Vision/Direction: Knowing the target audience, their behaviours, where do we wish to lead them.
2. Profiling : A social profiling of the target audience will help to decide on the tone and theme of a channel or a page and its content. For example, if our target audience is only women, the banner, colour of the page, branding of the page, timing of the post etc will change accordingly.
3. Consistency: There should be a consistency in terms of the branding and identity, theme, tone and colour of designs, frequency of each posts etc. In order for an audience to rely on a page or channel, people expect some kind of regularity in terms of the post/content.
4. Content: Without the right content, you won’t be able to communicate the message. A thought provoking, interesting, spiritual and actionable content is necessary for evangelizing through social media. Without quality content, social media has little appeal. It’s important that one understand the type of content they should provide to their audience to achieve the engagement and reach they’re looking for. Type of contents include blog posts, e-books, case studies, templates, infographics, videos, illustrations, podcasts, GIFFs, animated videos etc.
5. Quality : In this digital age there are millions of materials available. People are very choosy about the things they listen to, watch and read. Amongst these, the quality and creativity of the content in terms of design, video and audio quality matters. The attention to these details helps to build one’s audience.
6. Listening and Engagement: Interactivity is the one feature that differentiates social media from traditional media. Answering the comments, queries of the audience on a regular basis are necessary to engage with them. One has to be a good listener to build meaningful connections on social media. Listening helps you succeed in cultivating deeper digital connections. There are several tactics one can employ to bring your relationships with your audience to the next level – asking for reviews and comments, polls, responding to comments in real time, tagging, reference to others’ content, creating facebook or LinkedIn groups etc.
7. Research and Analysis: A regular research on the expected audience and analysis of audience behaviour data will help one to improve on the content and the campaign. Google analytics and channel insights helps in getting those needed data to improve their experience.
8. Creative Social Media Advertising: A regular campaign with very attractive and creative design helps one to reach out to those people whom we never imagine to reach through church, institutions or any social gatherings. Organic reach on social media has significantly decreased. For example, organic reach on Facebook for an average business has decreased dramatically from 26% in 2011 to less than 1 percent in 2017. Unlike traditional advertisements that tend to be interruptive, digital advertisements can be highly engaging, useful, and targeted, while bringing value to the intended audience. Properly implemented digital advertisements can help deliver the right content to the preferred audience according their behaviour and age, making spending on advertising much more effective.
9. Not go after numbers: Numbers excites you and give you the needed boost but we shouldn’t lose the purpose and vision of the campaign by concentrating only on improving the number of followers and likes.
10. Prayer: Whatever forum or platform we use, if our purpose is to evangelize through social media, we need to be attuned to Him.  We can give only what we have and realize the fact that we are in a spiritual warfare.

The world of social media offers great potential for those planning to spread the Gospel message. Social media, through its vast potential and interactive nature has to become a tool for modern discipleship. The church has to encourage and motivate for more digital disciples to reach to the unreached; encourage the discouraged; motivate the disillusioned and give hope for the hopeless.

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Antony A J

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If you have not yet boarded the Social Media Super Fast Express, you have not yet entered the 21st century! With three billion people connected online through the Internet, Social Media has emerged as a powerful network with earth-shaking impact and influence. It is therefore necessary to know the ‘modus operandi’ of Social Media operations and functioning and also its advantages and disadvantages, its thrills and the ills.

The reach of the Social Media platforms is enormous. FACEBOOK has 1.1 billion members globally, TWITTER has 500 million and the YouTube Video Sharing website has over 1 billion users with millions of hours of content being watched.

The impact and power of the Social Media extends beyond the internet. So what are the powers and potentials of the Social Media?

Power and Potential

The power to create or influence opinions; the power to spread wide publicity; the power to create awareness on a wide variety of topics; the potential to create or change political and social opinions; the potential to create or change public opinion; platform for political campaigns; platform for digital marketing campaigns; a commercial tool, including evolution of marketing strategies; a recruitment tool; a tool to highlight human rights abuse in all its forms, to project sexual abuse and harassment, to highlight corruption in all its forms. On a personal level, Social Media can help you to find new ideas, new trends, opportunities, connect with audiences in deeper ways, bring attention to your work; help create, craft and enhance your brands.

There are examples of success in each of the above points, using the Social Media.

Pitfalls

Social Media can create an isolated environment for a person that keeps him/her aloof from family or community. Such isolation can attract people, especially youth, to racism, fundamentalism, terrorism, pornography or paedophiles. The ISIS effectively used Social Media for recruitment to their cause.

Social Media can also expose people to wrong or false propaganda and of course ‘FAKE’ news that can be used during elections to damage and defeat a candidate. They have a storage of personal information on people that can be diverted to influence elections or promote commercial brands or propagate falsehoods. For example, Cambridge Analytica of UK obtained information of 40-50 million Facebook users without their consent.

According to Sree Srinivasan, a Mentoring Guru, “It is not who follows you on Social Media that matters; it is who follows who follows you that matters.” His advice: “Focus on connecting and engaging with influencers, while having more meaningful connections overall.”

Finally, Social Media can lead to ‘addiction,’ where people, especially youth, spend enormous amount of time scouting and surfing often unnecessary or dangerous websites and platforms. It is therefore essential that parents have the rapport and cordial relationship with their children to monitor their Social Media contacts and platforms and guide them.

There is no doubt that Social Media is a wonderful tool with a host of advantages and opportunities. All of us should embark on the Social Media Super Fast Express and benefit from the various options available. You meet fascinating people on Social Media platforms and one can learn a lot from them!

However, it is also important to be aware of the disadvantages and ills of the Social Media and protect ourselves and our children from being victims of the ills.

What is fake news?

Lots of things you read online especially in your social media feeds may appear to be true, but often are not. Fake news is news, stories or hoaxes created to deliberately misinform or deceive readers. Usually, these stories are created to influence people’s views, push a political agenda or cause confusion and can often be a profitable business for online publishers. Fake news stories can deceive people by looking like trusted websites or using similar names and web addresses.

According to Martina Chapman (Media Literacy Expert), there are three elements to fake news; ‘Mistrust, misinformation and manipulation.’

The Rise of Fake News

Fake news is not new. However, it has become a hot topic since 2017. Traditionally we got our news from trusted sources, journalists and media outlets that are required to follow strict codes of practice. However, the internet has enabled a whole new way to publish, share and consume information and news with very little regulation or editorial standards.

Many people now get news from social media sites and networks and often it can be difficult to tell whether stories are credible or not. Information overload and a general lack of understanding about how the internet works have also contributed to an increase in fake news or hoax stories. Social media sites can play a big part in increasing the reach of this type of stories.

Types of Fake News

There are differing opinions when it comes to identifying types of fake news. However, when it comes to evaluating content online, there are various types of fake or misleading news we need to be aware of. These include:

1. Clickbait

These are stories that are deliberately fabricated to gain more website visitors and increase advertising revenue for websites. Clickbait stories use sensationalist headlines to grab attention and drive click-throughs to the publisher website, normally at the expense of truth or accuracy.

1. Propaganda

Stories that are created to deliberately mislead audiences, promote a biased point of view or particular political cause or agenda.

There are five categories collectively referred to as fake news. Some of which are actually fake (disinformation), others due to human error or biases (misinformation). Either way they all have a very loose connection with the truth and basically sit on a continuum of intent to deceive.

1. Satire or Parody: Sites such as the Onion or Daily Mash publish fake news stories as humorous attempts to satirize the media, but have the potential to fool when shared out of context.
2. Misleading news that’s mostly true but used in the wrong context – selectively chosen real facts that are reported to gain headlines, but tend to be a misinterpretation of scientific research.
3. Sloppy reporting that fits an agenda: News that contains some grains of truth that are not fully verified, which are used to support a certain position or view.
4. Misleading News that’s not based on facts, but supports an on-going narrative – news where there is no established baseline for truth, often where ideologies or opinions clash and unconscious biases come into play. Conspiracy theories tend to fall here!
5. Intentionally deceptive news that has been fabricated deliberately to either make money through a number of clicks, or to cause confusion or discontent or as sensationalist propaganda. These stories tend to be distributed through imposter news sites designed to look like ‘real’ news brands, or through fake news sites. They often employ videos and graphic images that have been manipulated in some way.

It is important that you are able to identify, differentiate and manage real and fake news.

Dr Derek Lobo- Retired Regional Adviser for Leprosy, WHO South-East Asia Region

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Dr Derek Lobo

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The following tips are taken from Symantec Corporation website:
https://us.norton.com/internetsecurity-kids-safety-parents-best-practices-to-social-media-security.html

Communicate with the Children

Talk with your children and students about the Social Media safety tips. It will be good that you also take the following steps:

1. Know the social media your children want to use. Read reviews of these sites.
2. Have an account on the sites your children use.
3. Teach your children the good and bad aspects of this site, e.g., giving too much personal information.
4. Check the age requirement of each social media.
5. Check the privacy settings of each.
6. Learn the special words children tend to use on social media. The meanings can be quite different from what you may think!

Some Popular Sites:

1. Facebook: Minimum age: 13years. Users can share pictures, videos and comments.
2. WhatsApp: Minimum age: 16. Users can send texts, audio messages, videos and photos to one or more persons
3. Instagram: Minimum age: 13. Users can take pictures, edit and share photos or short videos.
4. Snapchat: Minimum age: 13. A photo-sharing app. Content will self-destruct after a fixed amount of time. (But remember: The viewer can take screenshots and save them.)
5. Twitter: Minimum age: 13. A microblogging site. Each message may have 140 or fewer characters.

Caution!

Users need to be cautious about the following points:

1. Know the network you are using: Do not approve friend requests from people you do not know. So, too, minors in particular must be warned not to meet in real life persons they have met only on the Net.
2. Beware of imposters: There are people posing as someone else or even as a child, to gain the user’s confidence. Careful if they ask for money or intimate photos.
3. Avoid questionnaires: Do not give away personal information.
4. Do not reveal your location, especially if you are vulnerable (a minor, a woman living alone, etc.)

Ground Rules for Children

1. Keep the computers in common, open spaces of the home or institute.
2. Allow minors to use the Internet only for a limited amount of time.
3. Know the Social Media your children want to join. Read reviews.
4. Check, and follow, the age limitations of each website.
   

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On World Communications Day last year (January 24^th, 2018), Pope Francis gave the following message. It addresses directly the thorny issue of “fake news.”

What follows is a shorter version of his message. The full text is found on the Vatican website.

Fake news and journalism for peace

…The effectiveness of “fake news” is primarily due to its ability to mimic real news, to seem plausible…. The ability to spread such fake news often relies on a manipulative use of the social networks and the way they function. Untrue stories can spread so quickly that even authoritative denials fail to contain the damage.

… Disinformation  thrives on the absence of healthy confrontation with other sources of information that could effectively challenge prejudices and generate constructive dialogue; instead, it risks turning people into unwilling accomplices in spreading biased and baseless ideas.  The tragedy of disinformation is that it discredits others, presenting them as enemies, to the point of demonizing them and fomenting conflict.

How can we recognize fake news?

Praiseworthy efforts are being made to create educational programmes aimed at helping people to interpret and assess information provided by the media…

 Secondly, … developing regulations for curbing the phenomenon…the work being done by tech and media companies in coming up with new criteria for verifying the personal identities concealed behind millions of digital profiles.

Thirdly, we need to unmask what could be called the “snake-tactics” used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place.  This was the strategy employed by the “crafty serpent” in the Book of Genesis, who, at the dawn of humanity, created the first fake news (cf. Genesis 3:1-15…   This biblical episode brings to light an essential element for our reflection: there is no such thing as harmless disinformation; on the contrary, trusting in falsehood can have dire consequences…

          Freedom from falsehood and the search for relationship:

To discern the truth, we need to discern everything that encourages communion and promotes goodness from whatever instead tends to isolate, divide, and oppose.  Truth, therefore, is not really grasped when it is imposed from without as something impersonal, but only when it flows from free relationships between persons, from listening to one another.  …  An impeccable argument can indeed rest on undeniable facts, but if it is used to hurt another and to discredit that person in the eyes of others, however correct it may appear, it is not truthful.  We can recognize the truth of statements from their fruits: …

          The best antidotes to falsehoods are not strategies, but people: people who are not greedy but ready to listen, people who make the effort to engage in sincere dialogue so that the truth can emerge; people who are attracted by goodness and take responsibility for how they use language.  If responsibility is the answer to the spread of fake news, then a weighty responsibility rests on the shoulders of those whose job is to provide information, namely, journalists, the protectors of news.  In today’s world, theirs is, in every sense, not just a job; it is a mission.  Amid feeding frenzies and the mad rush for a scoop, they must remember that the heart of information is not the speed with which it is reported or its audience impact, but persons.  Informing others means forming others; it means being in touch with people’s lives.  That is why ensuring the accuracy of sources and protecting communication are real means of promoting goodness, generating trust, and opening the way to communion and peace.

          To this end, drawing inspiration from a Franciscan prayer, we might turn to the Truth in person:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.
Help us to remove the venom from our judgements.
Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters.
You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:
where there is shouting, let us practise listening;
where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;
where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity;
where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity;
where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety;
where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions;
where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust;
where there is hostility, let us bring respect;
where there is falsehood, let us bring truth.
Amen.

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Do I want a meaningful new year, or just grow older?

“Happy New Year!” We wish each other. Or other occasions, we say things like, “Happy Birthday!” or “We wish you a happy married life,” or “All the best in your new job!”

Others’ wishes will not make our day or our new year happy or productive or meaningful, just as someone wishing me an enjoyable picnic cannot guarantee my safety or nice weather.

A new day, a new year, or any stretch of time is simply capital—to be used well or badly, to be wasted or invested, as we choose.

What will I do with this new lease of life?

I can learn from how spent my past year.

I can learn from what makes me happy as I look back, and from my regrets.

Striking Findings

Here are findings we can learn from:

• A famous study done by Harvard University on what makes people happy as they grow older gave this one very clear finding: What makes us happy (and also keeps us healthy) as we grow older is CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS.
• Another finding, made by Australian nurse Bronnie Ware through her work with the dying, concerned the COMMONEST REGRETS PEOPLE FELT AS THEY FACED DEATH. The first one was: I wish I had lived by what I believed in, rather than trying to please people. Other regrets included: Focussing on work and neglecting relationships, not staying in touch with friends, not having laughed enough, and not having been a good human being.
• An Indian research paper, trying to see how fulfilled women religious are, found that what made the largest number of them happy as they looked back was: HAVING WORKED FOR THE POOR.
• A Sister, who is also a therapist, learnt that she passed from depression to joy through a simple change in attitude: WHATEVER THE SETTING, I CAN BRING MORE LOVE INTO IT. This change, she says, has kept her happy.
• Fr Patrick, a priest-formator, complained for years that “superiors do not understand me and my plans.” He moved from grumbling to enthusiasm when he realized: “The real issue is not that superiors do not understand my plans, but that I do not try to understand God’s plans for me. Once I made this shift, I have been happy.” WHOSE PLANS AM I TRYING TO FOLLOW—MINE, OR GOD’S?

An Alphabet Soup

Based on such life-changing discoveries, I am serving you an “alphabet soup” for the new year—with eight ingredients that can help us grow up in the new year—and always.

A: AWARENESS. Awareness is probably the biggest help for growth. We easily walk through life unaware.  We do not see or hear. We can be lost in a fantasy world of our own. Am I aware of what is happening in me—what makes me deeply happy or unhappy, what my heart is looking for? Am I aware how my behaviour affects others? Have I got in touch with my potential and my limitations? When asked, “Are you a God, a saint, etc.,” the Buddha replied, “No.” “What are you, then?” His beautiful reply: “I am awake!” May you and I be fully awake! May we not sleep-walk through life (as most people do).

B: BEAUTY. Ideas may move us. Things can attract us. People influence us. It is beauty that “seduces” our mind and heart, and makes us glow. We can find beauty in nature, in people, in words, in music, in silence. The beauty of a song or of child’s smile, the beauty of a bird or of a tree in bloom, the beauty of literature or of a peaceful countenance can move us to tears and make us better. There is much beauty around us—and in us, provided we are open to seeing it. We must leave the world a more beautiful place than we found it.

C: CELEBRATION. Celebrate life! There is much to celebrate—every day. We call a Mass a celebration, for in it we celebrate God’s love and Christ’s real Presence with us. We need not wait for special occasions to celebrate life. We can start the day looking forward to meeting God, doing good, sharing love, and end the day looking back and thanking. We can truly celebrate every single day. What are we waiting for?

D: DEATH. In his simple and brilliant Commencement Address at Stanford University, Steve Jobs told the young students: “Death is one of the best inventions of life.” It sweeps away the old, brings in the new. Unlike animals we are aware of our mortality. Our time on this earth is limited. This day, this hour, this moment is precious, because it will end soon. The art of wise living is to set priorities for our limited life and pursue them while we have two priceless gifts—health and time. Faith is not an invitation to fantasize about life after death; it is a warm and urgent call to do something beautiful with the time before death.

E: ENERGY. What energizes you? What makes you want to get up in the morning? What brings out the best in you? Are you able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life—a glass of water, a simple chat, a small prayer, a walk, a look at nature? Do you feel nourished and energized as you do these very ordinary things? The most energizing pursuits in life are love and faith. When we love someone deeply, we do not feel tired caring for that person. When we believe deeply (in God, in an ideal, in a dream, …) we get really charged to pursue what we strongly believe in.

F: FEELINGS. Feelings matter. Listen to what you really feel. Understand how others feel. Feelings are facts. In fact, most people are led more by their feelings than by the beautiful theories they claim to follow. Thus, likes and dislikes, attraction and revulsion, fear and jealousy, anger and depression, explain most human actions. Virtues are not the denial or suppression of feelings, but their wise and adequate expression. Just as a tamed dog is very useful, a tamed emotion is virtue—very useful for life and a good source of positive energy. “Negative” emotions (e.g., jealousy or irrational fear) can sap our energy, kill our happiness and damage relationships. Do you take time to understand how you feel and why, and to understand the feelings behind others’ reactions?

G: GROWTH. Growing older is automatic; growing up is not. All of us are one day older than yesterday, and one year older than twelve months ago. The real issue is: Am I growing up? Just as someone else cannot make me taller by pulling me from both ends, but can help me by feeding me correctly, others can help my growth—through example, encouragement, guidance, challenge, corrections, loving support. But no one else can make me grow up. As a young priest, doing much good in his parish, told me, “Already in the seminary I was convinced that you, staff members, cannot form us; we form ourselves.” External events can be hard or pleasant, but they do not make us mature or childish; our responses do. Good and bad example is part of everyone’s experience. What I choose to follow makes me the person I am. As the saying goes, “the same sun that melts butter hardens mud.”

H: HAPPINESS. The sooner we learn that others cannot make us happy, the better. Others can help or hinder, be nice or nasty. Happiness and unhappiness is largely our own making. No one gets a perfect set of cards to play with; we play with the cards we are dealt. Why wait for happiness in some distant future? Why not be very happy today? Why waste time blaming and playing helpless or giving excuses, when we can change much by changing the way we look at things and respond to events?

Want a simple suggestion for making yourself happy just now? Think of ten good things you experienced today, and be grateful. Thank God in your heart. Thank the people who have been good to you. You will find yourself becoming happy. (Just feeling grateful is not enough. Experiments on happiness show that expressing gratitude matters for happiness.)

Do it!

In the new year, why not try this “alphabet soup”?
Decide to construct a happy and meaningful new year.

May you and I not merely grow older, but really grow up. Why else are life and health given to us?

Try this: Imagine the person you are now. Next, imagine the person you want to be by December 31, 2019. What do you see? What are the main differences?

It will help if you can draw pictures of your two images. Draw the second picture as vividly as you can. May it be a beautiful, life-giving picture.

MAKE IT COME TRUE.

YOU CAN.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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I chanced upon a ‘little woman’ a few years ago when she was introduced to my family by her aunt (Mrs. Vennila) who was employed as a domestic helper in my house. “I am unable to come to work, since I have shifted my residence, and am finding it difficult to commute. This is my niece Malathi. She is willing to work in your house.”  We were taken aback, seeing a little girl who appeared to be about twelve or thirteen. We told Vennila that we could not employ her, since it is against the law to employ minors. We would be booked for child labour. Besides, this child should be in school!  “No Madam,” sprung a little voice, “I am twenty-two years old and have been working for the last eight years.” I could not believe my eyes and ears.  After much quizzing and clarification, we decided to employ her, wondering all the time how she would cope with the work, but wanting to help her and give her a safe place to work. Her only demand was a footstool to help her reach the kitchen sink tap!

All of a metre (about three feet and four inches) in height, Malathi hails from a hamlet in Tamilnadu’s Thiruvanamalai district. She was denied a normal childhood when her father expired. Circumstances forced her to quit school when her family migrated to Chennai in search of work. Her mother, the only breadwinner at that time, took to working at construction sites, while her brother, with his wayward life, became a drain on the family’s resources. To help her mother support the family, Malathi started working at fourteen.

Small in size, great in mind

What makes Malathi stand out in the crowd is her tiny physique, pleasant beautiful smile and child-like demeanor. A dwarf from childhood, she has never let her height (or the lack of it) get the better of her.  She has devised ways to make up for her short stature, and is quick to find a remedy when faced by challenges to her height. Whenever she needs to reach the switch of a light or a fan  (positioned about five feet above the ground), Malathi uses a wooden spoon or the handle of the broom! I am amazed at her dexterity in using implements larger or heavier than herself. Her ingenuity is awesome! She has never excused herself from completing a task due to her stature. Committed to her work, she will put several others to shame with her dedication and sincerity.  Tasks assigned to her are completed meticulously and thoroughly. She is like a mini whirlwind! Once she enters the house, she does not take even a few minutes off, except at meals time, unless commanded to do so. I have had several tirades with her when at times I step in to her domain to help with some of the chores. Such arguments have often ended with her declaring: “Amma, this is my job; you go and do yours!”

Never shying away from work, Malathi is eager to learn anything new, be it tightening a screw, handling the pliers or secateurs, pottering in the garden, using the microwave oven or making an omelette. She tries her best to hone her skills and add new ones too.  She refuses to take a day off work unless forced to and rarely asks for free time.

Other aspects of her character are extreme honesty and a wonderful memory! We introduce Malathi to everyone who steps into our home, be it a family member or a friend. She is like a security guard who will not allow anyone inside our home unless she is convinced of all their credentials.

A Smart Polyglot

Working in houses, Malathi has picked up several languages and today is a polyglot. She can speak Tamil, Hindi, Urdu and Telegu fluently, as well as a pretty good smattering of English.  Malayalam and Konkani are on the anvil! Her choice of clothes is not the traditional saree, but western ones! Sharp, respectful and quick-witted, she is well known in the locality. She continues to work and support her mother as well as her brother’s family, since he is struggling to pay off debts accumulated over the years.  Recently, with much cajoling, she has opened an account in the post office and pays into a recurring deposit scheme in view of her future. With such qualities I often wonder what position she would have held if she had had the opportunity to complete her education.

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Ordetta Mendoza

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