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As we embrace the October issue of Magnet, we turn our hearts and minds to the timeless wisdom of St. Francis of Assisi. In a world filled with complexities and chaos, there is an undeniable allure of the simplicity of Francis. His life’s tales have always captivated us, but there is more to this choice than mere fascination. These are trying times. The anguish and suffering we witness in places like Manipur and Nuh, and across our nation, compel us to be bearers of peace. Pain comes in various forms—physical, mental, and spiritual.

October carries another special significance—the month of the Little Flower, my patron saint. The stories of Francis of Assisi and Little Flower revolve around a beautiful paradox—diminishing in size to serve a greater purpose. Becoming small does not mean diminishing our worth; rather, it is an assertion that small things matter.

Even the most cherished experiences in life often emerge from small gestures, like saying “thank you” or “I’m sorry.” Let us resurrect these simple acts of kindness. Let us empathize with one another and cultivate gratitude for the little things that enrich our lives. Imagine a world devoid of these small blessings; what would it be?

October also brings us Gandhi Jayanthi—a tribute to the small man who became monumental through his ideals and actions.

Within these pages, you will find a treasure trove of insightful articles. We delve into heartwarming stories of individuals who dedicated their lives to bring joy and solace to the less fortunate. Our cover stories celebrate the profound simplicity of Francis of Assisi and the call he extends to each of us to lead lives of love, simplicity and connections with life around, even in nature.

One article shares the profound experiences of those who participated in the ‘Mere ghar aakar toh dekho’ (Come into my home and be my guest) movement—a national campaign by people of goodwill. In a time marred by violence and suffering, how can we embrace simplicity and make life a celebration for others?

Certainly, leading lives of simplicity can indeed bring joy to others in several ways. Here are three key points along with elaborations:

Inspiration Through Example: Living a simple and uncluttered life serves as an inspiring example for those around us. When others witness our contentment and happiness derived from modest pleasures, they may feel encouraged to embrace simplicity as well. By doing so, they can reduce the stress and anxiety that often accompany the pursuit of material wealth and status, ultimately leading to greater joy in their lives.

Generosity and Sharing: Simplicity often involves de-cluttering our lives of unnecessary possessions and focusing on what truly matters. This can lead to a greater willingness to share and give to those in need. Whether it is donating our time, resources, or expertise, a simple life can free us from the desire for excess and encourage a spirit of generosity. Sharing with others not only brings joy to those in need but also fosters a sense of fulfillment and happiness in ourselves.

Reducing Environmental Impact: Embracing a simpler lifestyle often aligns with sustainable and eco-friendly choices. By consuming less and reducing our carbon footprint, we contribute positively to the environment. This can bring joy to others by helping to preserve natural resources and mitigate climate change, ensuring a healthier planet for future generations.  The movies reviewed in this issue features enchanting documentaries that beautifully showcase the art of treading the earth with reverence and affection. Dive into these films to discover inspiring stories of individuals and communities who embrace a sustainable and caring approach to our planet, reminding us of the profound connections we share with nature.

Creating Meaningful Connections: Simplicity can also enable us to focus on building meaningful connections with others. When we prioritize quality time with loved ones over material possessions or excessive work commitments, we strengthen our relationships. Our genuine presence and attention can bring immense joy to those we care about, fostering deeper connections and emotional well-being.

In summary, leading lives of simplicity can have a ripple effect, inspiring others to find joy in a less materialistic but more meaningful existence. It encourages generosity, reduces our environmental impact, and fosters authentic connections, ultimately contributing to the happiness and well-being of those around us.

In closing, I extend my heartfelt gratitude to all our readers, writers, and the dedicated editorial staff who make Magnet possible. Your support and engagement allow us to explore the beauty of simplicity and the significance of the small things in life. Together, we can make the world a better place, one simple act of kindness at a time.

Pushpa Joseph

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I have embraced the Little Way inspired by St. Thérèse, the Little Flower. Growing up, our home was filled with her presence, alongside the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mother Mary, and St. Joseph. We cherished the “Cherupushpam” magazine, connecting us to her teachings. In 1973, I joined the Congregation of Theresian Carmelites (CTC), living out my dream of a Carmelite life. St. Thérèse’s influence was everywhere. I found solace in the chapel, offering my chores to God’s glory, just as she did. I saw each step as a prayer for souls in purgatory. I served the elderly Sisters and tended to my duties with her guidance. St. Thérèse’s Little Way became my compass, shaping every aspect of my life.
God the Source of all Goodness
St. Thérèse has been my constant inspiration in my Carmelite life. She taught me to live fully, believing that God is the source of all goodness. Her active faith guided her thoughts, will, and desires, aligning them with God’s will. I often faced situations where friends, colleagues, and authorities supported my desires for momentary happiness. Despite the temptation to take the easy path, my inner voice, in tune with God’s will, kept me on the right course.

Sr Mariella CTC

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Before you take an important decision, do you consult others? Whom do you tend to consult? Your parents? Friends? People who think like you? Only your own age group?

What have you learnt from these consultations? Did you make better decisions after consultation? Were you happy and satisfied that you talked things over with this particular person? Or, did his/her advice and suggestions prove to be inappropriate or inadequate?

Let us look at some of the most basic facts about human life.

When we are born, we are the most helpless creatures. Cats and dogs and donkeys and doves are far more independent at the start of life than we are. We depend on others for everything—except the basic biological responses, like, breathing, sucking, chewing, digesting food and excretion.

Everything else? We need to learn. To move, to walk, to talk, to keep a glass in our hand, to recognize people, and the far more complex activities, such as reading, writing, remembering what we hear and see, to cook, to drive, to heal wounds, …

In any of these areas, we depended on others.

When we fell sick, we were treated at home or taken to a doctor. To develop our mind, we learnt to read and write. We went to a special place called school.

And so on.

We learn from others all through life.

We are helped by others every single day.

I did not invent or make the computer I am typing with, nor the phone I use to contact dear ones. I benefit from others’ creativity—in travel, in medication, in the clothes I wear and the furniture I use.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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5th September is Teachers’ Day in India. All of us joyfully and gratefully remember our own teachers and other teachers all over our country. From an early age, we are drawn to or influenced by various teachers at home or at school. There are many kinds of teachers – some are truly dedicated to their students, while others just wait for the salary, some for the tuition at home, and others for the students in and outside the campus. Amid these differences, there are teachers who inspire us to discover our true selves. This day transforms into more than just Teachers’ Day; it becomes a Teach Us Day, reminding us of those who guide us towards self-discovery.

Learning is crucial for intelligence and intellect to flourish. It is a symbiotic process – one entity learns while another imparts knowledge. Our entire upbringing is based on the mutual relationship between learning and teaching, a fundamental part of our daily lives.  In Sanskrit, the term for teacher is guru, where “gu” signifies “one who dispels” and “ru” means darkness. A teacher, therefore, guides us out of ignorance into light. To evolve beyond our inherent limitations, a teacher is essential. As September arrives, students gear up to honor and express gratitude to their teachers, marking the cherished occasion of Teachers’ Day.

Richard Mascarenhas SJ

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“This is my beloved Son; listen to Him.” These divine words resonate with the purpose of revealing the significance of Jesus in our lives. They embody encouragement, acceptance, and the path to personal growth, making a difference in our world.  Listening plays an important role in learning and it is one of the skills in counselling.  I remember my professor saying, ‘Be attentive in my class.  If you listen well, you need not strain much’. Indeed, active listening is the ability to receive, interpret and integrate messages in our day-to-day living.

However, the art of listening demands deliberate effort, time, energy, and patience. It is a conscious act that I’ve personally harnessed to foster self-awareness. As a formator, listening attentively to the challenges and struggles of my charges, I’ve discovered that when parallels exist between their experiences and mine, a process of purification unfolds, guiding me toward improved self management. Hence, through effective listening to others we learn to balance ourselves.

St. James, in his epistle, implores us to ‘be quick to listen,’ urging us to employ our senses in understanding our surroundings. He adds ‘be slow to speak,’ highlighting the value of interpreting what we’ve absorbed. This art of effective listening is also essential for developing relationships serving as a catalyst for problem resolution.  In essence, the heavenly injunction to listen to the Son, combined with the virtues of active listening, encapsulates the profound connection between understanding, personal growth, and harmonious interactions.

Reflecting upon this theme, I sense the necessity for three distinct modes of listening to infuse purpose into my existence.

Sr Benny D’Cunha UFS

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On 9^th August (2023) night, a class 12 Schedule Caste student Chinnadurai, and his 13-year-old sister Chandraselvi were attacked with sickles inside their home at Nanguneri, Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district by three of Chhinnadurai’s schoolmates, hours after complaining to the headmaster against them. The victims are students of a government-aided school in Valliyoor. Chinnadurai was subjected to casteist harassment at school by the other students of class 11 and 12. He was asked to buy cigarettes and snacks by them and was also regularly bullied. Chinnadurai complained of harassment to his parents and had refused to attend school for a week before he was attacked. His mother Ambikapathi took him to school and informed his teacher about what had happened.

The teacher then called the harassers and warned them saying that action would be taken against them if they continued this behaviour. After the class hours on 9^th August, the angered harassers confronted Chinnadurai on his way back home and warned him of dire consequences for complaining to the headmaster. Around 10.30 pm on the same day, the three dominant caste students barged into the victim’s home and started attacking him with sickles. Hearing the mayhem, Chandraselvi who went to protect her brother, too, was hacked by them. When some neighbours rushed to their house on hearing their cry for help, the attackers fled the spot. The siblings were rushed to the Nanguneri government hospital with bleeding injuries and later to the Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital.

Not an isolated event. Incidents such as this not only make us raise our eyebrows but it also spurs us to question our education system. In the first page of every Tamil Nadu school text book, the following dictum is printed: “Untouchability is a Sin; Untouchability is a Crime; Untouchability is Inhuman.” Although we learned this maxim by heart over the years, we have failed to understand the meaning of it let alone practising it. Since we have got used to this axiom for several years, it has become a cliché – a part of our mind yet failed to touch our hearts. The Nanguneri issue is one tangible sign – albeit not an isolated one – of our failure to imbibe this great truth.

Fr Arnald Mahesh SDB

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The art of listening and learning makes a great teacher. However, all types of listening and learning may not make the best teacher. A genuine teacher chooses the content of listening and learning that holds on to universal moral principles. If not, a ‘fake teacher’ with unauthentic values may be created. In other words, all cannot become teachers, since teaching is the sacred responsibility of handing over the insights of sacred listening and learning. Then, the question arises, ‘can a person who wants to highlight his or her own selfish and relative ideologies (like a corrupt politician or a religious fundamentalist) become a teacher’? No. Even though many claim to teach or instruct others, all are not teachers since they may not desire the common good of the society based on the values of humanity.

A genuine teacher not only does ‘verbal teaching’ but also ‘lives out one’s teaching’. We are familiar with the dictum, “an ounce of practice is worth more than tonnes of preaching.” One of the best examples of those who practiced their teaching is Jesus Himself. He ‘listened and learned’ from the Father and demonstrated his ‘love teaching’ on the cross, giving his own life. Therefore, the art of listening and learning from the ‘Teacher LOVE’ is essential to become a genuine teacher in the present times. One of the narratives in the New Testament that highlights the importance of ‘listening and learning’ is the passage about ‘Bethany School’ (cf. Luke 10:38-42), a School that was not affected by the ‘virus of fake propaganda’. What do we mean by ‘Bethany School’ here? Bethany is recorded in the New Testament as a small village in Judaea. It is in Bethany that the house of the siblings Mary, Martha and Lazarus was situated. Symbolically, if we consider the house of Bethany as a School – Jesus as teacher, Mary and Martha as students – what are the insights we get? Since everyone, in one way or the other, teaches the other, the insights from the ‘Bethany School’ would give birth in us a genuine teacher. The lessons we learn are clearer from the expansion of the seven alphabets of the name ‘BETHANY’.

Fr Dr Binny Marydas

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गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुः गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः ।

गुरुः साक्षात् परं ब्रह्म तस्मै श्री गुरुवे नमः ॥

(Gururbrahmā gururviṣṇuḥ gururdevo maheśvaraḥ

Guruḥ sākṣāt paraṃ-brahma tasmai śrī guruve namaḥ)

Indian philosophy teaches us that a teacher is in the place of God. This shloka from the Skanda Purana can be translated as follows: “The teacher is God; the teacher is self-revealing ever-consciousness. May that teacher be praised!” Our Lord Jesus was called ‘teacher’. His teachings weren’t mere facts and logic, but faith and liberation. But as He described, “A prophet is not without respect except in his own hometown and among his own people” (Mk 6:4), he was crucified. The teacher is that new-age prophet who enlightens minds so that they shine in the world and dispel the darkness around; the darkness of ignorance and malice. Many prophetic men and women are subject to criticism and others to persecution and condemnation.

There are plenty of images that we have heard about teachers: a fire that kindles other fires, a candle that consumes itself in order to dispel darkness, etc. However, what is the use if all this is just ‘thinking’ and not ‘acting? If there is a dichotomy in our words and deeds, then we are nothing but a noisy gong. We need to ponder whether we require teachers like Dronacharya of the Mahabharata, who refused Ekalavya as a student only because of his caste, or teachers like Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha who went against the stereotypical thinking existing in their respective times in order to cleanse society of evil.

Sch. Denver A. Pushpam, SJ

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Around 32 years ago, I had a memorable encounter outside my village office cum residence. A local street cleaner, slightly drunk, posed a thought-provoking question: “Is a 5-paise pottu (forehead sticker) more valuable or a 50 rupee chappal (footwear)?” Intrigued, I admitted my ignorance. He shared his perspective, playfully teasing me for while inferring that I might be educated, but he, a drunkard, had the answer. “Though the pottu costs just 5 paise, we place it on our foreheads. On the other hand, even though the chappal costs 50 rupees, we wear it beneath our feet.”  This incident deeply impacted me, unveiling a deeper understanding of our cultural values. As a social worker in villages, I initially thought that I had much to teach. However, I learned countless human values by listening to and acknowledging the wisdom of ordinary people. One close friend, who never attended school, left me with a valuable lesson. During one of our exchanges in Tamil, he said, Maathi yosi (think differently) urging me to break free from conventional methods and biased mental frameworks for seeking solutions. This insight, stemming from an unassuming individual, has become a wellspring of wisdom. Our mutual learning continues, as he values my teachings while I find his perspective on intricate issues remarkably astute.

Learning – a mutual process

In rural areas, various individuals, from social workers and educators to religious figures and community leaders, are often seen as teachers. On the other hand, ordinary people like farmers, laborers, children, and youth are typically cast as learners. However, assuming exclusive teaching rights and expecting unquestioning agreement can lead to conflicts and strained relationships. While those striving for rural development have valuable qualities and resources, the people they aim to assist also possess intentions, insights, and resources of their own. For effective and comprehensive rural development, it is crucial to establish a harmonious synergy between these two groups. This involves recognizing the dual roles of both teacher and student, embracing a continuous process of mutual learning and growth. Successful outcomes in our development mission stem from respecting the contributions and capabilities of all stakeholders involved.

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 Many wonder why the government is proposing a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) now, amidst pressing issues like unemployment, inflation, communal tensions, poverty, women’s safety concerns, human trafficking, tribal unrest, and corruption. Seemingly UCC seems to be a conspiracy to eliminate the minority communities and impose Hinduism. The common human is apprehensive about the  adverse effects of UCC on the citizens of India in the following areas:

Freedom of religion is a Constitutional Right: In a Democratic Republic like India citizens have the  Constitutional right to practice and propagate any religion as enshrined  in   Articles 25 to 30 of the Constitution.  Under UCC the minority communities like Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Budhists, Jains, SC, ST, OBC, Dalits, and the marginalised will be restricted to practice their religions freely.

Tribal land cannot be sold to non tribals: More than 20 crore Tribals in India are the original settlers of the land. Tribals and land are two sides of the same coin. They cannot be separated from each other. According to CNTA (Chotanagpur Tenancy Act) 1908 and SPTA(Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act) 1876 Tribals cannot sell their land to  non tribals. Tribal land cannot be taken away by any fraudulent means by non tribals. UCC will dislodge tribals from their  land.

Alexander Birsai Ekka SJ

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