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A young woman religious shares her journey from rejection to love, from confusion to a vocation choice, and how she met God in a destitute man’s little hut.

“Having an intimate relationship with God means realizing that abundant life will never be found in another person.”

Each one called by the Lord has a different vocation story. The stories go on.

I would like to narrate my experience—not of why God called me, but rather the unique circumstances in my life that led to the discovery of my vocation, what helps me sense His powerful presence in my life. If I may, I would take the liberty to say “Divinely Provoked” with a ray so sacred, that I could not help but share it with all.

My call is not a one-time grandiose event. It resembles more the call of Jeremiah 1:5, where God reminds him that it is He who formed him in the womb and knew him even before he was born. As I look back, I feel God was gradually and continuously revealing Himself over the years even before my birth.

Like many Indian female infants, I too had become a victim of my parents’ rejection and suffered the social taboo of being the second girl child. I was not raised by my parents, but by my grandmother, uncle and aunty, away from my small family. Occasionally coming home to my parents, and having no great bonding with them, I was sent to a boarding school. This decision of my parents caused me a lot of hurt and feelings of being unwanted and unloved. However, the situation didn’t remain the same.

A Home Away from Home

The hostel became a home away from home where I felt I belonged. I also felt accepted by everyone. I really found an extended family. The hostel became my new home, a very special happy family. My father was astonished to see me happy and accepted and loved by everyone. He found it difficult to understand and accept the fact that he had made a big mistake by taking me for granted. Probably that was the moment of self-realization for him that brought a paradigm shift in his attitudes towards me.

Six years later, it was time for me to move on from school life to another phase of life. I had a great desire and ambition to have a romantic married family life, with sweet children of my own.

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Sr Arul Penci PBVM

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“Rabbi, who sinned—this man or his parents?”

 Here is an invitation to be compassionate and understanding towards persons whose situation is not the fruit of their choice.

Yesterday, Maricela went to receive communion. As soon as the priest at the St Francis parish in downtown Bogotá gave her the consecrated host on her tongue, he bombastically cleaned his thumb and index finger on his sacred chasuble. Whoever did not see the over-acted gesture was blind! You see, Maricela is a transvestite. I do not think she has the money needed for hormone treatment, let alone for the operation. So, she has to fix herself as best she can. And I can tell you, she does not do a good job!

And today something worse happened. As soon as she came out of the pew to go in line to receive communion, one of my dear sisters in Christ intercepted her and asked her whether she had gone for confession.

Confession?

Why?

Is it a sin that Maricela was born XY but thinks or feels that she is XX?

Whose fault is it?

Hers or her parents?

“Rabbi, who sinned—this man or his parents?” (John 9:2)

∂           ∂           ∂

As I have already mentioned a few months ago, part of my job at Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles was to minister to the gays, transsexuals, transvestites and transgender who were waiting their trial. At the time there were two big dorms with about one hundred and fifty inmates in each. I would conduct a weekly communion service to those who voluntarily came for it and then, once or twice a week, I would see them and counsel them in our chaplain’s office. There was a broad spectrum of men. The ones who looked and acted like men and who liked other men, to the ones who already looked and acted like women but whose anatomical features were still those of men (and that is why they were still housed in a men’s jail). In a way, it was fun to minister to them, because most of them were not in for big charges like murder, but rather drug-related crimes and prostitution, so, they took everything with a pinch of salt. Many times, they even joked about their condition and the environment they were living in.

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Brother Carmel Duca MC

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April 1: April Fools’ Day

This day is celebrated each year for centuries by different cultures, though its exact origins remain a mystery. Traditionally it is a day to play practical jokes on others.

Some historians hold that this practice dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. In the Julian calendar, the New Year began with the spring equinox, around April 1.

Those slow to get the news, or who failed to recognize that the start of the New Year had moved to January 1, became the butt of jokes and were called “April fools.”

But this explanation doesn’t fully account for the spread of April Fools’ Day to other European countries. For example, the Gregorian calendar was not adopted by England until 1752, though by then, April Fools’ Day was already well established there.

The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks is relatively common worldwide. The positive view is that April Fools’ Day can be good for health because it encourages jokes, hoaxes, pranks and belly laughs. These bring in all the benefits of laughter, including stress relief and reduced heart strain. The negative view describes these as rude and nasty. It’s difficult to believe whether a person is being serious or playing a prank on you, if it happens to be April 1.

Sometimes even the media is involved in these pranks. Stories intended as jokes may be taken seriously, or genuine news may be misinterpreted as a joke. Either way this might cause confusion, misinformation and even legal or commercial consequences.

Many different cultures have had days of foolishness around the start of April. The Romans had a festival named Hilaria. The Hindu calendar has Holi. The Jewish calendar has Purim. Perhaps there’s something about this time of year, with its turn from winter to spring, that lends itself to light-hearted celebrations.

Scan your favourite newspapers or news websites this April 1. You might find headlines that look suspicious. Perhaps some of those stories are complete hoaxes. After all, it’s April Fools’ Day.

23 April: English Language Day

Multilingualism and cultural diversity in the UN is an essential factor for the harmonious communication among peoples.

Language Days are the result of a 2010 initiative by the Department of Global Communications,  to increase awareness and respect among the UN community, for the history, culture and achievements of each of its six official, working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish.

Numerous activities have been undertaken, from 1946 to the present, to promote the equal use of these languages to ensure that the goals and actions of the UN are understood by the widest possible public.

English Language Day is celebrated on 23 April, the date traditionally observed as both the birthday and date of death of William Shakespeare, the English language’s most famous playwright.

The language began in the fifth century when Germanic tribes from the Anglia peninsula that juts out into the Baltic Sea, invaded Celtic-speaking Britain and brought their languages with them. It slowly developed to become the language of what was once the most powerful nation in the world. With the explosion of colonialism, it spread across the world like wildfire and has since become the language of commerce in countries all over the world.

ELD celebrates this language, its history, and its oddities!

Beginning with just three tribes about 1500 years ago, English has taken on the grammar, tones, and words from every language it has come into contact with. More than 1.75 billion people speak English worldwide – that’s around 1 in 4 people around the world. English is the official language of the skies: Pilots speak in English on international flights. It is the most widely used language on the Internet and social media. English has official status in at least 75 countries, with a total population of over two billion.

There are also its variations. Canadian English, UK English, Scots English, and American English all have their own little colloquialisms and slang that differ broadly from each other!

In India, around 100 million people speak English.

One language with so many variations! And it is still considered a single language!

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Sr Esme da Cunha FDCC

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For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada

Director: Dean Wright * Cast: Mauricio Kuri, Peter O’Toole, Adrian Alonso, Rubén Blades, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Garza, Alan Ramirez, Estefania Alejandra, Oscar Isaac, Raúl Adalid. (2012. 143 minutes)        

This is a dramatization of the historic Cristero Revolution of Mexico (1926-29), when the Church was brutally persecuted in Mexico.  The hero is General Enrique Gorostieta, a retired general called back to the battlefield at the request of Catholic leaders. The war raged for almost three years, killing about 90,000 Mexicans.  The persecution of the Church began when the revolutionary government installed a new constitution in 1917, severely hampering religious rights, exiling clergy and even ordering them to be killed and confiscating church property across the country. When the militantly atheistic Calles came to power, he began to persecute the church in a brutal and systematic manner. The Catholic uprising was mostly led by inexperienced peasantry. General Gorostieta, though an atheist, is prompted into the battle out of his outrage at the denial of religious freedom to his compatriots.

In the beginning, the movie focuses on José (fictionalized version of Saint José Luis Sánchez del Río, beatified in 2005), a mischievous little boy who plays a practical joke on Father Christopher, an aged parish priest, who soon befriends him. José is later to witness the public execution of Father Christopher, which prompts him to join the Cristeros. General Gorostieta employs the boy to look after horses, and entrusts him with some secret missions. The soldiers catch the little boy and kill him. The US government is indifferent to the persecution, more interested in protecting its oil business. The Cristeros’ campaign had surprising series of victories against the state troops, thanks to the seasoned leadership of Gorostieta. In June 1929, peace was established through the mediation of the US ambassador and the Pope, restoring freedom of worship in Mexico. Many of the Catholic soldiers and priests who were killed, including Jose, were later elevated to martyrdom by the Church.

 

Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace.

Director: Eric Till * Cast: Ulrich Tukur, Johanna Klante, Robert Joy Ulrich Noethen. (2000. 90 minutes)

This is a closely realistic dramatization of the true story of the German Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazi regime when he was thirty-nine years old. The story begins with Bonhoeffer’s life in the US, where he was a visiting professor. By then his anti-Nazi stances became well known and his friends, fearing for his safety, asked him not to go back to Germany.  But his conscience draws him away to Germany where he is certain to face persecution from the Nazis. He would rather suffer with his fellow Christians than enjoy the safety of a US Seminary. He gets active in resisting the Hitler regime. He establishes contacts with church leaders in neutral countries to build up resistance. He meets Maria, who gets engaged to him in the middle of the World War. His inner conflict is heightened by the reports of the Nazi atrocities and he is invited to join a plot to assassinate Hitler in the midst of the war. Bonhoeffer, attracted by Mahatma Gandhi’s non violent resistance, wished to visit him and stay in India, but he felt that he had to be with his countrymen. A call to action against the supreme evil of Hitlerism makes him contemplate the possibility of assassinating the Nazi dictator. He begins to get convinced that Christians are to act appropriately in the dire situation rather than escape into a world of piety. The question is whether a great evil could be put an end to by killing one man and save millions of lives, but he had no part in the plot to kill Hitler, which fails. Bonhoeffer is arrested, imprisoned, and hanged.   

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Prof Gigy Joseph

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The Great Divorce

 by C S Lewis (1945)

This delightful dream narrative, set in the modern world, is about Heaven and Hell. It starts at a crowded bus stop in Grey Town, a fast-growing city. There is a million-mile long queue at the bus stop. Everyone is unhappy, angry, fighting and bickering, sensual, violent and selfish—hell, in other words. A beautiful luminous bus driven by a mysterious driver arrives. The passengers rush into the bus. The half-full vehicle flies away. The Narrator’s fellow passenger tells him that people shun the bus to remain in Grey Town. The Narrator realizes that he is in the company of the dead. The bus lands on a cliff beside a river and the Valley of the Shadow of Life, where everything is frozen still and motionless. The visitors have no bodies.

An ex-murderer named Len has now become a spirit because he has learned love. But Big Ghost, a virtuous man, is sent back to Grey Town because he does not practice love. Many people come to the Valley but return to Grey Town—or Hell. For others who stay, Grey Town is Purgatory, from where they climb the mountain—that is, Heaven. The guide explains that stubbornness in choosing misery instead of humility prevents people from reaching God. Mere human love obstructs the love of God, leading to the loss of both. Another magical sequence shows how an angel crushes a lizard representing the burden of lust and turns it into a magnificent horse, taking the ghost to heaven. The surrender of earthly love makes humans more beautiful and powerful and more loving than they imagine. The Narrator wonders if God would bring all those in Hell to Heaven one day. The answer is that Heaven is open to all who desire it. Queries about the future are irrelevant because humans live in time, so they can never know about future possibilities. The mysteries of salvation can be understood only “outside time”; not on earth. Heaven is our destination, Hell is our choice.

 

Forgiveness, the Bridge to Happiness: How I freed myself from my own prejudices and expanded my life

By Lauren Terrence (2021)

This guide book to forgiveness is inspired by the author’s struggle to forgive. It tells us how to free ourselves from the cycle of unresolved pain and resentments, approached from the perspectives of psychology, spirituality and reason. Forgiveness brings both spiritual and physical benefits. It is not the exclusion of the natural and rational implications of hurtful actions; nor is it excusing the offense or condoning it. It also does not mean that the perpetrator has to be welcomed back into your life. Forgiveness liberates the forgiver and the forgiven, but it is more about the forgiver, who is liberated from bitterness, resentment, and judgment and makes him loving, giving and joyful. Anger, frustration and bitterness drain our emotional energy; forgiveness energizes. Implementing forgiveness is the secret to daily liberation. Not forgiving another person is like taking poison and expecting the other’s death. Often we have an incorrect understanding of the experience. Forgiveness is not forgetting or ignoring a hurt. It is also not excusing individuals of responsibility for hurting. The wrong-doer is accountable for the wrong. It is also not mere reconciliation. Our unhappy experiences can be learning experiences. Therefore  we should not evade them by perceiving our negative experiences as caused by the external environment or other persons. It also takes time to forgive. Forgiveness requires deliberate thought, a decision and prayer. Forgiveness can be inspired by focusing on the resultant benefits. Psychological studies reveal that our capacity for forgiveness increases with age. A vital area of forgiveness is self-forgiveness.  Clinical studies show how a range of illnesses—including some fatal ones—can be cured through forgiveness. Steps for forgiving and overcoming resentments: (1) To open oneself to the healing possibility of forgiveness; (2) To liken the received hurt to a bullet lodged inside us that is to be removed; (3) To remember that it “was never about you,” that is, the choice made by someone to hurt you was “an act they were playing out.” In other words, forgiveness starts with our choice to do so to ourselves.

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Prof Gigy Joseph

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Christianity is said to have been introduced in India in the first century by St Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ, who might have landed on the Malabar Coast in AD 52. Christianity is the first foreign religion to be introduced to the natives of this country. It is today the third largest religion in India, making up 2.35% of the total population.

The Catholic faith is today practised by over 19.91 million people in India, which represents just 1.55% of the total Indian population, and 65% of the total Christian population. Most Catholics reside in South India, with significant numbers in North East India. Though Catholics are a small minority community in India, their contributions in the fields of education, culture and languages, health care, social services, administration, defence, and tribal welfare and development are significant and well known.

Catholic Education: Numbers and Quality
Education is central to sustainable and overall development. It empowers people and builds a nation. Investment in education benefits the individual, society and the world as a whole. Education is the answer to many socio-economic and political problems.
Catholic involvement in educational work in India has a long history. It is part of the larger educational system in the country. The original purpose of Catholic institutions was to impart education to Catholic children, but, in due course of time, it was extended to children of other faiths as well.

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Fr J Felix Raj SJ

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Sahana vavatu sahana bhunaktu saha viryam karvavahe …: “Let us live together, let us eat together, let us do deeds of valour together.” These lines from the Katha Upanishad, uttered in the context of students gathered together to learn, remind us that the physical realities and necessities of life and the intangibles are inextricably linked. They are particularly apposite for educators in the present scenario, both world-wide and in our country. Education has become the last bastion of quality, integrity, justice, compassion, values. Even when these are crumbling everywhere else, it is expected that educational institutions should enshrine these virtues, should live by these principles.

It is a heavy responsibility that we shoulder, especially when we think of those for whom education is a longed-for but distant dream. The grant-in-aid system certainly makes it possible to make education more broad-based, but it carries its own challenges – overflowing classrooms, overworked teachers, admission policies dictated by the state, government and university influence brought to bear on admissions as well as evaluation processes, and many more. How does one continue to impart quality education, continue to ensure that education is more than rote-learning, is indeed empowerment? The new National Education Policy has outlined a road map towards excellence, but there are a number of aspects of it that are a cause for concern. These will need serious attention if our educational institutions are to survive and continue to provide the kind of dedicated service that has been our hallmark. Nor is this all: for all those who are involved in tertiary education as a service, this is increasingly a challenge, since we are faced with a rapidly morphing world. We need to take a number of elements into account in considering this.

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Sr Ananda Amritmahal RSCJ

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Are we really educators who make a difference? Here are six tips for making that difference.

If to be Christian means to have ‘Christ in,’ then Christian education is a ‘Christ-in’ education—one in which Christ is seen more than heard, practised more than preached. This means that the educator must have ‘Christ in’ before he/she can give ‘Christ out.’ To have Christ in means to see Christ everywhere. How can we make this happen?
Perhaps, the first step is to visualise Christ in others—students, staff and parents. “I see Jesus in every human being,” said St. Teresa of Kolkata, “I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.” This is to be a mystic daily. It leads us to desire deeply their good and to bless them from the heart. Tshering Palden Thinley, a Bhutanese Buddhist alumnus of our college, remembers the respect, cordiality and acceptance she experienced which soothened the initial apprehension she had about joining a Catholic college outside her country.
The second is to bring into the campus the ‘joy of the Gospel’ through one’s joyful life manifested in a smile. I can still see the smiling eyes of Sr Cyriac CMC of happy memory, who taught us science in middle school. The contents may be forgotten, but not her smiling countenance. A smile does the magic of putting others at ease. “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do,” said St Theresa of Kolkata.

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Fr Tomy Augustine SDB

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“Heaven lies about us in our infancy,” sang the poet Wordsworth. It need not be for all infants. Each and every baptised child has a right to Christian education. From the security of a home, when the child is transported into a nursery school, the parents expect the child to grow up into a healthy personality. The school starts playing an important role in the life of this growing child. In olden days, in the case of Catholics, admission in a Catholic school run by educated priests and nuns was considered to be a great blessing. When it was time for a Catholic girl to get married, the advertisement in the matrimonial column ‘convent-educated girl’ was highly appreciated by the bridegroom’s party. Girls and boys educated in Catholic schools and colleges had special qualities. They were spiritual, and they appreciated the values inculcated in them in Catholic Institutions.
Today, in following the established process of admission, institutions face rigid constraints and all Catholic students do not get access to Catholic education.

Inspiring Pioneers
As a child, I had the good fortune to study in one of the leading Catholic educational institutions of Kerala, St Teresa’s Convent School, Kochi, run by the Carmelite Sisters. The majority of nuns at that time were Europeans. They were all well versed in the art of teaching, singing, dancing and all other extra curricular activities. Great importance was given to the Catechism classes everyday. The holy nuns inculcated in the students the values of Jesus Christ. Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament and attendance at Holy Mass on special feast days was looked forward to with great longing. Everyday a short passage from The Word of God was read and explained by the sister in the Catechism class. The holiness, kindness and love of the sisters was so transparent that we sat awestruck at their demeanour and the words of wisdom. This much is ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’ about those good old days – that is, about seventy years back!!

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Professor Kunjannam Andrews

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A good number of the ‘educated’ people today owe their education to a Catholic school. They proudly share how their formative years were shaped by Catholic priests, nuns, religious and lay teachers associated with the institution. All educational institutes cater to the academic part of instruction. So, what is it that makes Catholic institutions stand apart? I believe that Catholic institutions do true justice to the meaning of the word “education,” which comes from the Latin word educare, meaning `to bring forth.’
We take the child as he/ she comes to us like a sapling. We provide the soil of constancy, the water of instruction, the shade of security and the sunlight of love and acceptance. Sometimes, we have to cut and prune, but we do so with love. All round development and becoming good human beings are given equal importance as is academic excellence.

Today’s Students
Today’s generation is a generation that has information at its fingertips. The shift from offline to online education has exposed the need to be versatile in reaching the students through any medium, and yes, to get their attention and maintain it. Herein lies the challenge. How does an educator teach the students how to sift through the various gigabytes of information coming their way? How do we train them in the 21st century skills as the NEP 2020 speaks about? How do we move forward?
I say: We go back.

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Mrs Joyce De Mello Fernandes

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