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It was a usual Sunday morning. As I was getting ready to leave for Baghar, a slum in Howrah, where I have been spending the Sundays for the past several years, a phone call came from the coordinator of the projects there, asking me not to come as a tragedy had struck the place during the night before. Taken aback, I asked her for details. She told me that two young boys had got drowned in the pond in the middle of the slum while the  immersion of an idol was taking  place,  and that the whole community was in mourning. I expressed my shock at this tragic news and I told her that I would be coming shortly.

Pall of Gloom

Baghar is the garbage dumping ground of the Howrah Municipal Corporation. Every day. hundreds of trucks carrying waste materials collected from the corporation area dump them here. Several mountains of garbage dot the place. Some three hundred families, mostly migrants from Bihar, live around this dumping ground, eking out an  existence by collecting recyclable materials from  the garbage and selling them. The whole place reeks with slime and dirt and unbearable stench, and smoke envelopes the region. People live in highly unhygienic conditions under plastic sheets and in dilapidated huts. Children suffer from malnutrition and from sicknesses associated with unhygienic living conditions.

Eight years ago, the Don Bosco Development Society, the social work wing of the Salesians of Don Bosco in Kolkata, launched a programme in Baghar with a view to weaning  away the children and youth from collecting waste materials and putting them on to the path of  education and skill training.  A number of projects were launched—nutrition programme for babies, health camps, medical help, educational support, computer classes, drinking water supply, making of community toilets, low cost housing and educational tours. Over a period of time, these projects began to bear fruit. They made tangible changes in the slum, especially in the increased admission in schools and decreased school dropouts.

Fr Mathew George SDB

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St Joseph Cafasso, considered a model priest, lived in the city of Turin, Italy, in the 19^th century. He was given the nickname “the Priest of the Gallows” for his pastoral care of criminals, especially those condemned to death. He stood by their side as they were lead to the execution.

After his ordination, he went to Turin to attend one of the post-graduate courses at the Convitto Ecclesiastico (a resident institute for priests). He was then asked to teach there, and proved to be a brilliant lecturer.  He aimed at making the young priests not only learned but saintly men and efficient ministers of the Gospel.

Fr Cafasso spent long hours in the confessional. His fame for learning and sanctity attracted great numbers of penitents there. Besides teaching, he found time for other forms of apostolate, the chief of which were teaching catechism to poor children, visiting the sick and the various prisons of the city.

Visiting the Prisoners

The prisons during Fr Cafasso’s time were gloomy places infested with vermin. The prisoners were free to communicate with each other and the worst of them had the greatest influence in the prison. It was among these outcasts of society that Fr Cafasso spent most of his free time. He visited each prison at least once a week, and some of them once a day. He returned home each night bringing with him the vermin of the prison, which he jokingly called “living silver and moving riches.”

Fr Leon Cruz SDB

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An extraordinary man’s remarkable life came to an end the day after Christmas last year. It generated an outpouring of sorrow and tributes from all over the world. The people of South Africa, who lovingly called him ‘the Arch,’ felt devastated.  Thanks to a rare blend of qualities and gifts—a sharp intellect, a refreshing sense of humour, an infectious laughter, a ready wit, boundless compassion and courage in the face of threats—Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a much-admired and much-loved figure for decades.

Desmond Mpilo Tutu was born in a poor Methodist family on 7 October 1931 in Transvaal, South Africa. Later they shifted to the Anglican Church. He grew up watching the horrible implications of the cruel, racist apartheid system in South Africa that gave all the political power to the minority whites and discriminated against the blacks, who were the majority. In a system that rigidly segregated the citizens on the basis of their skin colour, the blacks had no right to vote.

After his high school, Tutu dreamed of becoming a doctor and managed to get admission in a medical college, but his parents could not afford the expensive fees. He courted Nomalizo Leah, a friend of his sister. Leah happened to be a Catholic and Tutu agreed to a Catholic wedding ceremony, after having their marriage registered. They both became teachers, but when the racist government, in a blatant attempt to promote inequality, passed the Bantu Education Act, which deliberately lowered the standards of education for black South Africans, they quit teaching. Tutu took to learning theology and was ordained an Anglican priest in 1961. Next year he went to England to earn a master’s degree in theology and returned to South Africa in 1967.

Not Revenge, but Reconciliation

Tutu spent some time in East Jerusalem, learning Arabic and Greek. He taught theology in South Africa for five years and then went again to England to be the vice-director of the Theological Education Fund of the World Council of Churches. When he returned to South Africa in 1975, he was appointed the Dean of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Johannesburg, then the Bishop of Lesotho in 1976 and the Bishop of Johannesburg in 1985. The very next year he became the first black person to hold the highest position in the South African Anglican Church—the Archbishop of Cape Town. He was named the president of the All Africa Conference of Churches in 1987—a position he held until 1997.

Fr M A Joe Antony SJ

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“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart; … I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” These words from the book of Jeremiah (1:5) are apt for my life and vocation.

I am the second child in the family. I have an older brother and a younger sister. Ours is a lower middleclass family in a remote village in Mangalore. Our house is surrounded by thick forest, full of greenery. Very beautiful place. We have a close-knit bond with our parish. My parents, very pious people, instilled in us love for God and our neighbours and the Kingdom values from our childhood. They provided us with an Old Testament story book and the Lives of the Saints. When we were small, mother used to read those books for us and we children and daddy sat near her and listened to her attentively. When we went to our maternal grandparents’ house, we heard moral and chivalrous stories. What joy it was to listen to them!

God called Abram when he was seventy-five year old, but He called me before I was formed in my mother’s womb. At the age of four my litany was: “I am going to become a Sister,” even though I could not even pronounce that word (sister). In any problem, big or small, mother used to ask me to pray. Believe it or not, my Beloved Jesus responded to me—most of the time immediately and sometimes a little later.

On my fourth birthday, my parents presented me with a pair of earrings. Even though in those days our financial condition was not so good, they gave me joy. I was so delighted with the new thing I ran hither and thither. In the evening my mother saw that one of my earrings was lost. She swept the whole house and even the yard. At last, my mother called out my pet name and asked me to pray. I earnestly asked Jesus to help me to find the ring.  i went out to the yard and I saw something shining near the well (which is in the yard). I called out to my mother, who came out immediately and was overjoyed to see the ring in my hand. So many people had passed that way and stamped upon it (as many of our neighbour come to fetch water from our well), but nobody had seen it or taken it. I thanked the Lord immediately.

Sr Lavina Anitha of the Holy Trinity AC

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“I woke up at night and found my father on top of me. My mother was mentally ill. She would try to fight him, but she was always beaten by my father. I ran away to Delhi with a boy I loved, but my father came and found me. He took me by train to Mumbai and sold me in Kamathipura (one of the largest red-light districts in Asia), for Rs 10, 000,” cries Shwetha, aged sixteen. (All names in these true stories have been changed).

“I was sold into it at when I was around eight years old. I didn’t understand much. Nowadays kids understand more, but I wasn’t like that. There was a woman who offered me a few chocolates and I followed her here. She brought me here and then sold me. We came in through the front and she left from the back. And then they said to me, ‘We have bought you for Rs 50,000; so, you have to stay with us.’ They threatened me, so I had to stay there. I stayed because there was no way I could escape. The first two days I cried uncontrollably, but where could I go? I didn’t know a way out. I had no choice, but to stay”, cries another girl, aged fifteen, also forced to stay and “work” in a brothel.  

A Cruel Trade

“They would beat me with a belt and poke me with cigarette buds to drown my voice,” cries another girl who was forced into prostitution at the tender age of ten.

“I was fourteen when I was forced into prostitution. My body was used and degraded by men seeking sex with young girls in return for money,” cries another survivor of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Hiding behind the facade of being ‘clients’ or ‘customers,’ they raped me, sometimes more than thrice a day, for seven long years. They would specifically demand girls like me. ‘Young and fresh’, that’s how we were marketed.”

A Crime to be a Female?

Is it their mistake that they are born as girls? Is it a crime to be a female? Some victims are throwaways; others are sold by their parents or forced into prostitution. Still others are street children. Prostitution of children is illegal under international law, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 34, states, “the State shall protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse, including prostitution and involvement in pornography.” The convention was first held in 1989 and has been ratified by 193 countries.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. Article 20 concerning Protection of a child without family says, “The State is obliged to provide special protection for a child deprived of the family environment and to ensure that appropriate alternative family care or institutional placement is available in such cases”. When will this law become a reality?

Sr Lini Sheeja MSC

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Some years ago, while taking classes for us in Shillong, Fr Paul Puthenangady SDB told us that a parish should not be merely defined and demarcated by the number of Catholic families in it but by the number of poor people in it. Often, when we engage in the administration and pastoral care in a parish, we limit it to the number of Catholic families in the parish. In several places, especially in North India, we have large geographical areas under a parish but with very few Catholic families in it. But, if we think in a little more broadminded manner, we will realize how much more meaningful and fruitful our service will be.  It will be an authentic following of the example left behind by Jesus during his public ministry, when he reached out mostly to the poor and most marginalized people of his times, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.

This new way of understanding a parish dawned on me as a big bolt from the blue, when I was assigned to a new mission some months ago to Don Bosco HRD Mission at Dhobasole, in one of the remotest areas in West Bengal. It is a mission among the Santhals in West Midnapore, bordering Bankura district, in the Jungle Mahal area, the original homeland of the Santhals. It is a mission pioneered by Fr Scaria Nedumattathil, who was also a pioneer in Prison Ministry, India. In the Dhobasole mission, there are no Catholics, but the mission is lively and vibrant like any other parish.

Fr Mathew George SDB

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Besides being the canonical heads, religious superiors are also the administrative heads of the religious communities and of their apostolic works. Therefore, the superior is appointed the Vice-President/Secretary of the Governing Board of legal institutions and as an authorized signatory to all the bank accounts of both the community as well as the works. By virtue of their appointment to various offices, supeiorrs have the faculty within their limits to exercise their authority for ordinary administration. However, for acts of extraordinary administration, they need the required canonical permission of the Provincial.

1. Superiors’ Role in Temporal Administration

At the local level, superiors have the responsibility to administer the goods. They administer the goods they are responsible for diligently and faithfully, in accordance with the laws of the Church and of the Religious Congregations they belong to. They exercise their administrative role in the following manner:

• They administer the goods of the works through the Heads of the institution and the Treasurer. Once a responsibility is delegated to a subordinate, superiors need to respect the principle of subsidiarity and allow them to function with the necessary freedom and support them in the decisions made. However, they coordinate and animate all the ministries of their communities.
• Through regular meetings with the heads of the institution, the superiors keep themselves informed and take a personal interest in what is happening.

Fr Alex G. SJ

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As I am always fascinated, energized, enlightened and motivated by the word love, I wish to share my encounter with love.

In 2002, I came across these beautiful lines from Khalil Gibran’s most celebrated book, The Prophet.”  I was moved to tears to know the way of love. Here is what Gibran says:

“When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you, yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you, believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth, so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself
He threshes you to make your naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,

that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.”

Sr Nambikkai Kithari SAP

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When the editor of MAGNET suggested that one of us write about our vocation so that others may come to appreciate better our enclosed form of life, I was reluctant, thinking: We came here for a hidden life; then why to expose ourselves? Then a sentence from the Scripture came forcefully into my mind: “It is good to conceal the secret of a king, but acknowledge the work of God, and with fitting honour to acknowledge him….” (Tobit 12:6-7).

So here I am: Whenever I think of my personal vocation, I say with St. Paul, by the grace of God I am what I am. I always add, Yes, and because of the saintly parents the Lord has given me. I am the eighth child of my parents with seven brothers and four sisters. My parents were so devoted and religious minded that the very atmosphere we breathed at home was one of love and respect, charity and sharing, faith, prayer and pious practices. Each day began with the Angelus and a devotional Hymn and the day ended with the family gathered in the prayer room invoking the Holy Spirit, reciting the Rosary, Bible reading and the Devotion of the month. The first prayer we were taught was: “My Jesus, I love You, bless me and bring me to heaven.” I remember teaching this and other prayers to my younger siblings in the evenings. The truth that we are made for heaven was instilled into our mind and heart in our childhood.

Sr Mary Tancy of Jesus Crucified PCPA

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Annette (name changed) was sobbing, pools of tears forming on the Bible she held. I was absolutely disconcerted. For myself more than for her. Was it a mistake that I was there? She needed an expert’s help.

It was a youth retreat. I had been asked to help with the counseling. That was a first for me, although I had been organising youth ministry for a couple of years. I agreed to counsel a few of the “front benchers”; they were the enthusiastic and attentive section. I reasoned that they should be having most of the answers. All I would need to do is say a prayer for them and offer some affirmation or prayer guidance.

Annette was the first in the queue. When I saw her approaching me, I thought: This should be an easy session. She looked very traditional and seemed a bit “hyper charismatic,” as she greeted me with a bright smile and a rather happy “Praise the Lord!”

As I began the session praying in simple words of praise, I saw the person before me crumble in grief and hopelessness. She began to share her story. She had been abused from the age of six by her own brothers. In her teens, when they left the country, she got into a series of very abusive relationships. She had stopped going to Church. She told me she hated her family, hated everyone, hated herself and didn’t believe in God. She was forced to come for this retreat by her cousins.

Maria Sangeetha Sanjeevi

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