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I was born in a Christian family. My dad was Anglican and my mum Catholic. Both were equally staunch in their beliefs. My mother was insistent on having us baptised and was very diligent in raising us in the faith, ensuring we go for daily Mass and sending us for retreats during summer vacations. It planted a seed of knowing God in a deep way.

When I came to college, many things changed. I lost my closeness to Jesus. The earlier sincerity in the small and simple things of life seemed unimportant. I began questioning the practice of traditional prayers. I stopped going to church.

During my second year I fell in love with a girl. It seemed most appropriate since it seemed that everyone else had a girlfriend. Over time I was quite sure she would be the one I would marry. I changed the course of my career, opting for a post graduation that would help me to be with her. A year later, my world crashed when I discovered that she had become friendly with another classmate. I was shattered and unable to see a future. My grief turned into anger. I was determined to prove to this girl that I could outshine her during the rest of the course. I was filled with unforgiveness and hatred. I was so disturbed I realised I must go for the retreat and try to find some peace. At the retreat centre I developed high fever. During the Eucharistic adoration where special prayers were offered for the healing of inner wounds, the priest who leading the service, Fr Augustine Vallooran, mentioned my name and gave a message to forgive and see how God works. It was hard. I nevertheless prayed for the unforgiveness and hate to be removed. As soon as I did this, I could feel a cool sensation over my body. I realised I had received the grace to completely forgive the girl and the boy whom she was in love with.

Marcus Silus Sam

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For seventeen years, I suffered much pain and several health problems. A decade ago, I was just a fashion designer with my own office in Mumbai, with little or no relationship with the Lord. I lived a powerless life, even though the world thought I had everything.

It was in the year 1997 when I was going into a paralytic stroke that I met our Lord. I had a locked jaw. When I called my doctor, all he could tell me was, “Mrs Rebello, your nervous system is damaged; so, things like this will happen.” I had been sick with spondylitis and an irregular blood circulation for many years. Many doctors told me I had to live with these problems.

So, when all doors close, we say let’s try God. I was told of a prayer meeting in the Holy Spirit hospital. When I reached the service, I felt a little unusual as I had never attended a Charismatic service before. All the singing and clapping made me very uncomfortable. I thought these were a bunch of hysterical people singing to the Lord. When the Word of God was preached, I did not bat an eyelid for forty-five minutes, which was very unusual for me. Tears began to flow. The Word of God touched my heart deeply. From then the Holy Spirit started waking me up to pray at 3 am. It was a really strange hour for a person like me to pray.

Anastasia Rebello

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Alister Hardy was a marine biologist. When he decided to study religion, he thought: instead of dealing with dogmas and ritual, why don’t we do what we do in the sciences, namely, collect data first and study it? So, he advertised in the secular press, inviting people to send in reports of their religious experiences.

The response was far greater than he expected. Thousands of people wrote, describing their religious experiences—so much so that these were published in several volumes. The centre Hardy set up at Manchester College, Oxford, the Religious Experience Research Unit, continued his work. In an apparently secular country like Britain, there were more people with special experiences which they considered religious.

The first volume, The Spiritual Nature of Man: Study of Contemporary Religious Experience, carried short descriptions sent in by people who had had such experiences. The second volume, The Original Vision, was devoted to the spiritual experience of children. The accounts were written by adults of course, describing the mystical experiences they had had as children.

The world may not be as secular or as “godless” as it may sometimes look!

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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Continuing from the December issue on the Synod (which is about becoming a mutually listening and caring family of God) we listen to three more church members as they share their experience and views of the church, and their suggestions for becoming what we should be. We start with an educated layman.

1. “Church” for me means:

• The magisterium
• The hierarchy – Cardinals, Bishops, Priests
• The religious orders, including nuns
• Churches (Buildings), Catholic institutions – schools, hospitals, orphanages, homes for the old and infirm, etc.
• Catholic faithful

Desirable: The Kingdom of God as described in Revelations – Triune God, Mother Mary, saints, angels and the faithful in heaven and on earth.

2. My Experiences of Church:

A loving family of faith led by Christ-like leaders?

Yes, in the context of the Pope and teaching of the Church.

No, when it is dominated by pomp and majesty, huge edifices, outdated honorifics used for Cardinals (His Eminence), Archbishops (His Grace) and Bishops (Lordship). Even secular society has done away with most of these. The honorific for the Pope is just a plain ‘Holy Father’!

The hierarchy gives one the impression of pomp and ceremony. The emphasis appears to be on the upkeep of the monuments and church edifices; the spectacular rather than the mundane.

That explains why Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity were much appreciated as true examples of Christ’s teaching and vision of His church. But it was an exception, rather than the norm.

LARRY D’sOUZA

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“Game Changer” means an event, idea, or procedure that effects a significant shift in the current way of doing or thinking about something or a newly introduced element or factor that changes an existing situation or activity in a significant way. Game Changers can be persons or events. Pope Francis was called game changer in the Church soon after he became pope through his teaching and reformation at various sectors in the Church. This synodal process that was initiated from October 17 is already setting new trends in the church.

But what is “synodality” and how is it different from our current understanding of the Synod of Bishops, which has met in Rome every few years since the close of the Second Vatican Council? What is it not? This article looks at this synodal process to understand the faces of change that is initiated.

1. Walking Together

Since Francis was elected pope, a number of words have entered the Church’s lexicon that–while not new by any means–represent the priorities and focus of his vision for renewal in the Church. Terms such as accompaniment, encounter, clericalism, throwaway culture, field hospital, nearest hospital, smell of the sheep, poor church for the poor, dirty church, wounded church and periphery have become common–not only in the papal vocabulary, but in the everyday discourse of the Church. The Greek terms kerygma (proclamation of the Gospel) and parrhesia (speaking boldly and candidly) have also worked their way into many recent papal statements and Church documents. Synodality is one of these terms, and perhaps one of the most important, because it is essential to comprehending the way Francis sees the Church.

Fr Gilbert Choondal SDB

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1. “Church” for me means:

When I was small, the word ‘Church” meant for me the parish structure, the parish priest and the bishop; as I grew older, the word ‘Church’ and what I saw before my eyes was the hierarchy and the religious. But today for me the word ‘Church’ means all the People of God, especially the laity. The first image I get as soon as I hear the word ‘Church’ is a large group of mixed people standing together with raised hands with joy and smile on their faces.

2. My main experiences of the Church: I choose the ones I have indicated in italics:

• As a loving family of faith led by Christ-like servant leaders who seek the good of the least, and not power;
• As a worldly organization in which the quest for power and money dominates;
• As an impractical and somewhat irrelevant organization from which people do not expect much;

Bro Paul Raj SG

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1. Church, for me, is…

a bunch of people in a circle and a priest officiating the Mass with the active participation of the members. This is my experience of having liturgy celebrations in the Medical Mission Sisters’ chapel in Fox Chase, Philadelphia. I came to know that most of the outsiders who joined the Sisters and Associates were Catholics who dropped out of their parishes. One couple told me it is the fifth church they visited and the only life-giving place they found! So, the idea of a church is not big buildings or a hierarchy who dominate a passive audience. People want participation, meaningful celebration and life-giving liturgies. We also conduct para- liturgies there when priests are not available and this proved to be equally meaningful to the participants.

Sr Celine Paramundayil MMS

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1. My Image of the Church:

The Church comes across as an institution whose hierarchy has been used to wielding power, and who now finds itself in disarray because its teachings and ‘way of being’ are predominantly being seen as antediluvian. The emerging understanding of its teachings and a new ‘way of being’ which is being encouraged by Pope Francis is being stymied, resulting in factionalism.  The laity stand on the sidelines, watching this imbroglio. This is hardly the Church of Christ.

There is another image of the anawim, which comes to mind. This is especially seen in the Church operating especially in the missions among the poor, the marginalised and the rejected. It is here that we get a glimpse of what the Church needs to be and what we in the city are being challenged to be like. We have seen some exemplary examples of witnessing during the pandemic, both in the city and the missions.

2. I see the church as…

• a worldly organization in which the quest for power and money dominates; an impractical and somewhat irrelevant organization from which people do not expect much; one of the several organizations conducting some religious functions and doing some social service; and also as an organization keen on promoting holiness (Christ-like life), with living examples of holiness among its members.

Conrad Saldanha

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Paul Albera was a vivacious boy in Don Bosco’s oratory (youth centre) in Turin, Italy. This is how, decades later, he would describe his time with Don Bosco: “We were caught up in a current of love. We felt loved as we had never been loved before.”

He went on to become a Salesian priest, and was the second successor of Don Bosco as the head of the Salesian order.

How did a man who had so many responsibilities and so much work, including providing for hundreds of boys, dealing church authorities and an anti-clerical government and other duties, communicate such strong love to so many under his care? How did Don Bosco manage this miracle?

He not only did this himself. He would insist that every Salesian institution should be a home, where the young and those who care for them felt at home. He wanted his institutions to be marked by the warmth of love, not by the coldness of rules.

Don Bosco built churches, schools and residences for boys. But what he built above all was a network of relationships marked by love. He was convinced of an idea that was ridiculed and rejected at the time—that the young would respond better to love than to punishments. Experience—as well as the joyful testimony of thousands of youngsters—proved him right.

Fr Joe Mannath SDB

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One day, on arriving at the main gate of Bellavista—one of the biggest and most dangerous prisons in Colombia—I was not allowed to go in and visit.  Nothing new. Sometimes it happened that there was a lockdown so that the authorities could perform a thorough search of the inmates’ cells. And so, that day, I ended up sharing a coffee at a roadside stall close to prison, with Carlos Arturo—another volunteer who used to give guitar lessons to the prisoners.

It was the first time Carlos Arturo and I spoke to each other. As soon as I opened my mouth (even though I speak perfect Spanish, my accent betrays me), he was curious to know where I came from and what I was doing in Bellavista. I used to get those questions quite often; so, I already had my answers prepared: “I come from Malta and I have no idea what I am doing in prison.”

He was the first person to understand me. He suggested I should read the play Los Arboles Mueren de Pie (Trees Die Standing Up) by Alejandro Casona.[1] He said that I will surely understand what I was doing in prison. After this short meeting, Carlos Arturo and I never crossed paths again. But, he left me the memory of a book that helped me discover why and what I did in prison—and subsequently in my daily contact with “the poor.”

[1] Casona was a very prolific Spanish poet and playwright (1903–1965) who left Spain after Franco’s rise to power and settled in Buenos Aires where he became an acclaimed writer and critic.

Bro Carmel Duca MC

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