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A married man from Nigeria speaks of his marriage as a vocation from God, and what he and wife do to make it a happy union in spite of the many challenges they have faced.

My wife, Ugoma, and I met in Abuja, Nigeria, in the last quarter of 2012. She was then studying Economics at the University of Abuja. Both of us are from the South-Eastern region of Nigeria. My fatherhood journey began on December 14, 2013, when we got married.

The Church teaches us that fatherhood is a vocation, a commitment. It should not be understood as primarily a relationship or responsibility; it is a calling from God. On getting married, I realized that I had to change a lot of things about me: the way I used to take decisions (alone) as a bachelor, my availability in my home, my associations, and so on. It was time for a complete review of my old self. Everything was about to change!

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OKWUDILI KEVIN EYA

CRYSTAL

It seems that I have heard the word ‘unprecedented’ hundreds of times in the last few weeks. News outlets report over and over that we are living through an unprecedented crisis, we are experiencing an unprecedented economic collapse, we are witnessing unprecedented worldwide suffering. Listening to this over and over for the last five months, the repeated words of doom and gloom can make even the most optimistic and faith-filled among us become concerned and frightened.

What is our way forward? As Catholics, I believe the better question is ‘Who is our way forward?’ In this time of crisis, we need to remember now more than ever that we must turn to Christ in this (and all things) for guidance.  God is not a mere politician or a scientist, but the Creator of the world. When Jesus came to earth, He showed His power by healing the blind and the lame, by raising people from the dead, by calming the seas, by feeding thousands with a small amount of food. Remember the words of John 14:12: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these.” We turn to God now and ask, how can we help to make the world a better place in light of the current suffering?

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Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

This article explains the implications of FORM 26AS of the INCOME TAX ACT 1961 for NGOs. A case helps to make the theory clear and practical.

Introduction

In this article we discuss the administration of TDS transactions and how to resolve difficulties faced by NGOs.

Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) is an important segment of the Income Tax Act 1961 (ITA) and the detailed provisions are found in Sections 190 to 206CA. According to these sections, an NGO which makes certain payments, such as, salary, contractors’ bills, professional fees, commission to agents, interest, winnings and prizes, rent, etc., are obliged to deduct tax at source, under certain conditions, before releasing the payments. The tax has to be deposited with the Income Tax Department (ITD) within the prescribed time. The NGO is required to furnish quarterly TDS returns in the prescribed forms and within the prescribed time and to issue a certificate in Form 16 or 16A to the person from whom tax has been deducted at source.

Keeping track of all the TDS transactions and the procedures, mentioned above, can be laborious. Thanks to computerization, the administration of TDS transactions can be done now with greater ease and accuracy.

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Fr Trevor D’Souza OFM

The New York Times celebrates the extraordinary service of Catholic Sisters during the terrible “Spanish Flu” of 1918.

On March 20, 2020, The New York Times published an article with this title: “We Should All Be More Like the Nuns of 1918.” The caption reads: “The sisters of Philadelphia were lifesavers during the Spanish flu epidemic. They are an inspiration today.”

What did Catholic nuns do in 1918 that inspires people even today?

The author, a writer and journalist called Kiley Bense, was researching her grandmother’s childhood in Philadelphia. Her grandmother, born in 1917, survived the “Spanish Flu,” the terrible pandemic which hit many countries between 1918 and 1920. It was far more devastating than the current COVID-19. It came towards the end of World War I, multiplying the suffering of people who had already suffered and lost much during the War. The number of victims was incredibly high: About fifty million deaths worldwide! To give you an idea of what that number means, it was thirty-four million more than those killed in World War I.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

Inspiring Outreach during COVID-19 and the Lockdown

This is something human beings know almost instinctively: Hardships sort out the wheat from the chaff. When the going is easy, we will have many so-called “friends.” When the going is tough—poverty, illness, court cases, false accusations—we realize who really cares and stands by us.

I wrote to the Major Superiors of Religious of India to send us a short report on what their provinces or houses were doing for those affected by the present emergency. We received 713 reports in reply. I passed the summary on to Caritas, the funding arm of the CBCI, which was asked by the Prime Minister’s office what the Catholic church was doing.

I am more than edified by the reports.

Then I found that religious in India are doing more, far more, than what the short reports said.

That’s the way, Sisters, Brothers, Fathers! We, religious—and the Church in general—are at our best when the challenges are toughest and others dare not step in. The heroic nuns of Philadelphia (See Cover Story 3) are just one example of this.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

The numbers change every day. For every city, every state, every country, for the world. With the current levels of instant information—and some misinformation—any of us can access the latest figures, and do it any time of the day or night.

The medical facts are pretty well known. A virus, not bacterial. Hence, antibiotics will not work. No known vaccine or medicine as of today. The only way to be safe is prevention.

Hence the strict lockdown, the social distancing, the frequent hand-washing, the use of masks and gloves, and separate seating, plates and utensils even within religious communities. Hence the acceptance of isolating those with fever, cold and cough, and quarantine for those coming from elsewhere.

Some have said this is the worst pandemic in human history. It is not. Nor is the number of deaths from COVID-19 (hyphenated word) comparable to some of the far worse tragedies humanity has faced.

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn, a social scientist at the University of Chicago, wrote a book entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that soon became a classic in social sciences. That book introduced the concept of Paradigms, paradigm shifts and resistance to paradigm shifts.

Twenty years later, the physicist Fritjof Capra wrote a book called The Turning Point, in which he tried to explain Kuhn’s concepts in a lay person’s language. Capra focused on two paradigms. One, the Dualistic which influenced thought and behaviour for thousands of years, to which was added the mechanistic understanding in the Modern Era to form the Dualistic-Mechanistic paradigm. The paradigm that has emerged recently is the holistic to which is added the ecological to form the Holistic-Ecological paradigm.

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Fr Jose Parappully SDB

KEVIN

Many of us would have to admit that to a greater or lesser extent we are creatures of habit. At different times in our lives, a predictable pattern seems to set in, one day to the next, month to month, year to year. Some of us may find comfort in the consistency of those rhythms of life and seek to maintain them.  At other times, particularly times such as Lent, we seek to disrupt the normal pattern of our daily lives in order to grow in holiness.  If you are like me, it really takes sustained energy and attention to make any change to the familiar patterns and behaviors that have been such a big part of who I have become.  Most of us don’t do change well. We really don’t like disruption to our accustomed lifestyle and we tend to resist it as best we can—that is, until we are faced with a situation where we are forced to adapt and change. We usually call such times a crisis.

New Situation, New Answers

At these times we come to realize that there are forces beyond our control that clearly and dramatically signal to us that the life we have been living has been changed in meaningful ways. When we come face to face with such life-altering times, like the recent/current pandemic, we are naturally inclined to give in to our human nature and judge ourselves as endangered and accursed.  We are not only inconvenienced, …

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Crystal and Kevin Sullivan

Margaret was nearing death. Old and frail, her health devastated by age and cancer, she knew she had very little time left.

And she was alone, helped by a few kind-hearted neighbours.

 I called on her one day. During our conversation, I happened to mention Sr Ernestine, who was in charge of reaching out to the sick and shut-ins in the parish. I knew Sr Ernestine well, since we were part of the parish staff. She herself was getting on in years, and  was not in the best of health. But I never heard her complain about her own health, or see her go around with a long face.

When I mentioned her to Margaret, the sick woman’s face lit up. She responded with one of the most beautiful comments I have heard anyone make about a person. She said, “When Sr Ernestine enters a room, she lights it up!”

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Fr Joe Mannath SDB

CRYSTAL

As we walked into our local church for daily mass recently, Kevin and I were greeted by an elderly parishioner who shared the news that he had just been diagnosed with a cancer that left him few treatment options and a diagnosis that he might live for only about six more months. While sympathetic to the shock and worry he shared, it also led Kevin and me to consider how we ourselves would respond if we were given the knowledge that we only had a short time remaining on earth. Perhaps it is the fact that it was not really our diagnosis, but we both strongly believed that our reaction would (eventually) be one of gratefulness for the time we have had together and the many blessings that have come our way over our lifetimes. As we shared our feelings on this, we realized that we have both become aware that old age in itself is not the ultimate desire for either one of us.

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Crystal and Kevin Sullivan