Insights and suggestions of Sr Inigo Joaquim SSA, a former superior general who later worked with prisoners and animated thousands of religious, both in India and abroad. (The interview was conducted by Ms Janina Gomes.)
- You were Superior General of St. Anne’s Congregation, Chennai, for two terms, 1990-2002. What did your congregation focus on with you at the helm?
At a very young age, I was elected in our 20th General Chapter as the Leader of the congregation and re-elected in the 21st General Chapter to relevantly respond to the times. The Spirit-filled General Chapters led the Congregation to commit itself with renewed vigour to rejuvenate the formation, to re-define our spirituality of experiencing God in solidarity with the oppressed, to restructure and decentralize our administration, renew our life-style, deepen our social awareness and boldly and objectively revitalize the existing ministries and to identify relevant front-line ministries. I took the mandate given to me by the Chapter very seriously and considered the deliberations of the Chapter as divine intervention and the demand of the signs of the times and executed them with firmness and determination.
My predecessor and my Team members and many like-minded resource persons played a great supportive role in making my dream of vibrant and dynamic vision and mission a reality. My office as National CRI Secretary for Women’s section gave me fresh impetus to realize the time-bound focus. The CRI addressed the burning issues of that time by selecting apt themes to prepare the religious like, prophetic role of religious, liberation theology, living in the midst of the poor and identification with the poor, joining with the oppressed and fighting for justice issues, empowerment of women, to shun clericalism and being daring and liberated women religious.
My innovative thinking intensified the focus of my Congregation, “Experiencing God in the oppressed.” An integrated initial formation was programmed: Emphasizing the study of Bibilical Prophets and the life of the contemporary Indian Prophets and martyrs, Universal as well as Indian mystics, including Francis Assisi, a day of silence to interiorize the experiences—these were some of the new ventures. The Novices were given rural exposure where they made their first profession which was a historic moment.
Revitalizing on-going formation was also felt by the Congregation as the urgent need. Special focus on the life and the Spirit of our Foundress Gnanamma and interpreting the Charism of our Congregation in the light of the changing times, led to a new way of praying with flexibility. Specific objectives were identified for every ministry and policies were formulated and implemented. Innovative ways were introduced to respond to the needs of the target people. As a way of empowerment and to develop leadership qualities, sisters were trained to direct retreats to our own members and to others outside with the themes: Women, Jesus’ Movement, Inter-personal Relationship, Biblical Mission, etc. A special Yoga Retreat was organized for the whole Congregation. Sisters were encouraged to write books and to address public gatherings. A group of sisters brought out a special book on Education: Hidden truths and alternative values of School syllabus. Sisters also brought out books on “the women of courage”, “Folk art”, “the problems of child labourers”, “Let us save the Earth”, etc.
One memorable event I would like to put on record here during my leadership tenure to empower my sisters which is very much relevant to today’s context is the self defence skill: We were known as Karate Nuns. My genuine aim to allow my nuns to learn this art was not to attack and offend others but to realize our inner energy lying dormant, to improve their power of concentration and to defend oursleves in the wake of sexual harrassment. Karate Master Hussain wrote the following about this event: “This was the first time in the world nuns known for piety and non-violence learnt a martial art.” This was the breaking news all over the world and many international media swooped down on this unknown convent. The Vatican who heard on the ethics of nuns learning Karate remarked: “It is right to know self-defence when the second cheek is slapped too. This made big news.”
- You were also the only delegate elected by the South Asian Women Religious to the Synod of Bishops in Rome in 1994 ‘ Vita Consecrata’.
When Indian magazines announced my name, I was taken aback with the million-dollar question, “why me?’ There was no such preparation as we are doing now for the Synod 2023. We were called auditrices – only auditors with no voting right. Seating arrangements were made in a strictly hierarchical style.
I have had many enriching positive experiences. When I was at the Synod Hall with Pope John Paul II, Cardinals and Bishops, it was an overwhelming and thrilling experience for me. I felt the belongingness to the Catholic Church where women and men should be equal. The Synadol fathers listened to us and appreciated and acknowledged women’s voice. I took a legitimate pride on being an Indian woman religious.
I was touched by one of the prophetic interventions, of a Bishop: “In the Church, 75% of the consecrated people are women. If there are no women, there is no Consecrated life and no Church also. Hence, the future of the Church depends upon the responsible response we would be giving to women religious. If they don’t feel our support, eventually the Church will lose women too in this century.”
Now the Church under the leadership of Pope Francis is opening to the stark realities of the society and becoming inclusive is the Good News!
- As a facilitator of General and Provincial Chapters of various congregations and speaker at various gatherings of priests, nuns and lay people, you have had a vast outreach in India and other countries. In what way were you enriched by such an outreach?
I am fully aware of God’s call as His special chosen instrument to proclaim God’s comforting as well as challenging message at various gatherings. Their feedback gave me a new revelation that I am very assertive, and walk the talk style and my sessions are direct, powerful and down to earth, based on the critical analysis and sound interpretation of the Word of God connected to the need of the hour. I cherished the affection and the appreciation of participants from various walks of life. Their perception and affirmation convinced me to speak and write with conviction and authority.
My experiential sharing of ideas and thoughts challenged the traditional mindset and disturbed the mediocre life-style of the participants. Their impressive and positive feedback helped me to acknowledge God’s gifts in me like my innovative thinking, humanism, commitment for a cause, experiencing God’s presence in everyone and clear vision. Indeed I have grown a lot and developed a more positive and friendly approach with others, of course, without compromising Gospel values.
- You have animated many congregations of religious in India and guided them. You must have a pulse on the religious in India. In what way do you think they could change the way they function in modern times without losing their charism.
I have reached out to more than 120 Congregations – Major Superiors, Bishops, Priests, Seminarians, Religious and the laity both in India and abroad as retreat directress, resource person at seminars, Symposiums, various Forums and Chapter facilitator. I regard it as an amazing and awesome privilege granded to me.
Charism is nothing but listening to the voice of God through the cry of the poor and being disturbed and responding to it creatively in the context.
I firmly believe what Pope Francis says: “It is the Spirit that brings change. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to transform the hearts of religious. We are witnesses to the Gospel”. Let us make the spirit of Pope Francis our own.
I have witnessed the following common global and local challenges Consecrated life is facing: The dwindling of authentic vocations to religious. Multiplying pious exercises without allowing them to transform life is creating an aversion in the hearts of many good religious.
Comfortable and secure middle-class lifestyle, the lack of newness and creativity in approaching ministries, competition for power and positions, the dysfunction in community life, group infighting, misunderstanding and communication gap between authority and community members, create a discomfort to the religious who are seeking meaning and purpose to religious life.
Lack of emotional support and professional counselling when needed, gradually replacing the sense of mission by professionalism and, worse, by careerism and the pursuit of personal ambitions, just being administrators or managers, than being effective animators, individualism, absence of lay partnership, lack of inter-cultural and inter-religious knowledge and dialogue, addiction to modern technology though it is a boon, shocking personal scandals among those in positions: money handling, connection to their family members, not being accountable, justifying their values, taking undue advantage of their position and freedom are some of the glaring truths people are questioning.
Now the time has come for the religious to be serious about being a transforming presence in our present society. The clarion call is given to us to embrace the age-old values of true holiness, contemplation, renunciation and asceticism, detachment and simplicity and stand for truth and justice and face the consequences.
- You have written two books on the consecrated life: Call to Move Beyond and Ever Evolving Consecrated Life. In what way does religious life evolve?
My two books are the concise summary and the Manifesto of Consecrated Life today. Taking into considertation the reality of the dearth of women writers, I launched into this new vneture to awaken the present generation who do not want to get into this parameter of stagnation.
My first book, Consecrated Life, Called to Move Beyond, consists of my own personal experiences of religious life at various stages. We know that we are at the crossroad without a clear signposta. Deep down I have been yearning to present a roadmap which could give a clear green signal to Consecrated Life. The positive interaction with various groups in India and abroad (Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, etc.). have certainly provoked me to think further, especially from a practical point of view to move their life beyond the beaten path and beyond pietistic and legalistic spiritualities. As people and their thinking are changing, objectives are different and new needs are emerging, we need to discover new roads to walk on and new possibilities to explore.
As the world is alarmed about the pandemic Covid-19, followed by social distancing and lock-down, my second book, Ever Evolving Consecrated Life, emerged. Searching for relevance is an on-going endeavour involving a constant quest to seek, find and carry out the will of God in our life.
As the world order is changing drastically due to the global crisis created by this pandemic, I sincerely feel that there should be an evolution and revolution in the way we live our consecrated life today. I feel the need to leave behind a relevant and rich legacy to the younger generation by nurturing friendship with ecology and living an eco-friendly life-style. As young religious are seeking meaningful and newer forms of living their consecrated life, I am sure the various themes of my book would inspire them to explore and discover newer pastures in the ever-changing times in the contemporary world.
- After finishing your mission as Superior General, you opted to work at the Tihar Jail in Delhi, which is the largest in Asia, with 20,000 inmates. What made you take that plunge into unfamiliar ground?
The following factors motivated me to plunge into this unfamiliar ground:
My first inspiration was the Word of God: Lk: 4: 18, Mt: 25: 40.
When I was at the Synod, I was impressed by the inspirational message of Mother Teresa: “It is a beautiful gift of God to take care of the people, men and women in jail who are the least. It is something beautiful for God and is a real gift”.
Reading about the prison reforms introduced by Kiran Bedi, the first woman Director General of Prisons at Tihar in Delhi and the way she changed the jail into an Ashram years ago, moved me.
Some of you might still remember having read in the newspapers, regarding the hanging of Ranga and Billa in the Tihar Jail. When the Judge pronounced the death sentence, they literally froze. At the end, the Judge asked them for their last wish, if any. Ranga related a pathetic story. He said: “During my imprisonment, no one from my family visited me. One day a friend of mine came to the jail to convey a terse message from my mother. The message was: ‘Go and tell him that I don’t have a son like him.’” When he shared this, he wept bitterly and said to the Judge: “I have no one to love me here on earth. I am ready to die.” They were hanged on 31st January, 1982. I was frozen to read this news. This was also another important reason.
I wanted to study from the struggling people and from their real life experiences. My personal questions like: What is the meaning of my religious vocation? Who benefits by my God-given vocation? Can I do what I am doing now without being a religious? What is my special or additional contribution to serve the least and the lost as a religious? Who are the poorest of the poor who needs my intervention?
- What did you learn from your prison ministry?
Tihar Jail is run by Government of Delhi. The prison complex contains altogether sixteen jails with a capacity of 20,000 inmates. A prison is not a normal place. This is a different world altogether.
A prisoner is a human being without a voice. He is confined in a forty square feet space for eighteen hours a day with no privacy and no dignity. The nature of discipline for the innocent and the under-trials is the same as that of hard-core criminals. Due to over-crowding and congestion, sicknesses spread easily. It is very disgusting to pass time in jails. The design of the buildings, the cells and the walls are such that even a normal person will soon become insane and mentally deranged.
Let us remember what Archbishop Fulton Sheen once told the prisoners: “You are caught, I’m not. That is the difference between you and me”. We all make mistakes but we are given a chance to repent but though the prisoners want to prove themselves good, first time itself the chance is denied because of the special conditions of Indian judiciary. All of them may not be criminals. Some are there as victims of circumstances, many others are wrongly accused or some other reasons like poverty, hunger, unemployment, exploitation, irresponsible parents, peer pressure, wrong formation, no formation etc.
The new outlook on prisoners is: Criminals are not born; society makes them that way! People in prisons are still human beings. People should hate the crime, not the criminals. Some are like fish accidentally caught in the net; and have no chance of escaping.
Some are summarily rejected by their family and have no visitors for months together. This causes tremendous mental agony and gradually leads them into deep depression. Hence we, the NGOs, are considered ‘angels’ in the prison.
According to HR Commission, 40% of the under-trials in the prisons are innocent human beings. Not that I call these prisoners I work with blameless. Rather, I also feel the blame within myself, within the human community that leaves them feeling abandoned and without human worth. To speak to them, to love them and to participate in their human agony is a God –experience. To meet them and spend time with them listening to their agonies who are unlawfully implicated and treat them as our own brothers and sisters is spirituality for me. But who cares for them? Who bothers about them?
Often Pope Francis appeals to the authorities to take practical measures, which are urgently needed to improve the living conditions in the prisons. He is pleading with the Governments to abolish the death penalty, where it is still in force and to reconsider the possibility of an amnesty.
- Tell us some of the experiences of the prisoners.
Prison Ministry is not about doing miraculous works among the inmates or securing their release from the prison. It is about our presence and availability. A kind word, a listening heart, a gentle touch, a little smile and concerned look do wonders. Our primary purpose of visiting the prisons is to learn from the inmates. They inspire us.
The inmates’ testimony of faith, their knowledge of the Word of God and their sense of gratitude for our presence, etc., strengthened my faith. They are my benefactors. They teach me many truths of life, like the values of hope, endurance, resilience, sense of gratitude, etc., and deepen our own faith experience. Once what a Christian inmate shared with me is unforgettable:
“Sister, we can bring our problems to the notice of God. We can ask Him what we need. But we should not give our suggestions to God. We cannot give our opinion to God. We don’t need to make decisions for God. We should leave God to be God. He will do great things in His time and in His way”. These moments have helped me to see my life differently.
Our loving presence of course instill the inmates with a sense of remorse for the misdeeds that they have committed. The prisoners suffer from utter loneliness and helplessness. Love seems far away from their life. It is to such persons we are reaching out. The love extended to them in the moment of their darkest hour brings healing, joy, peace, hope and the will to go on with mental stability.
During the Season of Christmas and Lent, the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Eucharistic celebrations are being arranged to bring spiritual consolation and strength to our inmates. As for me, it would be a sense of sheer joy and gratitude for being able to bring and share our Lord with them, who are physically imprisoned; sadness as they are so terribly restrained; fear because of the sight of all the chains and locks and enclosures all around.
The Psalms and the lamentations spoke to me, not only about the trial of Jesus 2000 years ago, but also about the court trials endured by our prisoners I work with at Tihar in collaboration with Prison Ministry of India.
9. In what way can others be involved with such a noble ministry?
Jesus is the founder of Prison Ministry. He inaugurated it on the cross, while He was hanging between those two criminals. He was included in the category of the worst of criminals despite the fact that he was innocent. Hence Prison Ministry is Biblical Ministry, Moral ministry, ethical ministry, human ministry, a spiritual ministry and this is also a Universal Ministry. We can proudly say that this is the only one ministry in the church that involves all sorts of people together–priests, religious, seminarians, lay men and women. Even religious congregations are now contemplating about front-line and relevant ministries. I strongly recommend this ministry to religious where we don’t give much but we gain and learn a lot for our life.
We need to have certain characteristics to involve in this noble ministry.
We have to be persons of non-judgmental and compassion with sustained interest and perseverance: Many show enthusiasm in getting the jail entry pass and visiting the inmates in the excitement for a month and then many lose the original interest and initial zeal. It is not simply a work that we can do there because we are retired or have nothing else to do or we are emotionally charged after attending some seminar about prison ministry. Let there be continuity, and one should be ready to spend quality time with them and listen to their pathetic and heart-rending stories with love and care.
Many have deep seated anger, feelings of revenge, frustration and even suicidal and homicidal tendencies. Counseling them and providing psychological help is important. One can get free legal aid from Advocates friends to help them to get a bail or to be acquitted and also rendering some financial and moral support, when they are released. We can provide medical assistance too with the help of doctors. We can contact their family members by direct visit or through telephones and make efforts to bring reconciliation with their family members.
Arranging for their spiritual needs like Eucharistic celebration, confession and prayer services and Bible- study groups. They often ask for our prayers. They believe that the Lord of history can change their destiny. They have lost everything. But, they say, they can’t afford to lose God. Our assurance of prayers for these unfortunate brothers and sisters will go a long way in removing their feelings of guilt and helplessness and bring hope in their hopeless lives.
What the inmates need is our compassionate presence. Our presence brings them lots of healing and hope and conversion of hearts. They consider us as angels. One inmate said: “If I had met you earlier, I wouldn’t be here in the prison”. Prison ministry is primarily a Ministry of Presence. Our mere presence changes their mood of helplessness. Our presence makes them feel that they have still somebody to care for them and that they are, after all, not forgotten.
Prison Officials admit: “Your language of forgiveness and mercy to the inmates is different from our harsh and crude language. They crave to listen to your soothing voice. Only you can do it.”
Their self-esteem is low. They need to be encouraged. They need to be given hope. Find the broken hearts in dark places searching for the light. Negative words and sometimes even about their own families disown us. The key role is to enable prisoners to see the good things in themselves.
- Anything else you would like to add?
Call to Consecrated life is a grace and a blessing too. But the context of Covid-19 invites us to set right our priorities. This is the time to relook into ourselves and make a sincere introspection of every area of our life and make a paradigm shift. To live a witnessing consecrated life is not complicated or difficult. Our Spirituality is simple. We may have to distinguish between our out-modelled practices of celebrating liturgy, our meaningless celebrations and rituals, our traditional way of running institutions and the fear to launch into new way of living our life courageously. We are not doing anything extra as a religious in our life, if we are not getting out of our comfort zone and cast the net deep into the sea and experience the troubled waters.
May we move from mountain to multitude, from withdrawal to involvement, from dumb silence to passionate service and from merely saying prayers to people experience and from vertical to horizontal relationship. Let us get ready to go through a kind of death experience to start everything afresh. It is time to ask the Spirit: “Come, Oh Holy Spirit! Set our hearts on fire!”
May the freshness of the Holy Spirit blow away unwanted, secondary and non-essential elements from our life and make us Mystics and Missionaries, Message and Messengers, Deeply God-experienced and Prophetic witnesses in our times and in our context.
May this prayer from Upanishads, “Lead us from untruth to truth, from darkness to light and from mortality to immortality” be our guiding inspiration.
“Into that heaven of freedom, my Father and Mother, let our Consecrated Life awake”! (Tagore)
Sr Inigo Joaquim SSA
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