Kindle Other Fires

Fr.Muthu Passed away -

2012-02-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

Fr. Muthu of Baroda Diocese (Earlier he was a Brother in the Society of Jesus – Guj ) died of heart attack on Sunday and his funeral is on 8 Feb – Wednesday at Zaroli at 10.a.m.

Adivasi cultural Fete at Shakti, Songad - Fr. Xavier manjooran

2012-02-03T19:45:00.000-08:00

Adivasi cultural Fete at Shakti, Songad

“I am impressed by the gathering of today and I feel proud to witness the expression of Adivasi culture through the Adivasi pooja and different dances, singing and use of variety of indigenous musical instruments of my Adivasi community” was the spontaneous reaction of Dr. Vikaram Choudhary, Associate professor of Arts and Science college Bardoli who was one of the main guests of the occasion. This summarizes the Cultural fete organized by Adivasi Mahamandal, Adivasi Sarvangi Vikas Sangh, Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre at SHAKTI Songad on 21^st-22 Janaury 2012.

Adivasi cultural fete was an occasion to revive, encourage and strengthen the Adivasi culture and identity. More than 10, 000 people from all over Gujarat and Mharastra were present for the occasion in which many took part in several competitions like drums, bow and arrow, “gilol’, adivasi traditional dress of different communities, folk dances etc.

The fete was also an occasion to increase awareness through handbills and CDs about Adivasi rights and to give information about Right to food, Employment guarantee, Gramsabha,, PESA act and the on going caste-based census.

The chief guest of the ccasion the Collector of Tapi district appreciated the efforts of the organizers and requested the adivasis not to use their talents and abilities for destructive purposes but to fight against corruption, addiction, casteism and fundamentalism. There were also present the additional collector, the Prant officer, the Mamlatdar and also the Chairperson of ST corporation and Tapi District president of BJP, shri Kantibhai Gamit.

What was very encouraging was that besides people coming for the function on their on expenses they have contributed over 1.5 lakh rupees towards the expenses of the function.

The entire event was planned, organized and managed, by the staff of Shakti and the members of the people’s organization under the leadership of the young and dynamic new director Shri Ramesh Tadvi.

Xavier Manjooran

Motivating MOTIF - Fr. Girish

2012-01-31T05:04:00.000-08:00

Motivating MOTIF

Motif is a BPO and KPO service provider, serving Fortune 500 and mid-market companies in the US and Europe through its delivery centres in Ahmedabad (India), Manila (Philippines) and San Jose (

Costa Rica

). It encourages a strong sense of social awareness through a range of philanthropic activities organized by its employees. The objective is to create health awareness and raise funds once in life time for the selected charitable NGOs through public participation. The event is supported by individual contributions and corporate sponsorships in form of cheques written directly in the name of the beneficiary NGOs. Motif matches ` 150/- for every registered participant. The 10^th Annual Motif Charity Walk for 5 kms is scheduled on Sunday 12 February at 7 a.m. from LD Engineering College ground Ahmedabad. After much scrutiny, for this year, Motif has chosen four esteemed beneficiary NGOs from Gujarat. One of them is our Unteshwari Mata Maria Trust – Centre for community-based rehabilitation which specially enables Inclusive Education for Disabled Children. We express our sincere heart-felt appreciation for their pure and clean choice!

The Founder Director of Motif Mr Kaushal Mehta while addressing for the first time the Directors/representatives of the four NGOs humbly acknowledged that as a student of St Xavier’s Loyola Hall he was highly motivated and inspired by late Fr R. Erviti, pioneer of St Xavier’s Social Service Society. With such a strong conviction and the ongoing experiential knowledge of corporate social responsibility, he and his team of employees joyfully invite all to join in this leading charity event of our Ahmedabad Mega City and lend support through sponsorship and participation. Welcome for this novel, yet different kind of ‘charity walking pilgrimage’ – Motif sahayak padyatra! This time, encourage your neighbour to walk with you not towards Unteshwari but for the noble cause of Unteshwari. Consider this as a Special Sunday Sacramental Service. Finally, we’ll value your penny, presence and participation. May God bless the motivating motto of MOTIF – “Together, we will make a difference...” (Girish)

Gujarat Province Days

2012-01-26T02:02:00.000-08:00

Holy Land Church in 3D

2012-01-26T01:20:00.000-08:00

Holy Land Church in 3D

This is really something.
You might say
it's the next best thing
to being there.

The technology is incredible.

Holy Land Church in 3D

This is amazing. It is your trip
to the Holy Land .
View the Church in 3D.

When you open up the site,
you can let the program run through
all the pictures.

When it comes up, double click on
the big screen picture to see it full screen.

You can also go to the bottom of the picture and
click on one of

the smaller pics.

and
with your cursor move
the picture
up and down

as well - all the way up
to the ceiling.
Makes you feel like
you are right there!

To view Click on the link below.

http://www.360tr.com/kudus/kiyamet_eng/index.html
http://www.360tr.com/kudus/kiyamet_eng/index.html

Click on one of the pictures and
use curser
to scroll up
and around each picture.

You can

see all the way around each room,
plus from floor to ceiling!

"Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Knowledge is limited:

Imagination encirles the World."

Albert Einstein

St.Francis Xavier's Miracle in Goa.

2012-01-18T19:09:00.001-08:00

St. Francis Xavier’s `Miracle in Goa…revealed for the first time

Mr. Filomeno Diogo reveals a personal story of saving Goa from destruction by the Portughese at the time of liberation in 1961.

Mr. Filomeno Diogo Jacinto da Silva says “As the 50th anniversary year of Liberation and the Feat of St Francis Xavier are both coming soon, I wish to cite my personal experience of a miracle that occurred before the Liberation of Goa on 19 December 1961, because of which, I feel, Goa was saved from total destruction”.

Identifying himself he says, “Endowed with the natural talent for playing the violin, I was recruited in the Portuguese military in 1958. I went to Portugal in 1959 for my Sergent Militian course, and returned to Goa in 1960. From 17 October 1961, I started working for Emmisora do Goa, which later became part of All India Radio (AIR), where I served till my retirement in 1993”.

Narating the crucial event he says, “After the Indian army crossed the Goa border on 18 December 1961, I was called up as a reservist to defend Goa. The Portuguese administration realised that the Indian Army would be victorious, so 100 soldiers were deputed to the Shrine of St Francis Xavier, to lift the casket containing the holy relics and put it aboard the last airplane to leave Goa, specially flown from in Portugal, piloted by Solome de Almeida”.

According to him, “In the presence of the Bishop, the Governor and the Secretary inside the closed Basilica, the force of 100 soldiers was not able to lift the casket, containing the immortal body of St Francis Xavier”. This he considers as a miracle which changed the course of events.

“Witnessing this miracle, the Governor who had been ordered by Salazar to destroy Goa was forced to change his mind, as carrying out of the orders would also destroy the immortal relics of the Patron Saint of Goa and Defender of the East” according to him.

He is convinced that it was the powerful intervention of St Francis Xavier that saved tiny Goa from turning into ashes.

Source:Herald – Letters to the Editor column

Joseph Mattam, SJ

Sneh Jyoti, SEVASI,

Backpack Journalism: -Fr.Lawrence Dharmaraj s.j

2012-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

Backpack Journalism:

To view a short documentary
Clink on the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGekLuYgew&feature=youtu.be

St Xavier’s College in collaboration with Marquette University Wisconsin conducted a course on ‘Backpack Journalism’ at Xavier’s premises from 01Jan to 15Jan 2012. About 30 students benefited from this programme. On the Day of Inauguration on 01 Jan, the senior editor of ‘India Today’ Mr Uday Mahurkar delivered a key note address to the students and challenged the students to adhere to the ethics and morality in presenting the news. Fr Jose Changanacherry emphasized the need of instant communication in the globalized world and kindled the heart of the budding journalists to become voice of the voiceless and marginalized in getting their rights and dignity. Dr Steve Byers of J.William and Mary Diedierich College of communication graced the occasion as guest of Honour. It is for the second time that the ‘Backpack Journalism’ has been organized at St Xavier’s College by an experienced Backpack Journalist Fr Vinayak Jadav-the course coordinator of the Faculty.

Fr.Lawrence Dharmaraj s.j

Ordination at Unteshwari - By Prasad Bhai

2011-12-29T05:41:00.000-08:00

To view the Ordination ceremony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhbCg6fF5Co&feature=player_embedded

Report:

Over 2300 laity, 84 sisters, 93 priests, and 2 bishops got together to ordain Kamlesh Kantilal Raval SJ and Kiran Dahyabhai Gohil (orig. Umreth ) of the Gandhinagar archdiocese. Their appointment places, Bhiloda and Deesa respectively, made a good chunk of this melo gathering on the sand-lawns of Unteshwari on 27^th. December ’11 at 10.30 am.

Many played their part well in this collaborative achievement: Sr. Binita of Kalol St Ann’s got the entrance dance done; Deesa parish supplied two Chatris for thesamaiyu and two backdrop banners of Jagprakash Isu blessing the two deacons; Mandali Raju SJ guided the Sanman Vidhi of garlands/shawls/sanmanpatra and the release of ‘The History of North Gujarat Mission Vol. II’ ed. Jose Panadan SJ.; Mandali Gariz Bapu arranged sponsors for the bountiful five-course meal; Sandhya Vishram’s Sr. Jyotsna coordinated the choir of Unteshwari youth while Sr. A. Mary arranged the samaiyu baheno; Madhurya Bhavan sisters supplied the impeccable vestments and over-all needs for the Rite and Mass; the Gujarat SJ supplied the Provincial, Socius, and Kamlesh; The Ahmedabad diocese supplied Rev. Bishop Thomas and Kiran; The Gandhinagar archdiocese supplied the acolytes, a V.G., and Rev. Archbishop and hopefully some of the expenses; Kantibhai and Champaben Raval and Dahyabhai and Susheelaben Gohil offered their sons; Unteshwari parish filled in the blanks; and God, our beloved Bapu, smiled on everything with UPS, water, goodwill, and plentiful outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

The happiest man on earth was Gariz Bapu who quoted Pope Benedict XIV to explain why there is greater joy in one priest’s ordination than in thousands of converts. After three professed sisters, this first ordination from the Ravals mahor maryu on the rooting of the N. Guj. Church.

The next day, 28^th. Dec. at Kalol, the same sisters-priests, diocesan-jesuits, N. Guj.-Kheda coworking was repeated. The first mass and the lipsmacking lunch were the fruit of days of hard work of Kalol parishioners with Velankanni, James Savari and Alex Thannipara. The day’s celebrations had three parts: the samaiyu from gate to Church; Kamlesh’s Mass with Archbishop Stanny and Fr. Provincial Changa sj,; and the sanman of all – the ordained, the ordainer, the 12 priests, and the 14 sisters present. The faithful faithfully rendered,”Bolo Isu Bhagwanki Jai, Unteshwari Mataki Jai, Satgurudevaki jai” the number of times over twice the number of those sanmanned. The ceremony ended with a long line of gifts and greetings of those dear to Kamlesh. Kiran’s full troupe attended but had to leave before 2 pm to reach Umreth in time for his first mass at five pm. May Our Lord keep blessing Kamlesh and Kiran on the long road of priestly ministry they have just begun.

Bishop Francis L Braganza, SJ - By Fr.Vincent Saldanha

2011-12-29T04:22:00.000-08:00

Bishop Francis L Braganza, SJ

(1922 - 2011)

Born in Bandra on January 1922 to Leo and Sophia Braganza, Francis was the fourth of ten children five of whom (two boys and three girls) were chosen by the Lord to be religious. Francis and his brother Joe joined the Society of Jesus to work in the vineyard of the Gujarat Mission to ‘till it and it keep it’ in 1938. And did he do it with a vengeance! Ordained On November 1951 he was sent to Columbia University (USA) to do his post graduate studies. He promptly returned to Gujarat to start St Xavier’s College with two other companions. As Joe said “in addition to full-time teaching he was Vice-Principal of the College, warden of the hostel, supervisor of the laboratories, taxidermist, official photographer, hockey coach, chauffeur, handyman and trouble-shooter, to say nothing of his priestly ministries.” But then he had ‘other sheep to tend’ and ‘vineyards to work in.’ So, in 1956 he was appointed Rector of Rosary School, Vadodara, and then became the Vice Provincial of Gujarat from 1962 to 1967. From 1967 to 1970 he was Assistant to the then Superior General of the Society of Jesus Fr. Pedro Arrupe. He spurned the offer become the Bishop of Jamshedpur and returned to the College as Principal from 1970 to 1980. Then he was appointed Bishop of Vadodara in 1987. In 1997 upon reaching 75 he promptly resigned as Bishop.

He then returned to his first vineyard - St Xavier’s College. He kept himself busy looking after the finances of the College Society for a number of years. He was all of 80 when he took over as the first Director of XICA (Xavier Institute of Computer Application). But during all that time you would find him pottering around the garden of the Xavier Residence helping snails and slugs meet their messy end, turning a leaf inside out to dispatch a caterpillar or worm, or to feel the texture of leaf and flower (to say nothing of the lettuce and the celery, the broccoli and the parsley, the brinjal and the lady finger), speaking to himself or attempting to sing to the plants, keeping the monkeys and peacocks away from the fruits of his garden with a clap of his hands, his stick or his airgun. Often there was a running battle between him and them each trying to outmaneuvre the other. Francis couldn’t sit idle and so kept his mind and heart alert doing sudoku in the warmth of the rising or setting sun.

Francis had a very sensitive heart. He felt very deeply for the poor, the clergy, the religious sisters and, above all, the Society. He suffered with those who suffered and rejoiced with those who rejoiced. Wherever he went and whatever he did, Francis cared for the people who were under his charge - as a Jesuit, an educationist, a bishop. As Bishop he “organised a network of health centres headed by sisters belonging to various congregations, and proposed schemes to NGOs for their assistance. He also helped and encouraged sisters to start mahila mandals, and saving and lending schemes. He set up a gratuity fund for primary school teachers and catechists, and a group insurance policy for the priests of te diocese.” He would meet well-wishers and troubled souls giving them a patient hearing or a earful, monetary assistance or spiritual advice as required.. He passionately guarded both his garden and the confidential matters people shared with him. He was indeed a man for others - a man for the people! He went about his work quietly and efficiently, with a sense of purpose and commitment and with a deep love for the Lord. He left us suddenly and yet quietly with his boots on to meet his Lord and Master on December 21, 2011.

He was with us on a mission, and - God knows - he accomplished it with a passion. He taught us to live life with dignity, to face the many worldly cares with serenity. He taught us to find solace in prayer, that there is untold strength in brotherly care. And as we miss his presence among us, we salute him and his legacy as fellow human being, Jesuit and friend.

Fr. Vincent Saldanha, sj

Bishop Francis Braganza Passed away

2011-12-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

We are sorry to inform you about the passing away of Bishop Francis Braganza around 10.00 a.m on Wednesday 21 December 2011 at Xavier’s residence in Ahmedabad. The funeral will be held on Thursday 22 December 2011 at 4.00 P.M in the Rosary Church Baroda. - Socius.

Bio Data of Bishop Francis Braganza

Bishop Francis Braganza tells his own story

Kindly click on the link given here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lr6ADa3FS1M

Born:29-01-1922 at Bandra Mumbai

Entered SJ:28-05-1938 at Shembaganur

Ordained as Priest:21 November 1951.

Responsibilities Held:

Professor at St.Xavier’s Ahmedabad 1956-1961

Rector at Rosary, Baroda 1961- 1962

Vice Provincial of Gujarat 1963-1968

Assistant to the General: 1967- 1970

Principal of St.Xavier’s Ahmedabad 1970 – 1980

Bishop of Baroda 1987-1997

Emeritus Bishop: 1998-2011

2011-12-17T08:11:00.000-08:00

Spiritual Exercises In Gujarati Part -3

કામમાં વ્યસ્ત રહેતા લોકો માટે ધ્યાન (રીટ્રીટ) ભાગ -૩

આપણું સદ્દભાગ્ય કહેવાય કે સમાજમાં અમુક કુટંબો છે જે આપણને પ્રભુના પ્રેમની પ્રતીતિ કરાવે છે. પ્રભુના બિનશરતી પ્રેમનો અનુભવ કરવા માટે નીચેના વીડિઓ ઉપર ક્લિક કરશો

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GWEQdgS3jHg&noredirect=1

વહાલા શ્રધાળુઓ

ઈશ્વરે આપેલ દસ આજ્ઞાઓમાં પ્રેમની આજ્ઞા સર્વોપરી છે. દરેક આજ્ઞા પ્રથમ દ્રષ્ટિએ જોતા એવું લાગે કે તે નકારાત્મક છે છતા, જો ઊંડાણથી તેની ઉપર ધ્યાન દોરીએ તો ખ્યાલ આવશે કે તે સર્વ પ્રેમનોજ પંથ બતાવે છે.

આ બધીજ    આજ્ઞાઓથી કહી શકાય કે ભગવાન આપણી સ્વતંત્રતા ઉપર પ્રતિબંધ મુકવા માંગતો નથી, ઇસુનો પંથ બિનશરતી પ્રેમનો પંથ છે કારણ પ્રભુ ઇસુ પ્રેમ નો અવતાર છે, પ્રેમ સ્વરૂપ પરમેશ્વર માણસો ઉપર કેટલો બધો પ્રેમ રાખે છે એ માણસો જોઈ શકે , સ્પર્શી શકે ને અનુભવી શકે એટલા ખાતર જ ઇસુ આ દુનિયામાં આવ્યા હતા. કૃશ ઉપર મરણને ભેટીને તેઓ સૌ માનવીઓ પ્રત્યેના પોતાના અપાર પ્રેમનો પુરાવો આપ્યો હતો અને પોતાના શિષ્યોને એવી આજ્ઞા અપાતા ગયા કે  " મેં જેમ તમારા ઉપર પ્રેમ રાખ્યો છે તેમ તમારે પરસ્પર પ્રેમ રાખવાનો છે "

(માથ્થી ૨૨: ૩૭-૪૦ )નું પઠન કરવાથી વધુ અનુભૂતિ થઇ શકે.

"તારે તારા પ્રભુ પરમેશ્વર ઉપર તારા પુરા હૃદયથી , તારા પુરા જીવથી અને તારા પુરા માંથી પ્રેમ રાખવો .... ને તારા માંનાવ્બંધુ ઉપર તારી જાત જેટલો પ્રેમ રાખવો. સમગ્ર શાસ્ત્રનો આધાર એ બે આજ્ઞાઓ છે "

વધુ મનન ચિંતન માટે ઉપરનો વિડીયો નિહાળશો, આજ ભાગ માટે વધુ મદદરૂપ થતા પાયાની બાબતો અગામી ભાગમાં રજુ કરવામાં આવશે.

સાર :

"પ્રેમનો પંથ'' By Fr.Lawrence Dharmaraj s.j આ પુસ્તકના અનુવાદક રેવ. ફા. ઇસુદાસ ક્વેલી એસ. જે.નો ખુબ ખુબ અભાર.

આપ સર્વે તરફથી જે મોટો પ્રતિસાદ આ શ્રેણી માટે મળ્યો છે અને તમે દરેકને ઈ-મેઈલ કરીને આ શ્રેણી ના ભાગીદાર બનાવ્યા છે તે બદલ BBN હૃદયપૂર્વક અભાર માને છે

The Golden Jubilee of Arrival to India: Fr.Lawrence Dharmaraj and Fr.Civiac

2011-12-16T19:41:00.000-08:00

The Golden Jubilee of Arrival to India:

19 December 2011, deserved to be engraved in letters of Gold and need to be displyed on every Jesuit noticeboard of our province, as it marks the occasion of the golden arrival of our three Spanish Jesuits to India: Fr Dastis Luis, Fr Civiac Joaquin and Fr Inaki Bereciartua.

THE FOUR DREAMERS - by Fr Civiac J

It was a windy and cold morning when 4 young Jesuits of Castilla Oriental, Spain, were boarding the French ship “Laos” on their way to India.The name of those dreamers were: Fr L Dastis ( already a priest) and the Scholastics I Berechi, J Civiac and L Imaz ( later on left the Society) . Fr L Dastis was of course, the Superior. The harbour was Marseille, France. That day was 8 December 1961, the feast of the Immaculate Conception - a most propitious day to start a new life.

The “Marseille-Bombay’s” 11 days journey was uneventful. Young French Air-Force officers were with us. They were going to Vietnam. They knew for sure that France was fighting there a losing war and that perhaps some of them would die there for nothing. I was impressed by their sense of discipline and self-sacrifice.

December 19 was our day of arrival. It was a splendid morning. Countless ships were in the harbour. Mumbai gave us the feeling that it was a metropolis without end. All the passengers were on the deck. The silence was absolute: The loud-speakers of the Laos were informing that the first Indian planes had started that very morning, bombing military targets in Goa and Diu…!

Fr Fabrat and Br Abril with their perennial smile were waiting for us. According to Br Abril the Customs Officer that would check our luggages was a good friend of him . Our personal luggage, as it was the rule in those days, was minimum to say something. But with us, and I still ignore why in my name, were coming about 40 boxes.

By 09 O´clock all those 40 cases were already in the huge Customs Hall. Only then our Customs Officer appeared. He was singing loudly in Spanish “Cielito Lindo”, --“Beautiful little Heaven—“,one of my favourite old Mexican songs. He greeted us in Portuguese. We were amazed and happy to be in his hands. Br Abril gave him the list of things contained in every box and disappeared from the Customs Hall. Mean while Fr Fabrat was our Guardian Angel.

We were enjoying our first Indian tea,when we heard through the loud speakers of the Customs Hall: “Mister Civiac…!” We looked at each other. It was our Customs Officer! He seemed to be pretty upset.This time he was talking English and loudly: “In which language of the world, tape-recorders and medicines are called by the same word…?” Aparently list and objects in the containers were not always agreeing. Neither Fr Fabrat nor me knew what to reply. About 6 or 7 times more I had to hear that morning that “Mister Civiac” and always with the same caustic remarks. What was left of “that good friend of Br Abril”,of his Portuguese and of “Cielito Lindo…”?

Meanwhile a Mother Superior appeared there to welcome us. Some of the cases were for them. When talking with us she realized that she had forgotten her bag in one of the shops. And in the bag were some dollars. She simply smiled: “That money is for the poor”. She didn´t say a single word more and left to search for the bag. One hour later she was back with the bag and the money. She smiled again: “This money is for the poor.!” It was more than obvious that the Divine Providence was in the pocket of that M.Superior

Br Abril appeared at last when most of the containers had been already checked up. He didn´t comment anything about the repeated “Mister Civiac” and consequent remarks that he himself had to hear too once or twice more. All the same his smile had disappeared. He had brought with him several trucks to take the cases to Anand. After paying the Customs duties his smile was back again: The Customs duties had been as low as possible and the whole of “Mister Civiac” as he knew by now from the Customs Officer himself, had been only a “natak”, a comedy as he had to translate for us.

Who can imagine a more fitting introduction to our new Indian way of life?. To start with we had been taught the first practical lesson about Indian psychology. Then the Lord had shown us through that M.Superior, that His Divine Providence would be as much part of our daily life as the tea at 10 O´clock or the bargaining when shopping. Besides that on that day I had learnt my first Gujarati word…”Natak.’

A Brief Biodata

1.Fr.Dastis Luis

Fr Dstis. was Born and brought up in a family with a long and rich tradition of sturdy catholic faith, vibrant piety, deep devotion and abundant vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

He hails form a very deep religious city-Zaragosa, a city closely linked with great saints in Jesuit history such as Joseph Pignatelli, Francis Borgia and Aloysius Gonzaga.

In Anand he succeeded in combining the coldness of the numbers-keeping accounts and the Zeal and enthusiasm for pastoral work. Later on as a pastor in the places such as Gothada he had shown contagious faith, great courage, constancy, perseverance, determination and enthusiasm.His life as a Jesuit and his work as a missionary are certainly examples that younger Jesuits would want to emulate.

At present he is in Zaragoza, Spain.

2. Fr Joaquim Civiac

It was in his childhood, from his mother, who was a young widow, that Civiac learnt to face life with grit and determination.

Civiac is not only a multi-linguist, including Greek which he taught as a regent and still keeps fresh by reading the New Testament in Greek daily, he is a ‘citizen of the world’ a native of Spain who has been of service in India, Italy, France and the USA.(California).. riding through unexpected tracks. His first appointment as a young priest was to Milan, for the magazine Missioni.He spent a year (October 1997 to November 1998) in Milan and Paris. He returned to Gujarat for his tertianship. In Ahmedabad, under the direction of the illustrious Fr Conget, he went to the Gujarat Vidyapith for 10 months as a resident student of Gujarati.

He was then sent to Anklao, on one of those proverbial “stop gap” appointments—which ended up by his being there for over 12 years (1971-1984). Afetr five years of break in Spain and Califonia, he returned to Gujarat, spending few months first in Khambhat, then Vadtal, till he was appointed to kathlal in June 1996.

Now he is happily serving in the Khambhat mission.

3. Fr Inaki Bereciaartua

He is fellow citizen of Master Inigo from whom he seem to have inherited the spirit of indomitable commitment to the mission of Christ. He spent 40 years of dedicated service in the Dediapada Mission. Now this has grown into 3 different mission centres with their education institutions, hostels for boys and girls, convents and a beautiful church and a shrine for Mother Mary at Korvi. Added to these, is the actual economic and social development, result of the various projects related to cattle farming and milk cooperatives that he initiated. At presnt he has moved to a small mission centre ‘Nani Singaloti’ which is the offshoot of the Dediapada mission.

GOLDEN CONGRATULATIONS!!

Golden Jubliee of the Unai Mission:- By Fr.Joseph Parmar

2011-12-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

Golden Jubliee of the Unai Mission:
By Fr.Joseph Parmar

It was Rev Fr Francisco Zubeldia who began this mission by making trips from Surat by way back in 1959.

Fr Albert Innurategui bought a piece of land and set up a small hostel-cum-residence called Jivan Jyot Kumar Chhatralaya at Khambhalia(1962), a village hardly a kilometer away from today’s developed Unai town.

The relief operations during the drought stricken years from 1964-67 helped, Fr Albert (1964-67) to emerge as a real Hero and the friend of villagers. Many of the small ‘kachcha’ roads built during those years are still afresh in the memories of the aged here.

This altruistic nature of the missionaries and their endeavours in education through primary schools and boardings have become a living example of the True disciples of Christ for our people. Fr Francisco Gabbare (1967-68), though did not last long, did contribute through his lively example as a dedicated missionary. His mortal remains at Unai remind us of his dedicated service.

Fr J M Navarro (1969-79) was another great man in building this mission through his ever enthusiastic nature. From here he penetrated the thick forests of the South Surat District and reached the doors of the Dangs District. He even began Milk cooperatives in some villages of Dangs operating from Unai. Indeed he was a visionary who could look into the future for his people!

Fr Ignas Galdos (1980-2001), with the experience of Zankhvav Mission, he consolidated this mission. With his incessant efforts, he shifted the Khambhalia Primary School to Unai and thus began a new chapter in this Mission. Today, Vidhya Kiran High School (1983), is one of the few who competes for the first rank in the Navsari District. The Jivan Jyot Kumar Chhatralaya and the Vedruna Niketan Kanya Chhatralaya cater to the needy students from Sagbara Taluka to Songadh and from Uchchal to Nizar talukas of the newly created Tapi Distirct.

The Religious Sisters have been the second-in-command along with their Jesuit missionaries or pioneers since the beginning of the Mission. The Vedruna Niketan Sisters have remained a constant support through their services to womenfolk, dispensary, etc. Truly, the Unai Mission is the fruit of the dedicated and combined efforts of the committed disciples of Christ –the Priests, the Sisters, the Catechists and a whole hoard of well wishers of the institute in and around Unai. As the Mission celebrates its Golden Jubilee of its inception may the Good Lord reward the generosity of these men and women in His own gracious measure!

JESUIT DIAMONDS FROM SPAIN - By M. Diaz-Garriz SJ

2011-12-16T04:40:00.000-08:00

JESUIT DIAMONDS FROM SPAIN

By M. Diaz-Garriz SJ

Introduction

The Italian steam-ship Ugolini Vivaldi weighed anchors at the Bombay harbour in the early hours of 21 December 1951. On board were 12 young Jesuits from the Province of East Castille (Spain) bound for Gujarat: Francisco Zubeldia, Juan G. Jordana, Luis M. Moreta, Isudas Cueli, Luis M. Zavala, Salaberria, Manuel Diaz-Garriz, Ignacio Galdos, Juan J. Morondo, Joaquim Bandres, Pedro Nagore, Jose A. Arroyo.

This year we celebrate the 60^th anniversary of the arrival of these missionary diamonds to our land and soil.

Backdrop

The Spanish Jesuit province of Castille was established by St Ignatius himself. On 16 July 1948 it was divided into East Castille and West Castille, when it counted more than one thousand members. The Castille Province had been sending missionaries to

China

from the beginning of the 20th century. At the end of World War II (1939-1945), when

China

became independent of Japanese occupation, the Jesuits were looking forward to a very bright future in the Chinese missions. Unfortunately, under their legendary leader Mao-Tse-Tung the Chinese communists had started a long and bloody civil war. The continuous advance of the communist troops made it impossible for new missionaries to enter

China

Under these circumstances Fr J. B. Janssens, the General of the Society of Jesus, directed that the newly established East Castille Province should take up missionary work in Gujarat, which was dependent on the missionaries of the Bombay Mission who were sent from the province of Aragon (

Spain

Spanish Missionaries in Gujarat

The first batch of six Jesuits (all of whom had previously received the formal appointment to

China

) arrived in Ahmedabad city in February 1949.

Since there were no direct international flights from Europe to Asia at the time, the Jesuits had to change flights several times on their itinerary: Madrid-Rome, Rome-Athens, Athens-Karachi, Karachi-Ahmedabad. The 6 pioneers are: Hilario Azpitarte, Miguel Angel Urrutia, Ignacio Ordonez, Jose Luis Lopetegui, Ramon Eizaguirre and Felix Ilarraz. Of this group, only Fr I. Ordonez is still happily with us.

The second group that came to Gujarat comprised of 22 members. They came by plane in November of that same year, 1949. Accompanying them was the Provincial of East Catille, Fr Fernando Arellano. On that flight with them was the first bishop of Ahmedabad diocese, Edwin Pinto SJ, who had chosen to be consecrated in Zaragoza, Spain, as a symbol of solidarity with the large number of Spanish Jesuits working in Gujarat. Bishop Pinto had been nominated in May 1949 as the first bishop of the newly established Diocese of Ahmedabad, separated from the Archdiocese of Bombay.

The third batch programmed to arrive during the year 1950, in fact was slightly delayed and arrived in

India

by boat in January 1951.

The diamond jubilarians

The fourth batch is that of this year’s jubilarians.

The 12 Spanish stalwarts from the East Castile Province appointed to the then Ahmedabad Mission, had to first cross the international Bridge between Spain and France at Irun on foot. The European Union did not exist at that time and the international frontiers were taken very seriously. Boarding a train at Hendaya, they travelled the whole length of France to arrive at Genova in

Italy

36 hours later.

They left Spain by crossing on foot the international Bridge between Spain and France at Irun. The European Union did not exist at that time and the international frontiers were taken very seriously. They received a warm welcome from the Jesuit community in Genova. On 1 December 1951 they embarked for

India

on the Italian Steamer Ugolini Vivaldi. On the feast of St Francis Xavier the vessel docked for a day in Naples and the travellers were allowed to go on land and spend the day with their Jesuit brethren there. Then en route the 21-day voyage, the ship had stop-overs at Alexandria, Egypt and Karachi, Pakistan. They finally arrived in Bombay on 21 December 1951.

The group proceeded to Vinayalaya, the Jesuit Noviciate-Juniorate of the Bombay province. The rector, historian Fr Jerome Aixala, joyfully welcomed these very important reinforcements for the Gujarat Mission. He also informed them about a very significant event that had taken place on the feast of the Patron of the Missions, St Francus Xavier, in Anand, Gujarat: the ordination to the priesthood of the first-ever Gujarati priest Fr Basil Lalabhai Parmar!

Brief biodata

(Note: The names are listed according to the order in the photo, from left to right.)

1. Francisco Zubeldia

Born 20-10-1919. Joined SJ 19-9-1935. Ordained 30-7-1950. Died 26-1-2000.

Pioneer of the South Gujarat Missions (Vyara, Mandal…)

Rector of Anand Community.

Parish Priest in Surat.

Secretary to the Baroda Bishop, Rt Rev Francis Braganza and Diocesan Procurator.

His very special and personal apostolate was the Explanation of the Act of Contrition to non-Catholic students. In this personal ministry, he was able to visit several hundreds of schools and High Schools and to contact no less than 400 thousand students of the upper classes.

2. Br Juan G. Jordana (partly hidden by his own cap)

B. 27-12-1919. SJ. 27-3-1947. D. 26.5.2004.

He was a medical Doctor and Dentist and practised his profession for many years in our houses of Anand and Loyola Hall.

Went back to

Spain

for health reasons in 1982.

3. Luis Maria Moreta

B.10-12-1927. SJ. 26-9-1946. O. 24-3-1961.

Founder of the Ankleshwar Mission.

Assistant Director, Ankleshwar Technical.

He has had a special charism to deal with Youngsters.

4. Isudas Cueli

B. 24-12-1930. SJ. 3-9-1949. O. 24-3-1962.

His name is inseparable from that immense achievement of his, the Sampurna Bible… He was PCF for several years and for many more years spiritual Director of many of our Scholastics.

5. Luis Maria Zavala

B. 21-1-1914. SJ. -. O. 1944. D. 4-5-2000.

He joined the Society after being for several years a diocesan priest and personal secretary to the Bishop of Vitoria.

He began as assistant parish priest in Anand. Then parish priest of Mehendabad/ Khatlal. And then for many years assistant at Petlad. Everybody called him the Pavitra Father. He was a gentle saint, a living example of simple piety and union with God.

6. Salaberria

He left for

Spain

barely one year after his arrival.

7. Manuel Diaz-Garriz

B. 26-5-1932. SJ. 6-7-1949. O. 24-3-1962.

Pioneer in N.G. He thanks our Blessed Mother who inspired and helped him to build Unteshwari.

Assistant Parish Priest of Mandali.

For the last thirty years he has taught Church History in Newman Hall and Sevasi.

8. Ignacio Galdos

B. 31-7-1931. SJ. 3-9-1949. O. 24-3-1962

Founder of Zankhvav, Unai and Bardipada.

Pioneer of inculturation in the field of Adivasi culture in South Gujarat.

Parish Priest of Bardipada.

9. Juan J. Morondo

B. 25-9-1928. SJ. 7-9-1947. O. 24-3-1961

Taught for 50 years in St Xavier’s – Loyola Hall

Best Teacher Award, Ekalvaya Life –Achievement Award

Harward university (

USA

) Award for Ideal Inspirer of young talents

Respected as Guru by His Holiness Acharya Tejendraprasad Pande, Supreme Head of the Swaminarayan (Kalupur).

Inmensely dear to his innumerable old students.

At present he is at Javier (Xavier’s Castle in

Spain

[Fr Valentin Oteiza, Director of the Gujarat mission Secretariat in

Spain

. He had accompanied the group up to

Italy

10. Br Joaquim Bandres

B. 23-8-1929. SJ. 8-5-1946. D. 14.6.2008

A trained infirmarian who spent years of humble and dedicated service to ours and to the poor people of the surrounding areas in Nadiad and Anand. He was specially dear to our own scholastics in Premal Jyoti. He went back to

Spain

on medical advice due to a heart condition.

11. Br Pedro Nagore

He was a specialist in agriculture. His first and only appointment was at Anand.

For health reasons he was compelled to go back to Spain after only 5 years in

India

12. Jose A. Arroyo

B. 28-9-1931. SJ. 14- 9 -1949. O. 24-3-1962

He was an eminent professor of Psychology at St Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad, and an equally eminent Sports Master. He also taught at XLRI Jamshedpur.

He spent many years as professor in several Jesuit Institutions in the

Presently he resides in Salvador College, Zaragoza, Spain.

Fr. Mathew Kochupura Passed away

2011-12-11T05:27:00.000-08:00

Fr.Mathew Kochupura

Born : 03 March 1954

Entered SJ:31 August 1976

Ordained: 15 May 1989

Died: 11 December 2011

We regret to announce the sudden demise of Fr.Mathew Kochupura (Guj) 57/35, on 11 December 2011 in Mandali, at 1.30 P.M. The funeral will be held on 12 December in the College Church, Ahmedabad at 4.00p.m.

Thanksgiving _ Spiritual Exercises in Gujarati Part- 2

2011-12-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving _ Spiritual Exercises in Gujarati Part- 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgSTZFS9-bA

ઉપરના વિડિઓમાં આણંદમાં થયેલ અકસ્માતમાં ચમત્કારિક રીતે બચી ગયેલ વ્યક્તિની પ્રભુ પ્રત્યેની લાગણી પણ રજુ કરવામાં આવી છે. આગામી ભાગમાં લાંબા સમયથી કોમામાં રહેલ યુવતી અને તેના પ્રત્યે માતા-પિતાનો અગાધ પ્રેમ રજુ કરવામાં આવશે.

કામમાં વ્યસ્ત રહેતા લોકો માટે ધ્યાન (રીટ્રીટ) ભાગ -૨

વિષય- આભાર

આજે પ્રભુનો કેવી રીતે આભાર માની શકીએ તે માટેના પાયાની અને મદદ થઇ શકે તે માટેની સામગ્રી
ઈશ્વરે બક્ષેલી તમામ શક્તિઓ તેમજ ભેટોની કદર કરું તેમજ તેનું સાચું મૂલ્ય પારખું એવી આજે મારી ઈચ્છા છે. મારી જીવન ની યાત્રામાં સર્જનની આ બધી ભેટોને તે પોષતો રહે છે.

જેમ કુંભાર ઘડાને આકાર આપ્યા કરે છે, જેમ ચિત્રકાર કુદરતી સૌન્દર્યને ચિતરવામાં પીંછી ચલાવ્યા કરે છે, તેમ મને સોળે કળાએ ખીલવવા તે સતત કાર્યશીલ રહે છે.

વધુ મદદ માટે નીચે આપેલ શાસ્ત્રપાઠોનું વાંચન કરી શકાય.

ઈર્મીયા ૧૮ : ૧-૬ ( કુંભાર નો ઘડો )
ઉત્પત્તિ ૧ : ૨૪ - ૨ : ૩ (સર્જનલીલા)

ટેકારૂપ મુદ્દાઓ:

- કુટુંબનો ફોટો આલ્બમ લો અને એમાં કંડારાયેલી પ્રત્યેક પળોને માણો ને ઈશ્વરનો આભાર માનો

- પોતાની જીવન ગાથા ઉપર દ્રષ્ટી નાંખવી, તેમાં રહેલ અનેકવિધ શક્તિઓની નોંધ કરી એમની કદર
કરવી
- જીવન ગાથામાં વિસરાઈ જવાયેલ મધુર સ્મરણોને ફરી તાજા કરી શકાય

વધુ માટે વિડિઓ નિહાળો તેનાથી વધુ મદદ મળી શકશે.

આ સુંદર શ્રેણી ને સફળ બનાવવા માટે રોમિકા જોન્સન , એકતા પરમાર અને કપીલાબેન આર પરમાર તથા રમેશ યોહાકીમ પરમારના BBN આભારી છે.

આ શ્રેણીના વિડિઓ યુટ્યુબ ડાઉનલોડરથી તમારા માટે ડાઉનલોડ કરી શકાશે.

E-Retreat in Gujarati based on Spiritual Exercises Part- 1

2011-12-08T20:31:00.000-08:00

E-Retreat in Gujarati based on Spiritual Exercises Part- 1

વિડિઓ ઉપર ક્લિક કરી હવે તમે જાતેજ પ્રભુમય થઇ શકો છો

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIlkaMQBgzE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIlkaMQBgzE

સિદ્ધિઓ મેળવ્યા પછી પણ કંઇક રહી જાય છે ? કંઇક ખાલીપણું લાગે છે? એવું તો શું છે કે આત્મા ને શાંતિ નથી ? આવો, ધ્યાન ધરીએ અને ચકાસણી કરીએ કે તે શું છે.

ધ્યાનનો પહેલો દિવસ

ઇસુ મારી કાળજી કાયમ માટે રાખે છે, ભલે આપણે આપણી અને બીજાની કાળજી અને પ્રેમ રાખવામાં ભૂલી જતા હોઈશું પણ ઈસુની કાળજી અને પ્રેમ કાયમ માટે રહે છે. મોટા ભાગે આપણે પોતાનું અને બીજાનું મૂલ્ય પગારના આંકડાથી, ડીગ્રીના હોદ્દાથી અને કામની સિદ્ધિઓથી આંકતા હોઈએ છીએ. આપણે કોણ છીએ તે ભૂલી જતા હોઈએ છીએ. આપણે ભગવાનના સંતાનો છીએ અને આપણી કિમંત અમૂલ્ય છે.

આ અઠવાડિયા દરમ્યાન આપણે આપણી સાચી વાસ્તવિકતાનો આત્મસાદ કરીએ તો કામની ગુણવત્તા, દિલમાં શાંતિ, કુટુંબમાં પ્રેમ, નોકરીઓમાં પ્રગતિ સાંધી શકાશે. ભગવાનના સંતાનોને શોભા આપે એવી રીતે રહીએ ત્યારે આપણી અનુભૂતિમાં અને કાર્યમાં ગુણવત્તાભર્યા પરિણામ આવશે.

કામમાં વ્યસ્ત રહેતા લોકો માટે ધ્યાનના આ પ્રથમ દિવસે ઈશ્વરના મારા માટેના અગાધ અને અંગત પ્રેમ અને કાળજી હું ફરીવાર તાજગીથી અનુભવવા માંગું છું.

આ માટે મદદરૂપ થઇ શકે તે માટે નીચેના પાયાના મુદ્દાઓનો સહારો લઇ શકાશે

મારા જીવનરૂપી ઘડાને આકાર આપવા માટે ઘણો બધો કાચો સમાન એમને એમ પડ્યો છે : એ કાચો સામાન મારા સબંધો હોઈ શકે અથવા મારામાં રહેલી વિવિધ સુષુપ્ત શક્તિઓ કે કળાઓ હોઈ શકે.આ બધી ચિંતાઓમાં ગળાડુબ એવો હું એ સત્ય ને માણવા આજે ઈશ્વર સમક્ષ આવું છું: હું ઈશ્વરનું અજોડ સર્જન છું . હું ઈશ્વરનું વહાલું સંતાન છું

પ્રભુ આપણાં દરેકની સંભાળ રાખે છે તે અનુભવવા માટે આવો થોડીવાર ધ્યાન ધરીએ અને નક્કી કરીએ કે હું પ્રભુ સાથે કેવી રીતે રહી શકું અથવા મારા કામના સમયે પણ હું કેવી રીતે તેમને મારી પાસે રાખી શકું કેવી રીતે હું તેમની સાથે રહી શકું તે ધ્યાન ધરી તપાસીએ. વધુ માહિતી માટે ઉપર આપેલ સુંદર વીડિઓ નિહાળશો..

વિડિઓને સુંદર બનાવવા માટે BBNની આણંદની ટીમ , રોમિકા જોન્સન, એકતા ફિલિપ તથા કેની મેક અને નડિયાદ સેન્ટ આન્ના સ્કૂલના સિ. સુનિતા, સિ. શારદા અને સિ સુર્યાનો ઉત્તમ ફાળો રહેલો છે.

"કામમાં વ્યસ્ત રહેતા લોકો માટે ધ્યાન ( રીટ્રીટ )" નામની પુસ્તિકા જે રેવ. ફા. ધર્મરાજ લોરેન્સ એસ. જે. ની મહેનત અને રેવ ફા. રાયમુંદ ચૌહાણ એસ જે ના ભાવાનુવાદ છે તેનો ઉપયોગ કરી ખાસ આપનાં માટે દર શનિવારે (નાતાલ સુધી) રજુ કરીશું.

The Season of Advent - Fr.Jerry Fernandes s.j

2011-12-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

The Season of Advent

The Latin word “Adventus” means “The Coming”. The Catholic liturgical year ends with the feast of Christ the King. And now the Church celebrates “Advent”, preparing herself for the coming of Jesus, that is, in a state of a “Grace of Waiting”. Very much like the Earth in winter longing for the arrival of Spring, we await our Savior. Advent is not a penitential season like Lent, it is more a happy and optimistic anticipation of the coming of Jesus in the world and in our hearts.

The origins of the season of advent began in the early church when Christmas and the feast of the Epiphany (3 Kings) were celebrated together. In fact, in the early church, the feast of Epiphany (the Glorious Manifestation of God to the whole world symbolized in the 3 Kings) was more important then the feast of Christmas. Later for some centuries, the church kept advent on a fixed date, November 11^th since it was also the feast St. Martin of Tours. It is only recently about 1000 years ago that December became the season of Advent.

The liturgy of the Sundays in advent stress on different aspects of waiting for Christ and that is why the colours of the vestments keep changing from purple (a deep longing for the redeemer) to crimson rose (a symbol of strong hope like the early rays of the Sun at dawn) to white which is a time of grace to change one’s life and turn to God, the Light of the World. At this stage it is interesting to note that till December 16^th the early church waited for the 2^nd coming of Christ at the end of time. The final lap of waiting in advent is from December17th to 24^th which is the last week preceding Christmas that the liturgy focuses on God coming in the form of flesh and blood through Jesus to enter human history.

But what does advent mean to us in our daily lives? Advent is a time for cultivating and respecting the Sacrament of waiting. Waiting is a common experience in life. We stand in queues and wait, we wait for a phone call from our loved ones, and we wait for the dawn to come after a cold, dark night. There is also a sense of certitude that even if the night is dark and lonely we are sure that the dawn will come. And therefore with faith and hope we wait for the God of Love who rules our lives to bring a light at the end of our dark tunnels of our life experiences.

Sri Lanka- Juniorate - Gavit Kishore

2011-12-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

Sri Lanka-

Juniorate

At the end of October the Juniorate in

Sri Lanka

finished its first term. The juniorate was opened on the 4^th of July. Fr Provincial celebrated the Holy Eucharist and Fr Oscar (Bom) The junior master introduced the syllabus in his Lectio Brevis. We are 8 juniors from different provinces. Two are from Bangladesh, one is from Bombay, one from Gujarat and four from

Sri Lanka

. Fr Aloy Vanderwall is our spiritual director and also takes the scripture class on Wednesdays. Fr Oscar our junior master has drilled us in English grammar, composition, phonetics, textbook & public speaking. At present we are even tackling Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Besides we also have had classes on the History and Spirituality of our Society.

On August 26, the province inaugurated its Golden Jubilee year. The juniors were part of the liturgical committee and prepared beautiful hymns under the guidance of Br Patrick. The next three days there was a province assembly where all the Jesuits of the Province came together and shared their views and difficulties about the past especially during the war. On October 26 & 27 when people were celebrating Diwali & New Year in

India

, we too, celebrated it with our First Term Examination. On the 27^th evening we began our Triduum. Fr Lasanta guided us in the Triduum, and on 31 Oct., feast of St. Alphonsus Rodriguez we renewed our Vows. (Gavit Kishor)

V. RELIGIOSITY OF DIALOGAL LIBERATION- Bandhu Ishanand

2011-11-27T20:56:00.000-08:00

V. RELIGIOSITY OF DIALOGAL LIBERATION

(A Viable Alternative to Secularism in India)

From the above study one might rightly say that Western Secularism, without radical changes in it, is totally out of place in India. Rightly therefore Upendra Baxi states with the support of socio-political thinkers like Madan T. N. and Ashish Nandy:

“Secularism, in the prevailing conditions in South Asia as a generally shared credo of life, is impossible, as a basis of state action impractical, and as a blueprint for the foreseeable future impossible…. Madan describes secularism ‘as an alien cultural ideology, which lacks the strong support of the state:’ ‘secularism’ has become a ‘vacuous word’ and a ‘phantom concept’…”[1]

This does not mean that we can ignore without serious consequences to national unity and integration, the reality of Religious Pluralism, inter-religious rivalry and the rise of Religious Fundamentalism in practically all the religions of the sub-continent. Our formula, “Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation”, seems to be a right alternative to ‘secularism’, capable of doing justice to the various challenges of the Indian situation of religious pluralism and socio-economic injustice. We use the term “Religiosity” to give the central place to religions respecting the Indian ethos. If this “Religiosity” is dialogal it cannot degenerate into fundamentalism or fanaticism. As we have seen just above, Islam has problems of dialoguing with other religions with a sense of equality accepting their salvific values. Hinduism may find it difficult in collaborating with other religions in liberating people from caste-oppression or economic misery due to their faith in karma, especially sanchit and prarabdha karma. In our effort to face problems of this sort from various religions we shall first deal with the axiomatically accepted view that context changes the text and then consider the praxis of re-reading the non-Christian scriptures from the context.

The Axiom ‘The Context Changes the Text’

One of the chief assumptions of contextual theology is the saying that context changes the text. This assumption is today accepted almost as an axiom. The context of a person is a sort of mental category, a la Kantian Categories, through which the subject tries to reach the Noumenon. Let us take the example of a film like The Bandit Queen. In this film what would strike the high-caste Hindus and what would strike the oppressed caste of Phoolan Devi herself must have been very different. The high-caste Hindus might not have found anything abominable or even strange in the approving looks of the wives of the men who were raping her or parading her naked through the length and breadth of the village. How different must have been the perception, both in details and in substance, of the women of the caste of Phoolan Devi! One might say that in films people would perceive what they are interested in, on the conscious or the unconscious level. This is the psychological aspect of the influence of the context. Oxford Companion to Mind says: “…the direct realism of immediate experience of the object world has been abandoned. It is now, however, fairly generally accepted that stored knowledge and assumptions actively affect even the simplest perceptions.”

Let us take the example of Magnificat about which the Liberation Theologians wax eloquent. Traditionally it was understood as a hymn of praise and thanksgiving sung leisurely by an immaculately conceived innocent village girl. But what a different meaning the poor and the oppressed Christians of Latin America gave to this hymn! They primarily concentrated on the following verses:

‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord

and my spirit exults in God my saviour;

because he has taken upon his lowly handmaid.

He has shown the power of his arm,

he has routed the proud of heart.

He has pulled down princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away.

(Lk. 1:46,47,51,52)

For persons who suffer oppression it is the cry of an oppressed woman for justice. It is a revolutionary song, which needs completely a new revolutionary tune and a thoroughly new interpretation.

But there are other epistemological aspects too in the above-said axiom that context changes the text. From the time of Heisenburg even scientists began to take for granted the subjective elements even in the most ‘objective’ physico-chemical sciences. It is much more so in human sciences like history and sociology. William James used to say that in Love, Politics, and in Religion people prove what they want to prove because they have to prove it. When we are involved with the poor, poverty, misery and oppression have different meanings.

Re-reading the Scriptures

When we enter into dialogue with other religions, we have to be aware not only of the above axiom but also of the praxis of the Liberation Theologians of re-reading the scriptures. But in the context of religious pluralism and dialogue we are called upon to re-read not only the Bible but also the non-Christian scriptures. As far as the Indic Religions are concerned, as we have seen in our study of Indian Ethos, dialogal attitudes come natural to them. In the past, where the Muslims were a small minority, their talk about dialogue and secularism seems to have been a ploy for survival. Now it seems that a few Western Muslim Scholars began to have sincere dialogue with other religions especially with the Christians. Such dialogues led them to re-read the Quran and they have begun to bring out Quranic texts which are inclusive and inspirational for inter-religious dialogue. Here a few sample texts from the Quran are given:

“To you be your way, And to me mine” (Holy Quran, 109:6).

“To each among you have prescribed a Law and an Open Way. If God so willed, He would have made you a single people, but (His plan is) to test you in what He hath given you: so strive as in a race in all virtues. The goal of you all is to God; it is He that will show you the truth of the matters in which you dispute” (Holy Quran, 5:48).

“O mankind! We created you from a single (pair), of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other. (Not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all these things)” (49:13). Cfr. Also 2:213; 10:29; 30:21).

Some Anti-caste texts from the Hindu scriptures:

Here we shall narrate the well-known Upanishadic story which shows how the character of a person determines his caste, not his birth. The story of Satyakama described in the Chandogya Upanishad well brings out this idea (IV:4:5). Satyakama, the bastard son of a low caste woman goes to a Brahmin sage named Gautama with the desire for learning. When he was asked about his gotra (family) he told the truth. Pleased with his truthfulness the guru said: “None but the Brahmana could thus explain. Bring the fuel, my dear, I will receive you as a pupil. Thou hast not departed from the truth”. Gita IV:13 and IX:4:32, could be interpreted in this way.[2]

Here below a paragraph from Dr. Pandurang Kane, a scholar in Dharmasastra Literature is given. It is the result of the Re-reading of the Mahabharata with an anti-caste mind-set.

Shanti 188:10 says ‘there is no real distinction between the varnas (since) it was formerly created by Brahma, and has the system of varnas on account of the various actions (of men)’. Shanti (189:4 and 8) avers ‘that man is known as brahmana in whom are seen truthfulness, generosity, absence of wickedness, shame (restraint for avoiding wrong-doing), compassion and a life of austerity; if these signs are observed in a sudra and not found in brahmana, the sudra is not a sudra (should not be treated as a sudra) and the brahmana is not a brahmana. A similar passage occurs in Vanaparva 216:14 and 15[3].

Recently, I had the privilege of attending an international seminar organized by a group of secular persons from different parts of the world. One of the main topics of this seminar was The Humane face of Socially Engaged Hinduism. The participants including those from the West, were well aware of the common and uncritical understanding of Hinduism, as a world-denying religion with no concern for the sufferings and miseries of fellow human beings, be it poverty, disease or caste-discrimination.

They were also aware of another uncritical assumption about Hinduism. It is that because of the Hindu belief in Sanchit Karma (accumulated evil effects of the actions of the previous birth) the victims of contagious diseases, social marginalization, economic injustice, etc. suffer in the present birth as a just punishment for their sinful deeds in the previous birth. Hence, we would have no serious responsibility of alleviating their sufferings since they suffer what they deserve.

A number of scholarly papers could parade numerous scriptural statements from the Vedas to the mediaeval and modern bhakti literature which teach the value of compassion and loving service. Here we shall cite a few of them:

Rigveda (10:117: 3 and 5)

Bounteaous is he who gives to the beggar who comes to him in want of food and feeble.

Success attends him at the shout of battle. He makes a friend of him in future troubles.

Let the rich satisfy the poor implorer, and bend his eye upon a longer way.

Riches come now to one, now to another, and like wheels of cars are ever rolling.

Bhagavad Purana

“Na tvaham kamaye rajyam na svargam napunarbhavam, kamaye dukataptanam praninamartinasham”

The meaning of this verse in a rather liberal paraphrase is that the Saint begs of the Lord, as the greatest gift and grace, to allow him to share the sufferings of all the people, for he considers this grace greater than that of his own Salvation.

Bhagavad Gita

Those who work for the total welfare of all beings (loksangraha) (Cfr. 3:20 and 25), are worthy of ‘Salvation’.

Those who are involved in the well-being of all beings (sarva-bhuta-hite-ratah) are also worthy of ‘Salvation’ (cfr. 5:25 and 12:4).

From the Sacred writings of the Saints

From Thiruvelluvar :

“To give to the destitute is true charity. All other gifts have the nature of (what is done for) a measured return. (Even in a low state) not to adopt the mean expedient of saying, ‘I have nothing’, but to give is the characteristic of the man of noble birth. The power of those who perform penance is the power of enduring hunger. It is inferior to the power of those who remove the hunger of others”[4].

From the writings of Thirumular:

“Padamada kovil pahavarku onru eel, nadamadakovil nambaarku anka aha.

Nadamakovil namabarku onru eel padamadakovil pahavarku atu ame.”

It means that what we offer to the Lord in the temple will not reach our fellow-humans, but what we offer to the walking temple that is our fellow human being will certainly reach our fellow humans, and it may also reach the Lord.”

From the writings of Narsinh Mehta:

Vaishnava janato tene kahiye pida paray janere

Paradukhe upakara kare toye man abhiman na anere

(= They are the true Vaishnavas who know the sufferings of others. And if these people do something to alleviate the sorrows of others they do it with no sense of pride or a superiority complex).

Our Formula as an Alternative to Western Secularism:

Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation

In this formula for the Indian context, religion is brought to the centre in keeping with the spirit of the Indian Ethos. But we give religion this central place in so far as it is in dialogue with other religions without letting it fall into religious fundamentalism. Besides, the various religions are expected to cooperate with one-another for the total welfare of the people and of the nation as a whole. The three concepts in this formula are complementary and mutually enriching.

We accept the axiomatically considered formula in situations of Religious Pluralism that “To be Religious means to be Inter-Religious”. In situations of Religious Pluralism a fundamentalistic, exclusivistic and self-righteous religion, with no openness for dialogue with other religions, will function like a cancer-cell. A cancer cell is one of the most powerful and the most rapidly multiplying cells. But the fact is that it eventually destroys itself and the body (organism) as a whole, as it happens to any parasite. The reason simply is that a cancer cell does not follow the homeo-static system of the organism, which is responsible for the multiplication and differentiation of the various organs and limbs of the organism. A particular minority community in a nation can take all the advantages of being citizens and the privileges all the minority communities while at the same timework as terrorists and fifth-columnists. The Rightist parties in the Western Europe accuse the Muslims of such parasitic disloyalty. Here I shall cite just a few sentences from a speech by a panicky Rightist MP from Netherlands: “The Pew Research Centre reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate” (From the speech delivered in New York by Geert Wilders, an MP from Netherlands). In a country like ours, inculcating and promoting a culture of dialogue on the personal and the institutional levels are of paramount importance.

Following the example of Aloysius Piereis SJ, we do highlight the Liberative potential of all religions. All the religions in India have the ideals and potential to cooperate with other religions to build India as a prosperous, progressive, well united peace-loving and peace-making great nation.

Recently the Polite Bureau of the Marxists has publicly declared that it does not oppose true religiosity (spirituality) but opposes mechanical ritualism. Dialogal Liberation implies cooperating with people of other religions to make India a better place to live in and to oppose the dehumanizing factors of Indian society, whatever these things may mean. For instance, so many of us Indians complain about corruption in various sectors of Indian life. If all the Religions in India cooperate to eradicate corruption on the basis of different religions, India will not remain one of the most corrupt countries of the world. Remember, the national ideal expressed in the mantra SATYAMEVA JAYATE has become an empty slogan. The unfortunate thing in our country is that adharma (all kinds of evil) conquers dharma because the so-called religious people are busy with opposing and putting down other religions thereby losing the precious time and energy meant for “dharma samsthapana” or the establishment of dharma with all its values. To fight for the national priorities like ecological balance, national hygiene including the cleaning up the polluted rivers, opposing caste-atrocities and fighting against the adharma of degrading poverty, side-by-side with dehumanizing luxury, all the religions could be brought together. This means that the religion to which we want to give a central place in Indian life is not an escapistic religion but one that can collaborate with people of all the religions of India for a better present and a brighter future.

Religiosity of dialogal liberation is not an unrealizable Euthopian dream. Let me tell you what happened to me some years back. I was invited by a Catholic priest to inaugurate a bridge in the Kottayam dist. of Kerala. This bridge was built with the cooperation of the Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities. The idea of this bridge was mooted by a Catholic priest in consultation with a couple of Non-Catholic Christian priests, when the government had failed to respond to their applications. This bridge would serve the Hindu pilgrims to Sabarimala by shortening the distance by several miles and by making the route through a less dangerous forest. When the Hindu and Muslim leaders were contacted they were only too willing to cooperate with the Christians. Though the chief beneficiaries of this new bridge were the Hindu pilgrims, all the other communities on the other side of the bridge could get easy access to the nearby town. For the inauguration a sumptuous meal was organized for the thousands of people who took part in building the bridge and the road which connected it to the main road. The meal was prepared by the women from the three communities while the men-folk were still busy with giving finishing touches to the bridge and to the roads. At the end of the meal all were served delicious payasam, a south Indian delicacy. At the end of the inaugural functions, I ended my speech with the following parable:

Once a man, fairly well dressed, knocked at the door of a house and asked for a meal. The housewife told him that the family had already taken the meal and so she would not be in a position to give him a decent meal respecting his status. Taking out a smooth white stone from his pocket, the guest said, “This magical payasam-stone can produce delicious payasam if you could put a pot of water on the stove.” When the water was about to boil, he put the payasam-stone into the pot.

Due to the peculiar dynamics of the rural communication system, already some neighbours had arrived to observe the magical power of the payasam-stone. After tasting a little liquid from the boiling pot, he said, “Excellent payasam! But if somebody could contribute a little salt, it would taste better.” After tasting the liquid again, he asked for some rice and some milk. The neighbours began to vie with one another in complying with his polite requests. After tasting the payasam again and again, he courteously requested for sugar and coconut chips and then for some spices like cardamom, cumin seed, pepper and the like. After tasting the payasam getting ready in the pot he said: “I am going to serve the most delicious payasam the type of which you have never tasted. But if somebody would bring some cashew-nuts, I can assure you that it will give you some unforgettable taste”. While keeping on stirring the payasam in the pot he requested the house-wife to make the people sit in a line and give each one a bowl or a cup. He served all of them delicious payasam.

This parable illustrates the underlying assumption of this paper – that religions are not contradictorily opposed but complimentarily related notwithstanding their serious differences. All the religions in India have the ideals and potential to make India a better, greater and a more united nation. By speaking about Dialogal Liberation we want to point out that here we are not advocating a status-quo religion or an escapistic religion but a religion which is conscious of its duty of dharma-samsthapana in its broadest sense. In a dialogal sense it can include the World Family Ideal, the Christian Kingdom of God Ideal and the Umma Ideal of Dialoging Muslims.

To Conclude

Right at the outset we tried to understand the Western concept of secularism. In the light of various descriptions and definitions of this concept from different sources, we came to the conclusion that secular ideology in its initial stages was very much materialistic and worldly, and that ‘Lokayata’ would be a right translation of this ‘Western Secularism’. We also saw that the secularism prescribed as pancea for all the ills of Mother India is not a well thought out and philosophically digested ideology, but the fall-out of various anti-clerical, anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment, revolutions and upheavals in the West.

The result of this ‘secularism-drug’ had been disastrous in the Western ethos notwithstanding its minor gains. As far as India is concerned, the artificial separation of state and religion on secularistic prescription would go against the Indian mind-set and ethos. But the truth is that the communalistic cancer is sapping Mother India’s energies and resources which are needed to help her millions of hungry, naked and homeless children. To make India united, integrated and energetic the formula suggested by us is Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation. This ideal is not very different from the Gandhian sarva-dharma-samabhav or sarva-dharma-mamabhav except that the religions should not stand for status quo but must use their collective energies to build up a better and a greater India according to the ideals of vasudhaiva kutumbakam or Kingdom of God. This ideal is totally against ghettoistic, exclusivistic and self-righteous religious attitudes.

Training in such ideals and axioms as ‘to be Religious means to be Inter-Religious’, ‘context changes the text’ and ‘re-reading the scriptures’ from the context can promote a culture of Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation. This can be done in the existing national structures like the educational institutions, panchayat institutions, Gandhian institutions like Ashrams and Gandhi Vidyapiths. In some of the educational institution of Western Europe there are centres for training in citizenship substituting the traditional centres for religious teachings (catechism). In India such centres could be started with an emphasis on Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation. Common celebrations of national and religious festivals can inculcate inter-religious values especially among the common folk. Multi-religious symbols could be promoted in the government offices without at the same time giving the freedom of using the symbols of one’s own religion. The mass-media could be encouraged to present India as a mosaic of many religious, ethnic, linguistic and racial groups, as a living symbol to the ideal of unity in diversity, and a model in the process for many nations which are struggling to cope with problems of Religious Pluralism and Religious Fundamentalism.

Amidst the din of communal politics, our suggestion for educating the people in the Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation would be like a cry in the desert. But I firmly believe that sooner or later our traditional resilience and wisdom will triumph. Let us cooperate with our countrymen in the spirit of the Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation to realize the ideal of our ancestors, vasudhaiva kutumbkam and atraiva vishvam bhavati eknidam.

(contact: ishanandsj@jesuits.net)

[1] “The ‘Struggle’ for the Redefinition of Secularism in India: Some Preliminary Reflections” in Secularism and Liberation, Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit)., New Delhi:: ISI, 1995, p.56.

[2] Cfr. Ishanand Vempeny, “Inspirational in the Non-Biblical Scriptures”, Bangalore: TPI, 1973, p.203. In the same book an effort was made to re-read the scriptures with an anti-caste mind-set. Cfr. ibid., pp. 199-206.

[3] Kane, History of Dharmasastra, vol.5, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1962, p.1642.

[4] The version of Andrew and John Lazarus, Madras, The Teachers’ Publishing House, p.47

III. CONSEQUENCES OF SECULARISM IN THE WEST - Bandhu Ishanand

2011-11-21T02:03:00.000-08:00

III. CONSEQUENCES OF SECULARISM IN THE WEST

1. The Positive Results

From the various good results of secularism in the Western countries we shall enumerate just a few. Because of secularistic ideology no Galileos had been victimised for scientific inventions and discoveries, and no Savanarolas had been burned at the stake for going against the religious dogma. Another fallout of secularistic ideology was the tolerance of religious pluralism which we notice in most of the Western countries though the Marxist brand of secularism was totally intolerant not only of religions but also of non-Marxist, secular ideologies. A third good result of the triumph of secularism was the release of an enormous amount of church-property for the use of the impoverished masses.

Certainly secular ideology helped people to take earthly life seriously, feeling responsible for its development and progress. In other words people were saved from escapistic, other-worldly religious doctrines which gave little importance to earthly concerns and values. Here we are in the good company of Max Weber and Karl Marx. And finally the secular ideals are responsible for the success of Western Democracies in freedom, scientific invention, industrial progress and economic growth. In the secular democracies of the West the Christian Religion, by and large, does not interfere with your eating habits, dressing styles or artistic expressions. Today, however, by the advent of religions like Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism these freedoms are partly curtailed for the members of these religions. Remember the recent prohibition of building minarets in Switzerland.

2. The Negative Consequences of Secularism

One of the basic drawbacks of secularism was that it caused people to be satisfied with the letter rather than the spirit of the law, with external conformism rather than inner acceptance of the moral code. Thus a person may be a good citizen before the state but a perpetrator of evil before his fellow citizens. You are a good citizen before the state provided that you commit your crimes in such a way that you are not caught. In such a situation the state will not get the hearts and souls of its citizens and hypocracy and duplicity would become the accepted norm in human relations, as is so obvious in today’s real politik and in the politicians.

The law of the jungle ‘might is right’, still reigns supreme in secular states without any saintly Bishop Ambrose to inflict humiliating punishment on an Emperor Theodosius for shedding the blood of innocents, or a Pope Gregory VII., to make the all powerful emperor Henry IV stand barefooted in the snow to do penance for his crimes. Obviously we are not advocating such medievalism, but are searching for a system which moves the hearts and souls of people and promotes truth and love without which true humanization is not possible.

Sociologists would say that for true humanization, a society needs a Central Value System. Now, in any society, even in the secular societies of the West, consciously or unconsciously, officially or unofficially, it is the given religious systems that are the vehicles of these values. Religions, especially theocentric ones, tend to bind people in conscience, so to say, and demand acceptance of certain socio-economic and religious values. One of the reasons for the rampant real-politik both in the West and also in the East is the absence of commitment to a central value system that binds absolutely one and all.

Secular politics in the West had made the Church look more and more irrelevant. As we have seen above, the vital sectors of human life like economics, education, social welfare, etc. became the exclusive domains of the state. Religion became a private affair relegated to the sacristy. Today the Church has become a marginalized, peripheral reality causing more amusement and diversion than love and commitment. As Harvey Cox points out, “for some religion provides a hobby, for others a mark of national or ethnic identification, for still others an aesthetic delight”[1]. To make matters worse, this Church-state dualism based on secularism, is partly responsible for the artificial division between the natural and the supernatural, worship and work, this-worldly values and other-worldly values, and the like, an artificial division which frustrated the very purpose of the Church, namely the Christification of the world.

According to a political analyst like Rashmee Z. Ahmed a Western Secularist should not be committed to his Church[2]. Commenting on Tony Blair’s religiosity he says: “Blair is a social democrat in political terms with notoriously church-going, happy-clappy Christian instincts”[3]. What is interesting to not is that this author considers true Christianess is opposed to true politics. He seems to think that both G. W. Bush and Tony Blair are not good politicians because they are good Christians. This is, of course, the point of view of a Muslim author who would not speak about a Muslim politician in ‘secular Muslim’ countries like Malaysia or Turkey. In this context we can understand the annoyance of many Hindus to be called “communalists” just because they are committed to their religion.

Secularism above all was a betrayal of Christ and his ideals. The central message of Christ concerned the establishment and spread of God’s Kingdom which is not primarily a promise for the pie up in heaven. It is rather a socio-economic, politico-religious system, built on truth and love, which is partly realizable here on earth though its full realization would be in the beyond. ‘Truth’ in the Kingdom ideal would be radical opposition to externalism, a commitment to the spirit rather than to the letter of the law, and a thorough condemnation of hypocrisy and duplicity, something so rampant in today’s real-politik. According to this ideal, the chief law of social organization would be love, expressed in economic sharing, in equality of status and opportunities, in checking offenders through fraternal correction and forgiveness, and above all in showing special consideration for the poor and the oppressed. In such a society the power and authority of the leader would be primarily for empowering the powerless rather than for inflating the egos of the leaders.

Christ came to establish and spread God’s Kingdom, God’s reign, not merely in the sacristies and sanctuaries but in the whole world. God’s law should reign supreme in all spheres of human life not merely in matters of liturgical rules. In a Christo-centric world Christ is the alpha and omega (Rev. 22:12; 1;17; 2:8; Jn. 1:1-3; Eph. 1:10; et psssim)[4]. Vat. II proclaims loudly the truth of a Christo-centric world taught emphatically by John and Paul:

“The Lord is the goal of human history, the focal point of the longing of history and civilization, the centre of the human race, the joy of every heart, and the answer to all its yearnings… Enlivened and united in His Spirit, we journey toward the consummation of human history, one which full accords with the counsel of God’s love: ‘To re-establish all things in Christ, both those in the heavens and those on the earth’ (Eph. 1:10). The Lord Himself speaks: ‘Behold I come quickly: And my reward is with me, to render to each one according to his works, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’” (Apoc. 22:12-13, G.S. No.45. Cfr. also N.A. no.1).

On the basis of the Johanine and Pauline Christo-centric world Teilhard de Chardin could speak of the Christification, and indeed the Eucharistization of the world: “I your priest, will make the whole earth my altar and on it will offer you all the labours and sufferings of the world”[5]. Elsewhere in the same prayer, changing the metaphor slightly he prays: “Receive, O Lord, this all-embracing host which your whole creation, moved by your magnetism, offers you at this dawn of a new day”[6].

The Indian ideal of a universal family (vasudhaiva kutumbakam) is homomorphically similar to the Kingdom Ideal. If a few rays of the Kingdom-ideal had been present in the secular states of the West, there would not have been such ruthless colonial oppression and exploitation, nor would have grown unchallenged such satanic political powers as Hitler and Mussolini. If the Indian leaders, after the independence, had accepted a balanced view of secularism rather than blindly following its western interpretation, perhaps there would not have been a Hindutva movement calling the Nehruvian interpretation of this ideal called by the Sangh Parivar ‘Pseudo Secularism’.

IV. SECULARISM IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

A. The Immediate Context

The vivisection of Mother India and the communal carnage that followed was a traumatic experience for our Founding Fathers. Though most of them were educated in the secularistic West and were familiar with the various anti-religious rationalistic groups in Europe especially in England[7], hardly anyone of them was anti-religious, and most of them including Gandhiji, Sardar, Ambedkar, Rajan Babu, Rajaji were deeply religious. Yet their religiosity was such that they appreciated and respected other religions while remaining faithful to their own. To express this attitude to different religions in the Indian situation of religious pluralism, Gandhiji and Sardarji used the term ‘sarva-dharma-samabhav’ which means respect and love for all religions from the stand-points of respective religions. The models they had in mind were the Gandhi Ashrams where people from different religions lived, prayed and worked together, and from where they could launch some of the most astute political movements like the Dandi Yatra. But Jawaharlalji was very much of an exception and he tried to implement the Western concept of secularism with its negativity towards religions.

Today in India, one group of people is trying to transplant the fully-grown up tree of Western secularism into the totally different soil of the Indian situation. There is, however another group in India which interpreting the Indian ethos in terms of Hindu ethos, tries to impose on India a Hindu theocracy without bothering about the sensitivities of other religious communities. It seems to me that neither of these two groups takes into account the spirit of the Founding Fathers of our nation or that of Indian ethos taken as a whole.

B. The Indian Ethos and Secularism

When we speak of the Indian ethos we mean not only the Hindu but also the Buddhist, Jain, Islamic, Christian, Parsi, tribal, etc. ethos. Here, however, no such classified study is intended. Pointing out certain areas and instances by way of random sampling would serve our purpose. Since the Hindu ethos in its broad sense could be called the ‘mother ethos of India’, there will be a greater emphasis on the Hindu ethos in this sketchy and patchy view of Indian ethos.

Muslims constitute more than 12% of India’s population. It is by far the largest minority community. The problem of secularism arose during the pre-independent and post-independent years of India, in the context of Islam especially in the context of Hindu- Muslim conflicts. Though the ethos mothered by Hinduism is very different from Islamic ethos no one can deny the mutual influence on each other to create a composite ethos. Here the consideration of Islamic ethos is specially important because of its radical opposition to Western Secularism.

C. Secularism from the Point of view of Indic Religions

(i) Religion not a Superstructure but a Basic structure

The term for religion used in most of the North Indian languages is dharma which etymologically taken, (dharayati iti dharma) means that which holds things in unity and harmony. Sri Aurobindo writes: “Dharma in the Indian conception is not merely the good, the right, morality and justice; it is the whole government of all the relations of man with other beings, with Nature, with God, considered from the point of view of a divine principle working itself out in forms and laws of action, of the inner and the outer life, ordering of relations of every kind in the world”[8]. The following verse from the Hitopadesa shows clearly the place of dharma in human life:

“Aharanidara bhaya maithunam casamanya etad pasubhir-naranam

Dharmo hi tesamadhiko viseso dharmena hinah pasubhih samanah.”

(In the matter of food, sleep, security concerns and sexual intercourse man and animals are the same; but it is dharma which makes the difference, without it man is equal to animals[9]).

According to this view of dharma, it is religion that distinguishes man from animals, and the term is as extensive as the term human values. According to this understanding of religion, separating religion from the state would be like letting the state follow the law of the jungle, and it would be a centre of power for dehumanization.

In the West, after the artificial separation of Church from the state, and after the increasing marginalization of religion, Marx could easily show how religion is a superstructure. Another German philosopher Feurbach had paved the way for this conclusion of Marx’s. For the Hindus, “Dharma is the foundation of the whole universe” (Tait. Ar. 10:79). Hence Manu would say: “Dharma being violated, destroys; dharma being preserved, preserves: therefore dharma must not be violated, lest violated dharma would destroy us’ (Manu Smruti, 8:15). In India, one might say, everything has a sacral and religious atmosphere, as everything forms part of the Cosmic form of the Lord (Gita 11). Scientific writings on medicine (ayurveda) on grammer (Panini) on architecture, etc. (consider the seven Vedangas) have a sacral aura.

(ii) Tolerance and Inclusivism of the Indian Ethos

As we have stated elsewhere in the paper, the tolerance and inclusivism we see in Indian ethos are very much the products of the Indian mindset itself. From the Rigvedic times there existed this inclusivistic attitude in India. Let us take the following two mantras: “Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti (=Truth is one but sages interpret diversely (Rg. 1:164:46) and Ekam santam bahudha kalpayanti (=Though truth is one, it is diversely imagined (Rg. 10:1l4:5). This inclusivistic mindset is equally visible in the Bhagavad Gita. As typical examples we shall cite just two verses:

“yo yo yam yam tanum bhaktah sraddhaya rcitum icchati

tasya tasyacalam sraddham tam eva vidadhamy aham”

[=Whatever form (whatever god), a devotee with faith desires to honour, that very faith do I confirm in him (making it) answering-and-secure]. (7:21) (Cfr. 7:22 & 25).

“Ye ’py anya-devata-bhakta yajante sraddhaya nvitah

te ’pi mam eva, Kaunteya, yajanty avidhi-purvakam”

(=Yet even those who lovingly devote themselves to other gods and sacrifice to them, full filled with faith, do really worship Me though the rite may differ from the norm). (9:23) (Cfr. also 9: 25).

The following verse which was chanted continuously in the Sanskrit film on Shankaracharya and which is recited in the daily prayers of some devote Hindus, is also a typical scriptural verse for inclusivism:

akashat patitam toyam yatha gachhati sagaram

sarvadeva namaskarah keshavam pratigachhatti

(=Just as the rainwater falling from the sky reaches the ocean so too the prayer addressed to different gods reaches Keshava the Ultimate Reality).

The above pre-Christian verses from the sacred Hindu scriptures express the tolerant and inclusivistic ethos of Hinduism. If the stone edict of Emperor Ashoka, given below, shows his magnanimity and inclusivism, it is because he had inherited it from the Hindu ethos of his ancestors:

The Beloved of the God… honors members of all sects, whether ascetic or householders, by gifts and various honors. But they do not consider gifts and honors as important as the furtherance of the essential message of all sects. This essential message varies from sect to sect, but it has one common basis, that one should so control one’s tongue as not to honor one’s own sect or disparage another’s on the wrong occasions; for on certain occasions one should do so only mildly, and indeed on other occasions one should honor other men’s sects. By doing this one strengthens one’s own sect and helps the others, while by doing otherwise one harms one’s own sect and does a disservice to the others. Whoever honors his own sect and disparages another man’s… does his own sect the greatest harm[10].

Like Ashoka a number of Indian Kings like Harshvardhana, Cheraman Perumal and Shivaji Maharaj kept up this tolerance during their reign. If the great Muslim Emperor Akbar was tolerant towards other religions and if he founded the religion Din-I-Ilahi with openness to all the religions, it must have been due to the influence of his Hindu wives and friends.

(iii) The Islamic Ethos

According to Donald Smith there is nothing in Islam which could advocate secularism. He says:

“The Muslims and the Sikhs have little in their respective traditions which lends positive support to the concept of secularism, yet they will strengthen Indian – Secularism chiefly by guarding the rights of their respective communities… Both the Muslims and the Sikhs have strongly theocentric elements in their traditions, and secularism does not have much inherent appeal, apart from their minority status”[11].

Sheikh Salman b. Fahd al-Oadah, General Supervisor of Islam Today, says in his Website:

“The struggle between Islam and secularism is nothing new. It is just the old age struggle between Islam and Jahiliyyah (The word Jahiliyyah refers to the times of ignorance before Islam) in a new guise. Jahiliyyah, the way of ignorance, comes in many forms, has many names, and adopts various symbols, but it always has the same common denominator – polytheism. The conflict between Islam and secularism is none other than the conflict between Islam and polytheism. It is the struggle against the enemies of the Prophets that began in antiquity when Allah sent the very first Prophet to humanity and it will continue until Allah puts an end to the Earth and everything on it”[12].

Commenting on the biblical verse “Give unto Caesan what is Caesar’s and give unto God what is God’s (Mt. 22: 15-22 and Mk. 12: 13-17, Lk. 20: 20-26) the same author says that this division for God and for Caesar was existing in Mecca when Mohammad was sent there by Allah. The division for Allah and for others including the rulers is totally against Quran. He quotes Surah al-An am, 136 and Surah al-Nahl, 62: “They assign unto Allah, of the crops and cattle which He created, a portion, and they say: ‘This is for Allah – in their make-believe – and this is for His partners with respect to us’”. “And they assign unto Allah what which they themselves dislike, and their tongues pronounce the lie that the better portion will be theirs. Assuredly their will be the Fire, and they will be hastened to it and abandoned”.

We can easily understand why Sheikh Salman says that such a division between for God and for others means the acceptance of polytheism. He says: “How can we reconcile secularism with the meaning of the declaration of faith ‘There is no God but Allah’ which means that no aspect of worship or devotion must be offered to anything or anyone besides Allah? All worship directed elsewhere is polytheism, false and rejected. Therefore, secularism is polytheism. It states that the mosque is for Allah and everything else is for other than Allah, or as the Christian’s say: ‘for Caesar’”.

Here an important point has to be noted. According to Sheikh Salman’s view of polytheism even the Gandhian interpretation of secularism in terms of sarva-dharma-samabhav too leads to polytheism. From the Islamic point of view the Ultimate Reality has to be Allah in its vachyarth and bhavarth. That is why, the Muslims do not like to translate the Ultimate Reality with any other word except the Arabic word namely Allah. For the Muslims the other terms like Yahweh, Ishwar, Brahma, Vishnu, Tao, Ahurmazada and the like are not acceptable. In fact, the well-known Rigvedic mantra cited above “Ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti” insists on the necessity of sticking to the bhavarth or laxnarth rather than the vachyarth of the terms used for Ultimate Reality. This will partly explain the recent halla-bulla in Malasiya when the Christians began to use the term Allah for the Ultimate Reality.

According to this author, secularism has no place in Muslim countries and he assigns the two reasons given below:

“The first of these is that Islam is the religion that Allah sent down to replace the previous manifestations of the faith and to govern all aspects of life. The simplest Muslim can see how Islam explains all matters in detail. It is impossible for a Muslim to feel that the religion that regulates his marital affairs, his business, his eating habits, his manner of sleeping, and even how he goes to the bathroom could ever leave managing the political and economic affairs of society to other than Allah. For Allah says: ‘We have neglected nothing in the Book’ (Surat al-An am: 38). ‘We have sent down to you the Book explaining all things’ (Surat al-Nahl: 89). This issue is not open for debate. Islam, as the final religion, has supremacy over all faiths and over every aspect of life. There is no place for secularism in the lands of Islam or among the Muslims.

“The second reason is that throughout the history of Islam, it never experienced the troubles that were faced by Europe on account of its corrupted faith. Among the most important of these was the horrific breach that took place between religion and science. Religion fought against science so fiercely that the church burned some scientists to death on the grounds that those scientists went against the word of Allah. Islamic history contains nothing of the sort. Islam opened the doors to scientific enquiry and encouraged intellectual activity. Scientists were frequent guests at the courts and assemblies of various caliphs and received a fair share of royal gifts and patronage”[13].

This author, giving the example of Turkey, says that secularism in Muslim countries is a betrayal of Islam:

“One of the first countries to fall into the hands of the secularists was Turkey, which at one time was the center of political power for the Islamic world. It fell as a result of what some Christians like to call ‘the struggle between the Cross and the Crescent’”[14].

According to Sheikh Salman the secularists, chiefly the Christians and the Jews, made a hero out of Kemal Attaturk in order to use him to spread the anti-Muslim ideology of secularism. He then points out how through Kemal Attaturk the secularists managed to separate Turkey from the Muslim world (Umma). He considers the imposition of dressing code, Latin alphabet, etc. as something very much opposed to Islam.

Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, on Secularism vs Islam, follows the line of thought propagated by Sheikh Salman:

“Secularism may be accepted in a Christian society but it can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society. Christianity is devoid of a shariah or a comprehensive system of life to which its adherents should be committed. The New Testament itself divides life into two parts: one for God, or religion, the other for Caesar, or the state; ‘Render unto Caesar things which belong to Caesar, and render unto God things which belong to God’ (Matthew 22:21). As such, a Christian could accept secularism without any qualms of conscience. For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of shariah is downright riddah”[15].

Do these assertions mean that Islam cannot enter into dialogue with other religions with openness? In fact, during the pre-Vatican era, the Christian churches including the Roman Catholic Church held a similar theory of Salvation. But, inspired by the Vat.II, as the Christian dialogists began to re-read the Bible, and saw a number of inclusivistic texts in it, so too, from situations of Religious Pluralism, the non-Christians too, including the Muslims, are beginning to re-read their scriptures.

Part V will be in the next post.

For Contact: ishanandsj@jesuits.net

Sister Valsa John

2011-11-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

Sr. Valsa John

KOCHI: At Sister Valsa John's ancestral home at Edapally in Kochi her family is understandably distraught. On Wednesday night she had spoken to them on phone from Jharkhand and just a few hours later they got the news that she had been murdered. She was hacked to death by mining mafia at Pachwara village in Pakur district last night.

Sister Valsa, 53, a professed nun with the Sisters of Charity of Jesus And Mary, had been working among tribals in the coal rich region of Dhumka for the past 20 years. The tribals have been displaced from their homelands and subject to inhuman exploitation by the coal mafia and Sister Valsa had taken it upon herself to resist the mafia. In the end she had to pay for it with her life. "She had mentioned about certain threats, but we never thought that the mafia would finish her off," said her elder brother M J Baby. Baby and two relatives will leave for Dhumka on Wednesday evening. "Most probably, the funeral will be conducted at Dhumka itself," Baby added.

According to an official communication received by her family, Sister Valsa was murdered by a group of persons armed with lethal weapons around 2 am at her residence. "She was pursuing a course in LLB. Her life was under constant threat and she had communicated it to Jharkhand political leaders like Shibu Soren and Stephen Marandi," Baby said. Sister Valsa, who took her vows in 1984 had, true to her vocation, chosen the less easy path. She had been teaching economics at St George High School in Kochi but quit to take up missionary work in Dhumka. "She always wanted to work for the welfare of the downtrodden and the poor," revealed Baby, who said she became emotional whenever she described the plight of the tribals. Apparently, she was approached by the coal mafia several times for a settlement. "But she was firm on her stand and demanded due share for the tribals from the revenue generated from the mines," Baby said. Sister Valsa last visited her home in Kochi in August.

News Courtesy

Deepika.com

Photo: Google

Rev. Fr. K. P Vincent SJ

II. THE WESTERN BACKGROUND OF SECULARISM- Bandhu Ishanand Vempeny, SJ

2011-11-15T01:39:00.000-08:00

II. THE WESTERN BACKGROUND OF SECULARISM

Bandhu Ishanand Vempeny, SJ

‘Secularism’ is not a dispassionately thought out, philosophically established and theologically legitimatised concept. One may say that it is rather the fallout of various socio-religious, economico-political, etc. movements and upheavals in the West. Here we provide a brief over-view of these circumstances. The various movements or circumstances described below are not only not exhaustive, but also not mutually exclusive or independent of each other.

1. Anticlericalism

Anti-Caesaro-Papism and Anti-clericalism have quite something to do with secularism and secularist movements in the West. After the fall of the Roman Empire there was no political leadership in Europe equal to the task of saving the people from lawlessness and chaos. The only institution, which could rise to the occasion was the Church. The Pope, Bishops and the Priests, by and large, were the most learned people of the period, and people to a great extent, found them reliable and trust-worthy. Kings and princess began to function in subordination to the clerics. The medieval European princes, however grudgingly, considered the Pope their Suzerain Lord and he anointed the European kings with the implication that they should obey him. The Pope and the Clergy rapidly acquired enormous wealth, privileges and power which caused great resentment among the masses, nobles and the kings. If religious leaders with their enormous powers, both esoteric and exoteric, are looked upon as oppressors in practically all the religions, in medieval Europe there were additional reasons for this resentment.

The Popes (“Sovereign Lords”), Cardinals (“Princes of the Church”) and Abbots (‘Land-Lords’ and ‘Commanders’ of large number of loyal, dedicated and self-sacrificing ‘armies’) were real critics and challengers of royal and princely power and authority. In an age which was connected with the eras of the “Divine Rights of Kings”, and in which knightly chivalry, belligerency and war-mongering were glorified, it was natural for kings and princes to look down upon, if not always oppose, these ecclesiastical leaders, especially those who did not have a military or royal background. The Church leaders gradually began to lose authority and power over such spheres as politics, economics, education and the like. This anti-clerical situation paved the way for this Western ideology.

2. Renaissance

The Encyclopedia Britannica points out that “The ‘Renaissance’ or ‘Renascence’ is a term used to indicate a well known but indefinite space of time and a certain phase in the development of Europe”[1]. Roughly speaking, during the period 1450 to 1500 the wind of Renaissance was the strongest which, though started much earlier in Italy began to sweep over the whole of Western Europe. This phenomenon is also known as the “Revival of Learning” to insist on the shift of the great men of the period away from the traditional Christian literature especially Scholasticism, to the world of the Greek and Latin classics. It was an age of intense inquisitiveness, daring adventure and undreamed of discoveries and inventions. To speak of Italy alone, the cradle of the Renaissance, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio in the field of literature, Raphael, Da Vinci and Titan in painting and Donatello, Michelangelo and Sansavino in sculpture blazed new trails. In the evolution of ‘secularism’ and ‘real-politik’ the influence of political thinkers like Machiavelli and Guicciardini cannot be exaggerated. Aristo in Italy, Cervantes in Spain, Erasmus in Holland, Rabelais in France and Shakespeare in England placed before the people new worlds of ideas and feelings, through their writings. The two competing absolute powers, the theocratic state and the theocratic Church, on which medieval culture stood, began to be questioned, challenged and sometimes ignored.

As in the case of any revolutionary change and upheaval, however, the Renaissance was not all milk and honey. This is what the Encyclopaedia Britannica with reference to Italy says about its evil fallouts:

“Italian society exhibited an almost unexemplified spectacle of literacy, artistic and courtly refinement crossed by brutalities of lust, treasons, poisonings, assassinations, violence. Steeped in pagan learning, desirous of imitating the manners of the ancients, thinking and feeling in harmony with Ovid and Theocritus, and at the same time rendered cynical by the corruption of papal Rome, the educated classes lost their grasp upon morality. Political morality ceased almost to have a name in Italy. The Christian virtues were scorned by the foremost actors and the ablest thinkers of the time, while antique virtues were themes of rhetoric rather than moving springs of conduct”[2].

During the Renaissance, with its worship of reason and unbridled pursuit of freedom, religious obscurantism, dogmatism and authoritarianism were opposed vigorously. The Church with its claims of super-natural revelation and emphasis on other-worldly concerns began to be sidetracked and looked down upon. Such a situation augured well for a ‘secularistic ideology’.

3. Revolutions in Science, Technology and Industry

It is too well known to labour the point concerning the numerous scientific inventions and discoveries of this age, which paved the way for industrial revolution, and which in its turn accelerated the pace of urbanization. The names of Copernicus, Descartes, Roger Bacon, Darwin, Leibniz, Newton, Galileo, Columbus are bound up with the Renaissance. Our interest in speaking of the scientific achievements of this age to see how it prepared the world for ‘secularism’.

Whereas pre-scientific man offered divine or super-natural explanations for such natural phenomena as earthquakes, epidemics and solar eclipses, the man of science began to explain them through causes and effects perceivable in the world. As scientists began to unravel more and more the mysteries of the universe, religious assumptions and beliefs with regard to the origin, destiny, etc. of the world began to look more and more irrational and outdated. The success of the scientists in their own field was stupendous, but when they got into the fields of philosophy and theology they began to make arrogant and dogmatic pronouncements. When Lamarck told Napoleon Bonaparte that he did not need the ‘God-hypothesis’, he was voicing the opinion of many a scientist of the fag end of the Renaissance.

4. The Reformation

The Reformers like Luther, Calvin and Melanchthon made clear-cut division between the Church and the state, making them two parallel centres of power catering to different needs of man. This led to the 'privatisation' of religion narrowing its realms of operation more and more, while the state began to take control of areas like education, health care, social welfare etc. The Reformers were very religious persons, and what they wanted was to see the Church engaging herself with the spiritual welfare of the Faithful rather than accumulating enormous wealth and worldly power without allowing her to have time or interest for the spiritual welfare and the other worldly concerns of the Christian people.

The Reformers had their reasons for opposing the Church authorities especially the Pope and for supporting the princes and the kings. The Medieval Pope’s like Boniface VIII wielded almost unbridled authority. The Bishops and Priests too were very powerful. The monasteries with their huge amount of wealth had become like independent princely estates. The Church as a whole became very authoritarian and fell into various types of corruption. The kings and princes who had been struggling to get rid of the papal authority over their kingdoms, were hand in glove with the Reformers.

5. The French and Marxist Revolutions

The French and Marxist revolutionaries opposed the churches tooth and nail. During the French Revolution, as a symbol of the triumph of reason over religious dogmas, state over the Church, a nude woman was made to dance on the altar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Marxists turned many churches and cathedrals into museums and other institutions of secular interest. They put in prison numerous priests and nuns who represented religious authority. Whereas the secularism of the Protestant Princedoms, which got independence from Papal authority, was religion-friendly the secularism of the French and Bolshevik Revolutionaries was anti-religious and atheistic. The secularism, however, being practiced in the West European Democracies, is one that has clipped the wings of religions and confined them to the sacristies and sanctuaries. Rightly, therefore the Dictionary of Christian Theology concludes: “Thus ‘sacred’ or ‘religious’ activity has been increasingly confined to a narrow area of ecclesiastical activity and personal piety”[3].

[1] “Renaissance”, Op. Cit., Vol.,19, p.122

[2] Op. Cit., p.128

[3] A. Richardson (Edit) London: SCM Press, 1976, p.310

WESTERN SECULARISM AND RELIGION-CENTRED INDIAN SECULARISM--Bandhu Ishanand Vempeny, SJ-

2011-11-11T22:09:00.000-08:00

WESTERN SECULARISM AND RELIGION-CENTRED INDIAN SECULARISM

(AN INDIAN ALTERNATIVE TO WESTERN SECULARISM)

Bandhu Ishanand Vempeny, SJ

In politics today, both Indian and International, perhaps few other words of frequent use are as confusing, abused and misunderstood as Secularism. The West is believed to be the cradle of this concept. But, as we shall see soon, in the Western dictionaries secularism is described as something opposed to religion, as something which has nothing to do with God or with anything super-natural or transcendental. But see the confusion: as it were a revenge of religion on secularism, there are secular priests, secular monasticism and secular religious institutes! If priest and religious congregations belong to the very core of religion, are we not, willy-nilly, trying to describe a ‘square circle’ thereby falling into contradictio in terminis?

In the East, especially in India, the fate of this concept is worse than that of a volley-ball champion in a foot-ball team, though not in the sense of foot-ball icons like Maradona and Thiery Henry scoring their goals ‘with the hand of God’. Today, especially in the West, sex (kama) and economics (artha) are considered to be part and parcel of man’s secular activities. But listen to what a highly placed Hindu god-man has to say about sex and sex-play. This god-man is no other than Vatsyayana the author of kamasutra. He wrote in the introduction to this literary master-piece:

“After reading and considering the works of Babhravya and other ancient authors, and thinking over the meaning of the rules given by them, this treatise was composed according to the precepts of the Holy Writ, for the benefit of the world, by Vatsyayana, while leading the life of a religious student at Banaras, and wholly engaged in the contemplation of the deity”[1].

Here a god-man, not a charvaka atheist, speaks of sex-play in its crudest and most refined forms with a sacral, nay sacramental air. But in the West and even among the Westernized Indians, sex is looked upon as one of the most secular aspects of human life. In Hinduism Vedanga literature, including vyakaran (grammer) especially Panini Vyakaran, is given scriptural (smruti) status. With minor reservations, this can be said about the other Indic Religions as well, like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. In the regions where the Indic Religions are pre-dominant, one might say, people ‘live, move and have their being in religion’, while proclaiming themselves as citizens of secular countries. This can be said about Islam more emphatically, as we shall soon see. If so what is Western Secularism in the Indian context?

On the other hand in India communal tension and inter-religious rivalry are on the increase and often flare up into riots and bloodshed. A number of cities in India like, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Vadodara, Meerut, Jamshedpur and Pune are smouldering volcanoes of communal fury. In the Indian situation of antagonistic religions, is there any ideology other than secularism equal to the task of securing law and order for us, and of creating a situation of inter-religious cooperation, harmony and peace? In my opinion, secularism interpreted as Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation, taking into account of two of the main aspects of Indian context, namely the situation of Religious Pluralism with inter-religious rivalry and socio-economic injustice. The Gandhian concept of sarva-dharma-samabhav takes into account primarily the former aspect of the Indian context without necessarily implying the latter. ‘Dialogal Liberation’ advocates inter-religious cooperation to fight for socio-economic justice in the Indian situation of caste-discrimination and economic oppression.

Some Procedural Remarks (Abstract)

First we shall clarify the Western concept of secularism in terms of its original meaning. This will be followed by certain terminological and conceptual studies to see how this Western concept was thrust into the Indian body-politics and how the Indian ethos cannot and does not accept it meaningfully without radically transforming it. In the second part, we take a bird's eye-view of some of the circumstances, which gave birth to this concept in the West. Its positive and the negative consequences will be dealt with in the third part. It is in the fourth part that we make a rather extensive study of the Indian Ethos first concentrating on the Indic Religions and then on Islam which is part and parcel of Indian Ethos. In the light of authoritative documents we shall point out how Western Secularism is totally incompatible with Islam though some Muslims argue for Western Secularism in countries where Islam is a small minority as in Western Europe and a sizable minority as in India. In the fifth and final part we officially deal with Religiosity of Dialogal Liberation after explaining the axiom, context changes the text and the liberationist concept of re-reading the scriptures.

I. CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS

A. Concepts Related to ‘Western Secularism’

Since the concept ‘Secularism’ is a very confusing one, both in the West and in India, and it is used indiscriminately, some explanations and clarifications are necessary to make some sense out of this paper and of any debate on this topic especially in India. The ‘concept paper’ for the CBCI under the title, “Secularism: A Positive Christian Commitment”, affirms that “There is no other alternative to secularism for the citizens, especially for Christians and other minorities for achieving the goals of justice, equality, human dignity and fraternity” (p.10). Does it mean the Western concept of secularism which either marginalizes religion and God or opposes them? Is the meaning of this term given by the Sangh Parivar the same as that of the Indian constitution?

Secular comes from the Latin word ‘saeculum’ which means age, era, century, this age, etc and indirectly means the world of change, samsar. According to the Random House Dictionary ‘secular’ is that which pertains “to worldly things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual or sacred”. The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a similar definition.

The Encyclopedia of Religion says that the proponents of secularism consciously denounce all forms of supernaturalism and the agencies devoted to it, advocating non-religious or anti-religious principles as the basis for personal morality and social organization[2]. A Dictionary of Christian Theology (Alan Richardson, Ed., London: SCM Press, 1976), from the points of view of the reformed churches, describes the spheres of the secular taken away from the religious sphere: “By the nineteenth century the secular was often thought of as the sphere in which neither the Church nor the Christian conscience had any right to interfere (politics, business, science, etc.). By the twentieth century many more areas of life have been thus ‘secularized’ (universities, education generally, hospitals, social services, art, etc.)”[3]. According to Gerald O'Colins secularism “rules out other-worldly religious values and causes, as distracting illusions which prevent man from achieving a free and fruitful existence. In brief, radical secularism is atheism.”[4] Harvey Cox in his extreme optimism and enthusiasm for the secularization of the world wrote: “The age of a secular city, the epoch whose ethos is quickly spreading into every corner of the globe is an age of no religion at all’. It no longer looks to religious rules and rituals for its morality or its meanings”[5].

Another word derived from ‘secularism’ is ‘secularisation’ which means historical processes and movements which imply a change from religious and supernatural to natural and this-worldly purposes. The well-known historian, Professor K. N. Panikkar points out two aspects of secularization: “First, a struggle to develop a system of belief and social practice regulated by reason through a rationalist critique of religion and social mores. Second, an attempt to de-emphasize otherworldliness and to focus attention on the reality of material existence”[6]. ‘Secularization’ first became current in the European languages, at the time of the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, in Germany in 1648[7]. The parties to this treaty were the Holy Roman Empire, France, Sweden and the Protestant princes. By this treaty the Holy Roman theocracy abdicated much of its power to the local princes and ‘secularisation’ was used "to describe the transfer of territories previously under ecclesiastical control to the dominion of lay political authorities”[8].

Dr. R. Heredia points out the search by social scientists for secular substitutes for religion: “However, in a functionalist perspective like that of Durkheim, secularization would imply the functional substitution of religion by some other symbolic reality capable of creating the moral consensus, the collective consciousness, the social solidarity that in Durkheim’s view is a sine qua non for any society. This could be done by a “civil religion” (Bellah 1970: 168-69) or an “ideology” (Geertz 1973: 193-233). Obviously there will be limitations to how functional such substitutes can be, especially if one considers religion to be a universal functional prerequisite, as some do (Pasrons and Shils 1951: 25). Indeed, in so far as these secular substitutes do perform the function of religion, they in fact become “sacralised”! Certainly this has happened with political ideologies and national symbols and rites”[9].

Dr. Upendra Baxi enumerates five varieties of secularism pointed out by Larry Shiner in 1967:

- decline of religion (‘The previously accepted symbols, doctrines and institutions lose their prestige and influence’ the culmination of the process being the creation of a ‘religionless society’).

- conformity with this-world (turning away from the supernatural).

- disengagement of society from religion (where society, and state strive to constitute themselves as an ‘autonomous reality’ or ‘separation of religion and politics’ – in short, ‘differentiation’).

- transposition of religious beliefs and institutions (knowledge, patterns of behaviour and institutional arrangement… once understood ‘as grounded in divine power are transformed into phenomena of purely human creation and responsibility’).

- desacralisation of the world (culminating in the banishment of ‘sacred’ or ‘mysterious’ – culminating in perfectly rationally manipulable society)”[10].

In the light of these considerations one might say that ‘secular’ in the West meant in its origin, non-religious if not anti-religious realities this worldly rather than other-worldly, temporal rather than eternal. The secularist movements inaugurated by G. J. Holyoake (1817-1906) and by Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891) in England was an extreme form of secularism which left behind, as the DCT says “bitter anti-religious propaganda and hatred of Christianity” especially in England. The French and Marxist revolutionaries opposed tooth and nail religion and god and they struggled to propagate secularism as a concept totally anti-religious.

B. Concepts and Attitudes Related to ‘Indian Secularism’

There are concepts in the Indian languages which notwithstanding their verbal, etymological similarities, do not signify what secularism represents in the West. Indeed, the 42^nd amendment (1976) inserted the word secularism in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. A verbal translation (vachyarth) of this term, without bothering about its lokshanarth or bhavarth (inner or symbolic meaning), is found in the Indian vernaculars like Hindi dharma-nirapeksa (indifferent or neutral to religion) into Gujarati as Bin-sampradayik (non-sectarian) and into Malayalam as matetara (independent of religion). But there is an Indian term backed by a philosophical system is lokayata [loka + ayata (ayatana) = the world + base: based on the material world] of the Charvaka Philosophical system. Even those who accept the Western concept of secularism would not feel at home with the concept lokayata in spite of its similarity.

The situations and the circumstances from which ‘secularism’ took its origin in India are quite different from those of the West. The conflict between the Church and the State certainly has something to do with the origin of this ideology in the West. It is often said that whereas in the West this ideology took its origin primarily in the context of Church-State conflicts, in India it grew if not born in the context of Religious Pluralism especially when there arose conflicts between religions. True, Religious Pluralism was a fact of life in India from time immemorial. In fact, some sort of minor religious conflicts arose in the context of Buddhism and Jainism. But emperors like Ashoka nipped it in the bud through various administrative measures. Even the Muslim rulers like Akbar and Hydar-ali saw to it that their rule would not lead to serious inter-religious conflicts.

If Rigveda teaches ekam sat viprah bahudha vadanti (Truth is one but scholars speaks of it diversely) it may not have originated in the context of religious pluralism as we understand today. The chatushkoti of Vedant (fourfold opposing affirmation of a thing) and the Saptabhanginaya of Jainism (the sevenfold opposing affirmations of a thing) based on anekantvada (many-sidedness of reality) seem to depend more on peculiar mind-sets of the people rather than religious pluralism as we understand today. It is this mind-set, which produced the well-known parable of the four congenitally blind people describing the nature of an elephant by touching its different limbs.

Though the term lokayata is similar to the anti-religious secularism advocated by Marxism in Eastern Europe and China, the Indian Marxists did not accept the lokayata brand of materialistic secularism. It is interesting for us to be aware of the following tenets of lokayata materialistic secularism:

“Sacred literature should be discarded as being false.
There is no deity or supernatural.
There is no immortal soul; nothing exists after the death of the body.
All is derived from material elements.
Only direct perception (pratyaksa) gives true knowledge.
Religious injunctions and the sacerdotal class are useless.
The aim of life is to get the maximum of pleasure”[11].

Here it must be noted that this thoroughgoing materialistic atheism with its hedonistic slogans, Kamah paramo dharma (pleasure is the supreme religion) and Runam krutva ghrutam pibet (make as much debt as possible and drink ghee) had hardly any followers in India down the centuries. This system remained, by and large, in the text-books and in the wishful thinking and day-dreams of passionately hedonistic people. The highly religious Indian society, for whom religion is a basic-structure rather than a super-structure, never let this ideology flourish.

After independence Indian democracy willy-nilly followed the Gandhian and the Nehruvian concepts of secularism. Dr. Rudolf Heredia writes about these two and other brands of secularism in India:

“Nehruvian dharma-nirapeksata and Gandhian sarva-dharma-samabhav represent the two most significant models of secular ideologies that were subsumed into the national consensus, where ‘they are frequently mistaken for or conflated with each other’ (Bharuch, ibid; 2925). There were others too, like Tagore with his deep humanism and Lohia with his committed socialism that by and large supported rather than undermined this consensus. Eventually the various tensions and contradictions between these diverse ‘secularism’ were also fused or rather confused”[12].

In the beginning of the Preamble of the Indian Constitution the word secular was inserted in the 42^nd amendment: “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign ‘Socialist’ Secular Democratic Re-public and to secure to all its citizens…” Dr. Upendra Baxi briefly analyzes the meaning of this concept in the Indian Constitution:

i. the state by itself, shall not espouse or establish or practise any religion;

ii. public revenues will not be used to promote any religion;

iii. the state shall have the power to regulate any ‘economic, financial or other secular activity’ associated with religious practice (Article 25 (2) (a) of the Constitution);

iv. the state shall have the power through the law to provide for ‘social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of public character to all classes and sections of Hindus (Article 25 (2) (b) of the Constitution);

v. the practice of untouchability (in so far as it may be justified Hindu religion) is constitutionally outlawed by Article 17;

vi. every individual person will have, in that order, an equal right to freedom of conscience and religion;

vii. these rights are however subject to the power of the state through law to impose restrictions on the ground of ‘public order, morality and health’;

viii. these rights are furthermore subject to other fundamental rights in Part III;

ix. the Courts, especially the Supreme Court, shall have the final ‘say’ on adjudging state action as valid or otherwise under the above principles”[13].

Even during the early stages of the Indian Republic these implications of ‘secularism’ could not be practiced. Asghar Ali Engineer states:

“Also right from the beginning, the Indian Constitution had certain features which were problematic for a secular state. The Constitution provides for maintenance of certain Hindu temples (for example the one in the former state or Travancore-Cochin), from the consolidated fund of India. Can a secular state maintain any religious place, shrine or temple? Also, in its Directive Principles, it makes provision for banning cow slaughter. Such a ban could be justified for milch cattle and those animals who are young and useful but can an absolute ban be imposed on cow slaughter by a secular state? Also, the retention of personal laws poses a question. Can a secular state permit retention of different laws for different religious groups in the matter of marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoptions, etc.? The question of personal laws has assumed serious proportions in recent times”[14].

These are just few of the exceptions of the Western Ideology of Secularism in India. Even Nehru himself allowed the Congress party in Kerala to align itself to Muslim League, a party exclusively for the Muslims. In fact, the Marxist leader Nambudhiripad not only made an alliance with this Muslim party but agreed to carve out a Muslim majority area called Malapuram as a separate district because of the demand by the Muslims for this alliance. These few examples are just to show how this concept had to be restrained and restricted even at the infancy of Independent India.

[1] Dr. J. L. Paranoo (edit). Kamasutra, New Delhi: New Light Publishers, Year of publication not given, pp.17-18.

[2] Mircea Eliade (ed). New York: Maxmillan Publishing Company, Vol.13, “Secularization”, 1987, p.159

[3] Alan Richardson (edit), “Secular Secularization”, London: SCM Press Ltd., 1976, p.310.

[4] The Theology of Secularity, Dublin: The Mercier Press, 1974, p.12

[5] The Secular City, London: SCM Press, 1965, p.3

[6] Communal Threat Secular Challenge, Madras: Earthworm Books Pvt. Ltd., 1997, p.16.

[7] Encyclopaedia of Religion, Op. Cit., ibid, p.159

[8] Encyclopaedia of Religion, Op. Cit., ibid, p.159

[9] Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit), Secularism and Liberation, New Delhi: ISI, 1995, pp.17-18.

[10] Upendra Baxi, “The ‘Struggle’ for the Redefinition of Secularism in India: Some Preliminary Reflections”, Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit)., op.cit., p.59.

[11] D. Riepe, The Naturalistic Tradition in Indian Thought, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1964, p.58.

[12] “Secularism and Secularisation: Nation Building in a Multi-Religious Society” in Secularism and Liberation, Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit), New Delhi: ISI, 1995, p.23.

[13] “The ‘Struggle’ for the Redefinition of Secularism in India: Some Preliminary Reflections”, Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit)., op.cit., pp.61-62.

[14] “Secularism in India-Theory and Practice”, Rudolf Heredia & Edward Mathias (edit)., op.cit., p.51.
Part II will be posted shortly........

Spirituality, Religion and Ecology for Transformation _ Fr.Xavier Manjooran

2011-11-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

Spirituality, Religion and Ecology for Transformation

“The world stands in need of liberation, my lord”. These words of a song depict the cry of millions of people in the world. In response to this song someone in the internet (fropper.com) wrote, “God bless you my friend and hear your voice. it is the voice of all humans in this planet”. People want liberation from poverty, oppression, corruption, all kinds of exploitations and injustices. Every normal human being longs for a happy and peaceful life. But that does not seem to be happening today. Poverty is increasing, millions of people go to bed everyday hungry, thousands of children are dying of malnutrition every day, millions do not have shelter, indigenous people are pushed out from their abode and thrown into the streets, forests are denuded and people’s lively hood is destroyed, corruption is rampant. Indeed the world stands in need of liberation from all these. In other words the world needs to be changed, transformed into a place where everyone is happy. The Training for Transformation is a response to that. It focuses on the transformation of self and society. However, transformation does not happen all of a sudden nor does it happen once and for all. It is a process that will go on if proper atmosphere is created, and right steps are taken. In this essay we want to discuss how spirituality, religion and ecology contribute to the transformation of society. We shall first try to understand the meaning of spirituality, religion and ecology and then go on to explain how they are connected to transformation of society.

The first question we might ask is what is spirituality and how it is connected to transformation? As Wikipedia mentions spirituality can be defined as an ultimate or immaterial reality, an inner path enabling one to discover the essence of one’s being. It is a call, an inner voice, to genuineness, to be what you are and to become what you are meant to be. Like a bud becoming full bloomed flower with the help of sunlight, fresh air and conducive environment, spirituality helps one to become fully human. Spirituality helps one to live one's life authentically, that is, in the way human life should be lived. Spirituality is a way of life through which we express God’s actual presence in our life helping us and directing us to make choices to become more and more human and to work for a just, caring and sharing society. This also means our lives have to be directed according to the values that will show the presence of God in our lives. “We recognize it in love, in generosity, in courage, in the search for meaning, in commitment to justice, in creativity and in co creation such as music, great works of art and literature” (Reader-1,2010) Hence it is something that affects every aspect of our life.

That means, spirituality has to be contextualized. It cannot be divorced from or ignoring the reality around us. When there is injustice and exploitation, spirituality will inspire us to respond constructively with the values that will help human beings fully human. Spirituality, therefore, will inspire to denounce all that is inhuman and to announce all that is human and will work for a just society. It requires courage and conviction like that of prophets to denounce all that is against human values and to announce the values of the Kingdom. Hence spirituality, has to be prophetic. The life of Oscar Romero, the Arch bishop of El Salvador is a very telling example of this prophetic spirituality. His spirituality inspired him to denounce the oppressive government and to fight for justice and freedom for his country at the cost of his own life. Spirituality opens our hearts to all, especially to the poor, the marginalized and the exploited and helps to ask the ‘why’ of the exploitation. In my context my predecessor, Fr. Joseph Idiakunnel, a Jesuit priest, inspired by his spirituality started his work with the indigenous people of Gujarat, India, and began a free legal aid centre to create awareness among the Adivasis (the indigenous, aboriginal people are known as adivasis in India) of their rights. His work helped the people to fight the cases of injustice. This gave the Adivasis hope that justice is possible and that they can live with dignity and courage to fight for their due place in the society. Besides the political leadership of that area was in the hands of non-adivasis. As a result of Fr. Joseph’s intervention the political leadership today is in the hands of the Adivasis. They have realized their power and dignity; the sense of fear and helplessness has gone away. They are becoming more self reliant. The process of transformation has started, though still a long way to go to build a just and equitable society. This transformation will be possible if the struggle continues adhering to the values of godliness.

Now let us define religion. “Religion is a search for God and to understand one’s relationship with him/her and to strengthen it and to see the link between our daily life and the transcendent spirit” (reader-1,Spirituality, Religion and Commitment to justice). Many consider spirituality and religion, both as a search for God. But there are more and more people who consider spirituality different from religion. Religion can be considered as one way of expressing spirituality. Wikipedia explains that the main difference is that religion is more an external search while spirituality is an internal search, within oneself. (Wikipedia, accessed on 31 Oct 2010)

The word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin word re+ligare, means to re-connect, to bind again. In this sense religion is that which connects individual with God, with one another and with the nature. In Sanskrit language religion is called ‘dharma’ which means duty, human being’s duty to God, to one another and to the creation. This duty is to live a happy life, help others to live happily and to take care of the nature in order that the world created by God is a happy place to live. Religion gives set of rules, values and teachings that explain and show how to be happy and be interconnected. It has got a community of believers who find meaning for their existence and happiness through these doctrines. So religion is not concerned about God and individual only but also about society and the nature. Commitment to justice and creating a just order is also part of religion. This is echoed in the declaration made at the Parliament of World Religions (1993 and 1999) where all religions agreed to “a commitment to respect for life and non violence (to the earth, to animals and all people), a commitment to a culture of truthfulness and trust worthiness, a commitment to a just economic system and a commitment to a culture of partnership between women and men”. So we can say religion is to empower the spirituality of its followers to build a just society. In our context, in India, Gandhiji, was a staunch follower of Hinduism. He fought against caste system and his religion inspired him to fight against oppressive colonialism and to demand for freedom for India. His fight for freedom with a spirituality of non-violence, respect for persons lead the country to liberation. It is very clear that if religion is practiced as it is meant to be, it will lead to transforming the unjust society.

Religions need institutions to help the followers, to organize the worship and pass on the teachings and the doctrines they have received. However, when these rules and doctrines and worship are adhered to as an end in itself, they can become obstacles for transformation. Often the spirit and the purpose behind the doctrine and the teachings are forgotten and they become a cause of power struggle, oppression and exploitation. Study of history tells us that more wars are fought and atrocities are committed in the world in the name of religions than any other cause. In 2002, more than 2000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat, India, in the name of religion. The government supporting the Hindu fundamentalists allowed this genocide to take place in which hundreds of women were raped, videos taken, a pregnant woman’s stomach was cut open and the fetus was thrown into fire. Shops were looted, properties were destroyed and the Muslim community had to run away for their life-all these in the name of protecting one’s religion. This example tells us how religion can deform the society rather than transform it. It is at this time that people with prophetic spirituality have to intervene. As in the Bible the prophet Jeremiah was mandated by the Lord “to uproot and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah, ch.1:10) these structures need to be destroyed and new transforming structures have to be built in order to achieve the transformation of the society.

We believe ecology is another vehicle for transformation of society. According to Wikipedia (accessed on 30 October 2010,at 1.42 pm) ecology deals with interactions between individual organisms and their surroundings, including interactions with both species of the same kind and members of other species. All these organisms are necessary for the survival and well being of the human kind and a happy society. A central principle of ecology is that each living organism has an ongoing and continual relationship with every other element that makes up its environment.

God created the earth and the universe and then created man and woman and placed them in Paradise so that they can be happy. They were also told not to eat the fruit of the tree at the centre. This was necessary for their happy life there. But the man, because of his greediness plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree and ate it. This was the beginning of all sorrows and destructions (Genesis,ch.1). This example is a good reminder for us that the creation is for our use but it is not to be plundered for our greed or else the whole human race will suffer. This is what is happening today. The greed for profit has driven human beings to plunder the earth, destroy the forest, kill animals. This has lead to all kinds of disasters- global warming, tsunamis, unheard of sicknesses, lack of drinking water, rain etc. So it is necessary to use the things of nature for our need and for our survival, not for greed and profit. The indigenous community in India always considered the earth as their mother and the forest as the abode of their gods. They protected the forest, coexisted with the animals and lived a happy life. It was the British who took away their land, cut their forest and introduced them to private property and profit motive. As the chief Seattle (1885) wrote to the President of America, “Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect, all are holy in the memory and experience of my people… the earth is our mother?”. An example of this is how the indigenous community (Adivasis) in Orissa,India, fought against a multinational company called Vedanta and protected the forest there. The company wanted to dig out Bauxite from Niyamgiri, a vast area of thick forest in Orissa, which was the religious place of the adivasi community. The fight for justice in the name of their religion made the government to stop the whole project and save the forest and the worship place. This has given courage and strength to the community to stand for their right and become self-reliant. Religion here has helped in the transformation of that community.

Ecological problems are very much connected with the social problems such as socio economic, cultural and gender conflicts of the society we live in. These are at the core of the most serious ecological dislocations we face today. The effect of environmental destruction is more on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable communities. It also impacts on fragile plants, animals and eco systems. (Bookchin, Murray 1993 & also Gadgil,M 1992). Hence caring for the earth, for ecology, will help resolving the social problems and that will contribute to the transformation of the society. Hence the attitude of hoarding and exploiting the nature to satisfy the greed of the individuals and the nations has to be changed. Nature is to be experienced and not to be exploited. When we care for nature, the nature will care for us and it will lead to social transformation. But the change has to start with self, “to change those aspects of ourselves that block us from connecting with nature, with our fellow creatures, and with God. Our dominion over the natural world, made clear at the beginning of Genesis, is a mandate for gentle, just stewardship. We are called to eradicate within ourselves those aspects of our character that conflict with that mandate, and because we have free will and grace we can succeed in accomplishing this great transformation”(Schwyzer 2006).

From the above discussions we have seen that Spirituality, religion and ecology are not only very much interconnected but can contribute to the transformation of the society. Spirituality, Religion and Ecology are like three overlapping circles and the intersect is the process of transformation. The more each of these three functions effectively the more the process of transformation is enhanced. What is required is the call to be genuine and to become fully human has to be lived with all the values that will enhance this becoming, religion will support and facilitate this spirituality and empower its followers to build a just society with respect for nature, concern for all, and sharing with all, real transformation will take place. ■

Fr.Xavier Manjooran

Jeevan Darshan tit bits- Scho.Anand Anthony

2011-11-01T22:16:00.000-07:00

Jeevan Darshan tit bits

Platinum Jubilee:

"Dare to dream, dare to deserve, dare to devote your life to love, an American proverb was displayed on the notice board on 22^nd of October at Jeevan Darshan to felicitate our dear, Fr. Manucheril Sebastian , for his Platinum Jubilee.

We have shown our gratitude for his loyalty in the energetic 70 long years in the Society of Jesus as Missionary, Pastor and Educationist in GOD’s vineyard. While he was chatting with Fr. Ambrose Vedam , he said that his original name was not Manucheril but Mannucheril ( Mannu = Soil and Cheril = Joining) he generously allowed that misspelling to continue.

We can see that he is most happy and proud of his work with the people of Gujarat. We thank you, Fr. Manucheril, for your fidelity, for your loyalty to the Church, for the wonderful gentleness and humor, for all the magnificent things you have done for so many people in the name of the Lord. We esteem you, and pray on this big occasion of your Platinum Jubilee: "May Almighty God, continue to shower you good health and an increase in holiness. AMEN. ”

Twin Birth Day:

October 29^th was a great day for the Jeevan Darshan community that witnessed the Twin Birth Day of Fr. Mendiburu Narciso and Fr. Manucheril Sebastian, as they gracefully marched in to their 90^th birth days. Arch Bishop. Stanislaus Fernandes greeted the birthday babies with a pair of roses on behalf of Fr. Anton D’Souza and Br.Manuel Enériz respectively.

Fr. Mendiburu who celebrated the Eucharist, thanked the members of the community and guests for their presence, particularly that of our regular visitor Fr.Pablo Gil, Fr. Mendiburu reminded one and all that It is not How long we live, but How that counts, he requested Fr. Pablo to break the word of God.

Fr.Pablo emphasized also that as we grow old it is virtue that matters, the good man thinks always of virtue; the ordinary man thinks of personal comforts. And he went on singing the remarkable contribution of the birthday babies to the Society of Jesus. Fr. Manucheril also shared his thoughts on this occasion thanking the whole society for what he is today and fondly remembered his good old days. Fr.Caesar D’cunha, with his natural buoyancy provided a sumptuous meal for the community.

Birth day of Fr. Luis Arza :

On 1.1.11, Fr. Luis Arza celebrated his 89^th birth day. He was as usual with his beeming smile accpeted the birthday wishes from the community and the well wishers. When Bishop.Godfrey de Rozario greeted him, Fr.Arza gave a good smile and just folded his hands to express his deep felt gratiude.

As these renowned Jesuits entered in to their nineties, I believe that they would be saying in their hearts that “When I close my eyes and prepare to blow out the candles on my birthday cake, I won’t just be making a wish. I’ll be taking a moment to appreciate all the wonderful, beautiful, people and things I came in contact with for the greater glory of God.” Let us keep our senior Jesuits in our prayers.

(Sch. Anand Antony)

Khel Mahakumbh - Girish

2011-10-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

Khel Mahakumbh

Khel Mahakumbh was a great initiative taken by the Government of Gujarat as part of the Golden Gujarat celebration to promote sports activities across the State. The Chief Minister Shri Narendrabhai Modi announced last year that the Khel Mahakumbh will be organized every year for normal persons and the Special Khel Mahakumbh for the differently-abled:- physically handicapped; intellectually disabled; visually challenged; speech & hearing impaired. The event will be held between 21 November to 23 December. The Chief Minister will flag off the torch of Khel Mahakumbh – 2011 in the morning at 11.11 on 11.11.11 in Gandhinagar. The torch will travel in all 26 districts covering the total distance of 2550 kms in ten days. The inauguration ceremony of this MEGA EVENT will be held on 21 November, 2011 in Baroda.

There is something unique in the present logo of the 2011 Khel Mahakumbh, i.e, the inclusion of the international symbol of the handicapped along with the normal sports persons. The credit goes to Fr.Girish, a Trustee member of the Special Olympics Gujarat, to influence the government to include such a precious symbol. Come, let us join together with the State government to promote sports activities among the normal and the special persons: “Ramshe Gujarat. Jitshe Gujarat!” (Girish)

Gujarat Province Congregation at Jivan Darshan, Vadodara- Fr.Raymund S.J

2011-10-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Gujarat Province Congregation at Jivan Darshan, Vadodara

Under the inspiring, effective and Ignatian leadership of Rev. Fr. Jose Changa, the provincial of Gujarat Province, 51 elected, nominated and ex officio members gathered together for Province Congregation at Jivan Darshan, Vadodara, from Octber 13 – 15, 2011. During these grace-filled days, Ignatian procedure was followed meticulously from start to finish.

The first day saw the preliminaries (public majority vote, PMV), power-point presentation talk on the state of the province by Fr. Provincial, the elections of the secretary, the assistant secretary, postulate screening committee members one and two, session for election of procurator and his substitute, discussion on calling/not calling a GC, discussion on the questions of Fr. General, discussion on the state of the Society, discussion on the state of the province, time limit for submission of postluates. Fr. Francis Gonsalves sj was elected as the main secretary with Fr. Lancy Dcruz sj as assistant secretary, while Frs Francis Parmar sj and Cedric Prakash were elected to screen the postulates. Bro. Malcom and his team too resorted to power point presenation for financial state of the province, discussion on the state of the province, followed by the holy mass. There was a discussion of the questions proposed by Fr. General and the state of the Society.

The second day was packed with the election of procurator, his substitute and postulates. Fr. Francis Parmar sj was elected to represent Gujarat Province as procurator with Fr. I. Raj sj as his substitute. As regards calling a General Congregation, the delegates’ decision was a clear NO. There accepted postlates were taken up dicussion.

The delegates continued to dicuss the postulates till noon. Before concluding the province congregation Fr. Provincial, following our Jesuit way of proceeding, asked the delegates whether there was anything important left out. The delegates were satisfied and consoled with all that had gone on during these grace-filled days. At the end Fr. Provincial sincerely thanked one and all for their contribution in participating generously and genuinely in this province congregation.

Raymund Chauhan sj

IS THE ROSARY IN MY POCKET?” -Fr. Cedric Prakash sj

2011-10-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

IS THE ROSARY IN MY POCKET?”

- Fr. Cedric Prakash sj*

My earliest memories of prayer was to be with the family, praying the daily Rosary. For my parents (and grand-parents too) one could (with good reason) skip a meal or even the school homework for next day, but never the Rosary. It is a tradition that has always stayed. No arguments about that. It’s the family Rosary that, in more ways than one, kept the family together.

As we enter October, the month of the Rosary and the year dedicated to the Rosary in the Diocese of Ahmedabad, I would like to share some dimensions of what praying the Rosary means to me:

· Recollection

It is first and foremost a time for recollection. The Rosary can be prayed anytime of the day and anywhere. It helps us cry “halt” to the business of everyday, to focus on the lives of Mary and Jesus. Praying the ‘beads’ has always been an integral dimension of Indic religions: Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Hinduism. It helps meditation and recollection.

· Repentance

The Rosary is a time for repentance. We plead to Mary to intercede for us sinners - more than fifty times in a given cycle; besides, we pray the Our Father at the start of every mystery. Above all, the Passion and Death of Jesus reminds us of the role we play in it because of our own sinfulness.

· Rejoicing

The mysteries of the Rosary helps us to rejoice on the birth of Jesus, his public life, his Resurrection and Ascension. We accompany Mary all the way in these moments of joy and we ask her to be a companion to us too. It is a time when we energize ourselves to be cheerful disciples of Jesus in today’s world inspite of the many difficulties and hardships we constantly have to face.

· Renewal

Providing ourselves with a time for recollection, repentance, and rejoicing also energizes us towards renewal. A Rosary meaningfully said gives us a Marian outlook into the life of Jesus. It helps us to do more and to do good, even better. It gives an added impetus to our other works. It renews us in all ways.

· Reaffirmation

Above all, the Rosary is also a time for reaffirmation. When we truly love someone, we do not hesitate in using his / her name a thousand times and more; we do not stop thinking of that person. The Rosary therefore, helps us to reaffirm our love for Mary and Jesus. So saying the ‘Hail Mary’ (fifty times and more) is not merely repeating from our minds and lips, some formula, but actually saying from the depths of our hearts “I love you”. It’s a reaffirmation of our love and our commitment to Jesus and Mary.

So the Rosary for me is surely a bouquet of roses! It is a time for recollection, repentance, rejoicing, renewal and reaffirmation. Several times a day, I need to check if my Rosary is in my pocket…. It does not matter if it is entangled with my many keys….. It’s still there, a great reminder that I should not miss praying my Rosary for the day….!

(* Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ is the Director of PRASHANT, the Ahmedabad based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.)

2011-09-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Jesus walks on our Planet again and again and

we take time to "Recognize the Christ" in shapes and forms that are beyond "our little boxes" of perception.
Here's one case who stuck her/his head out. Irene Sandler, who was a simple Roman Catholic. Thank God for the fact that we got a chance to "see" the Christ in her.

http://www.irenasendler.com/faqs.asp

Look at this lady - Let us never forget!

The world hasn't just become wicked...it' s always been wicked. The prize doesn't always go to the most deserving.

Irena Sendler

There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an 'ulterior motive'.

She KNEW what the Nazi's plans were for the Jews (being German).

Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).

She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.

During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.

She was caught, and the Nazi's broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.

Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected. President Obama won one year before becoming President for his work as a community organizer for ACORN and Al Gore won also --- for a slide show on Global Warming.

World Youth Day- Fr.Sunil Macwan

2011-09-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

World Youth Day

Attended by nearly two million young people from 193 countries of the world, the World Youth Day 2011 concluded recently in Madrid, Spain. The Holy Father, Benedict XVI accompanied the youth from August 16 - 21 in Madrid. His presence was greeted with cheers of joy and jubilation by all the participants wherever he went. The theme of the WYD was "Rooted and Built Up in Jesus Christ, Firm in the Faith." (Col 2.7)

The highlight of the gathering was a vigil at the Madrid airfield Cuatro Vientos on August 20. Nearly 20 lakhs youth attended it braving scorching heat of the day and thunderstorm and rain at night. In the presence of the Holy Father the Eucharistic Adoration brought about a reverent silence over the full stretch of the vast air field. The Holy Fahter celebrated his concluding mass at the same venue the following day. He exhorted the youth saying "The world needs the testimony of your faith".

To participate in this historic gathering in a "more" fervent manner the Jesuits had initiated a youth programme of their own called MAGIS 2011. Its theme was "With Christ at the Heart of the World". Over 3000 youths from 52 countries gathered at Loyola to start this Ignatian adventure at the foot of the Sanctuary of Loyola. The highlight of this initial phase was the solemn mass celebrated by Father General, Adolfo Nicolas S.J. on August 7. He then sent us on our way to different experiments. All the magis participants divided in 117 experiment groups each consisting 25 members left Loyola on 8 August. These experiments spread across the whole of Spain and parts of Portugal, were designed for an intensive experience of pilgrimage, social service, art, spirituality, ecology, faith and culture. They indeed united the groups and brought forth our spirit of magis. On August 15 the entire Magis group once again gathered in Madrid at El Recuerdo school, close to the residence of the Pope in Central Madrid.

Then on the Magis 2011 merged with overwhelming and energetic WYD participants. However, throughout the WYD celebrations the magis spirit prevailed through our incessant singing, dancing and lively participation in the Catechesis classes.

A group of 13 members represented Gujarat at both these events. Thanks to the generosity of the Gujarat Jesuits that besides a Jesuit and Sr.Pushpa Telor CCV, thirteen youth could travel to Spain for MAGIS and WYD 2011.

Over all it was a once-in-lifetime type of experience for all of us.

By: SUNIL MACWAN S.J.

Historical Moment – Dangs - Fr.Shekhar

2011-06-30T03:14:00.000-07:00

Historical Moment – Dangs“Dangi Bhashanu Vyakaran” (The Grammar Of Dangi [Tribal] Language), a voluminous and monumental book by Fr Raymund Chauhan was released by the Rajas (kings) of the Dangs on the 26 June in Shamgahan amidst a colourful, cheerful and Dangi tribal atmosphere. Frs Ishwan Gamit, Thomas Chamakala, the Sisters, students, staff and people had worked a lot and made it an historical day. The Collector of the Dangs Mr P.K. Solanki, who was to preside over the function and release the book, could not attend owing to ill health, but he conveyed his appreciation to Fr Raymund and expressed his best wishes to the public. As people from far and near started arriving on the campus they were welcomed by traditional Dangi tribal music and dancers.

Around 10.30 a.m., the three kings – Dhanrajsinh from Vasurna, Karansinh from Gadvi and Tirmakrav from Pimpri, guests, Fathers and Sisters were led in a procession accompanied by graciously dancing women in front and in the rear while, on either side, the enthusiastic boys and girls of St Xavier’s School, Shamgahan lined up from the Residence to the Hostel. At the hostel building, the kings inaugurated an exhibition, done professionally, on Dangi culture and life-style including some live scenes, and particularly the contribution by Jesuits to the first-ever Dangi literary tradition. Later the focus was shifted to the beautifully decorated stage and mandap for the book release. In a masterly presentation of the cultural programme, the boys and girls, and local tribal artistes showcased their inimitable and breathtaking talents through songs and dances (‘pawari', 'samblya' ). There was thunderous applause, unstoppable, when the book was released by the three kings. It could be easily perceived that a sense of pride and revelry had secreted into the whole crowd and the speakers for they knew it quite well that Fr Raymund has enshrined not only the grammar of Dangi but also their beautiful land, rich culture, history, and so on. Referring to the book, one of the speakers rightly said, “It is the treasure of our people and culture.” A true honour to a Jesuit who, perfectly aligned to his Jesuit heritage, has painstakingly brought out a monumental work. Unquestionably, a labour of love (Shekhar Manickam)

Congratulations to Fr.Jose Changanacherry -Fr.Lawrence dharmaraj s.j

2011-06-24T02:46:00.000-07:00

Many Congratulations to Fr.Jose Changanacherry, who completes one year today as Provincial of Gujarat in his second term as Provincial. He was Provincial from 1989 to 1995.

Congratulations to the Jubilarians -Fr.Lawrence dharmaraj

2011-06-24T02:34:00.000-07:00

50 years ago- 1961

Many Congratulations to the Golden Jubilarians in the Society (June 20):Frs Ornellas Coutinho, Thomas Chamakala, Lawrence Lobo, Maria Pragasam, Devasia Muthuplackal, Rappi Poothokaren, Thomas Thannipara, Paul valappila, Victor Davamani , Br Paul Macwan (July 30) and Fr Castiella Joaquin (Aug 30).

Fr.Raymund's- Dangi Bhashanu Vyakran

2011-06-10T23:25:00.001-07:00

Br.Harold Rodrigues S.J --Socius

2011-06-08T20:26:00.000-07:00

Br.Harold Rodrigues S.J

Br.Harold Rodrigues, lovingly called ‘Monsignor’ by close friends, is a trustworthy, dependable, faithful, methodical, regular worker who always done well all the works entrusted to him.

Born in 1928 in an East Indian family of Bandra, Bombay, he joined the Society of Jesus at Vinayalaya in 1948.

With his good English and his dependable faithfulness, Br.Harry soon became a much wanted element in our English medium schools, especially those of the western region of Gujarat: 2 years in Jamnagar, 4 years in Mithapur, 5 years in Rajkot.. Those were the glorious years when Br.Harry combined the classroom seriousness and discipline with intense participation in scout activities. He became a professional Scout master and guided many young boys into the delightful discovery of the wonders of nature.

With the passing of age, the Scout master became the ‘stout master’ as one of his companions put it referring to his expanding waist line, and good Br.Harry slowly withdrew from active scouting though he always kept some relationship with this movement till very recently.

After the Jesuits gave up Saurashtra and all the schools in which good Br.Harry had toiled so much..! He came to St.Xavier’s Gandhinagar where he worked for five years.

From there he went to the Gregorian University in Rome where he served in the office for 7 years winning the confidence of all his colleagues and superiors and the title of ‘Monsignor’ as he became an expert guide of the ecclesiastical Rome for the many visitors who passed that way during those years. Visitors from Gujarat were always invited for a supper prepared by Br.Harry with the left overs he picked up from here and there; austere and tight-fisted, his delight is always to feed friends but without spending any money.

From Rome he returned to India-Gujarat, as Assistant treasurer of the province. His methodical regularity contributed very much in putting order in an office that very much needed it and his four years as assistant treasurer were a great blessing for the province.

Later on he was transferred to St.Xavier’s Gandhinagar, where he worked with his usual methodical regularity and efficiency and finally he went to Jeevan Darshan for his retirement and rest. On 08-06-2011, in the early morning hours between 5.30a.m to 6.15 a.m, he breathed his last and went for his eternal rest. The funeral was held on the same day at 5.30 p.m at Jeeva Darshan, Baroda.

Scholastics Sammelan ...Sanjay Horo and Jobin.K

2011-06-03T23:14:00.000-07:00

Scholastics Sammelan

On 22 May, even the scorching heat of summer could not stop our enthusiastic scholastics from going to Sevasi for the Scholastic Sammelan. By evening the campus came alive. The second day was devoted for personal sharing. This marathon session lasted for five hours. We immensely got enriched by sharing and listening to each other’s experiences. In the evening there was GPPL (Gujarat Province Premier League) 10th edition. The two teams locked horns for a victory but it ended in a tie. But many long-standing records were broken in the match:

The first batsman in history to be out on a trial ball was Johnson.

Highest no. of balls bowled in an over: Alpesh - 16 balls.

Highest no. of runs given away in an over: Navneet - 20 runs.

Well done mara wala ramatviro!!

On the 24th we went for a picnic to Kabir Vad, Bharuch. We spent some time in the water cooling ourselves in the river Narmada. Fr PCF was patiently sitting on the bank of the river and kept counting our heads every now and then while we were frolicking in the cool waters of the Narmada. Later, we were provided a sumptuous meal by Sch Nilesh’s brother. On the last day of the Sammelan Fr Sudhir Chettiar spoke on the value of Jesuit vocation and encouraged us to engage in the work of vocation promotion in every way possible during our formation. The new PCF Fr Richard Lopez was welcomed warmly and the outgoing PCF Fr Lawrence Dharmaraj and Deacon Kamlesh Raval were given a farewell.

Fr Provincial in his address drew our attention towards the ‘Goal of Formation’: To grow in ones sense of belonging to the Province – the Society and Mission. He also emphasized that the goal of Jesuit formation is not to do many things but to become an authentic Jesuit. The Sammelan came to an end with a Eucharistic celebration. The gathering was organized very well. Hats off to Schs David and Suresh who left no stone unturned to make it a success. All left Sevasi looking forward to next year’s gathering. (Sanjay Horo & Jobin)

I have learned.... By Andy Rooney

2011-06-02T03:29:00.000-07:00

I HAVE LEARNED..... .......

The following is written by Andy Rooney, a man who has the gift of saying so much with so few words.

I’ve learned…. That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

I’ve learned…. That when you’re in love, it shows.

I’ve learned…. That just one person saying to me, ‘You’ve made my day!’ makes my day.

I’ve learned…. That having a child fall a sleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world.

I’ve learned…. That being kind is more important than being right.

I’ve learned…. That you should never say no to a gift from a child.

I’ve learned …. That I can always pray for someone when I don’t have the strength to help him in some other way.

I’ve learned…. That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

I’ve learned…. That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

I’ve learned…. That simple walks with my father around the block on summer nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

I’ve learned…. That life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.

I’ve learned…. That money doesn’t buy class.

I’ve learned…. That it’s those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

I’ve learned… That under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

I’ve learned…. That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

I ‘ve learned…. That when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

I’ve learned…. That love, not time, heals all wounds.

I’ve learned…. That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

I’ve learned…. That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

I’ve learned…. That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I’ve learned…. That opportunity is never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

I’ve learned…. That when you harbour bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.

I’ve learned…. That I wish I could have told my Dad that I love him one more time before he passed away.

I’ve learned …. That one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.

I’ve learned…. That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.

I’ve learned…. That when your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you’re hooked for life.

I’ve learned…. That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

I’ve learned…. That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

I’ve learned…. That we should be glad God doesn’t give us everything we ask for.

I’ve learned … That life is tough, but I’m tougher.

Province Sammelan April 2011-- Fr.Lawrence Dharmaraj s.j

2011-05-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

Province Days

The Province Sammelan (April 28-30) was the culmination of a process that began last February with community sharing followed by 7 zonal-wise meetings. The spirit of the Sammelan is indicated by its theme: Rooted in the Past, United in the Present and Marching towards New Frontiers.

At the zonal gatherings, individual Jesuits as well as communities displayed things they had published, rare photos which spoke of their histories, personal histories, artifacts, books, brochures, stamp collections, paintings, valuable PowerPoint presentations, cartoons, stories, and so on. The theme of these ‘exhibitions’ was: “Missioned by Jesus – Our work – Our People”.

The Eucharist on the first day of the Sammelan was presided over by Bishop Francis Braganza and Archbishop Stanny Fernandes. On the second day, Bishop Thomas Macwan and A B Stanny graced the occasion by their participation in the Eucharist and the Jubiliarians-2010 of the Province were felicitated. ¨Gamit Bhashanu Vyakran¨ by Fr Raymund Chauhan was released in the afternoon. Presiding over the Eucharist on the concluding day, the provincial Fr Jose Changa thanked the Lord for His graces showered on the Jesuits of Gujarat. He expressed his appreciation of those who lent helping hands to make the Sammelan a very successful one. Loyola Hall played the perfect host to provide comfort and leisure, so that the renewed emphasis of GC35 “Jesuit identity and Jesuit mission are linked by community” became a reality. Congratulations to the PCCS members under the leadership of Fr Raj! The team members’ ingenuity in using modern technology has animated our provincemen to pray for one another by the daily reminders through SMS and through the website. Evidently that prayerful- loving- reverence ‘accatamiento’ for each other was very much felt during the Province days. Hope we continue to cultivate and foster this grace which St Ignatius considered as the most supreme grace he ever received in life!

the way you face life that makes the difference!

2011-04-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

One day all the employees reached the office and saw a big advice on the

door on which was written:

'Yesterday the person who has been hindering your growth in this company passed away. We invite you to join the funeral in the room that has been prepared in the gym'. In the beginning, they all got sad for the death of one of their colleagues, but after a while they started getting curious to know who was that man who hindered the growth of his colleagues and the company itself. The excitement in the gym was such that security agents were ordered to control the crowd within the room.The more people reached the coffin, the more the excitement heated up.

Everyone thought: 'Who is this guy who was hindering my progress? Well, at

least he died!'. One by one the thrilled employees got closer to the coffin, and when they looked inside it they suddenly became speechless. They stood nearby the coffin, shocked and in silence, as if someone had touched the deepest part

of their soul. There was a mirror inside the coffin: everyone who looked inside it could see himself. There was also a sign next to the mirror that said:There is only one person who is capable to set limits to your growth: it is YOU.

You are the only person who can revolutionize your life. You are the only person who can influence your happiness, your realization and your success. You are the only person who can help yourself. Your life does not change when your boss changes, when your friends change, when your parents change, when your partner changes, when your company changes. Your life changes when YOU change, when you go beyond your limiting beliefs, when you realize that you are the only oneresponsible for your life.

'The most important relationship you can have is the one you have with yourself' Examine yourself, watch yourself. Don't be afraid of difficulties, impossibilities and losses: be a winner, build yourself and your reality.

It's the way you face Life that makes the difference

Thought Provoking Message

2011-04-19T03:17:00.000-07:00

Why People Yell?

A sage asked his mandalies the following,"Why people yell at each other when they are upset?" The men thought for a while,"Because we loose our calmness," said one. "we yell for that.""But, why to yell when the other person is at your side?" askedthe sage. " Isn't it possible to speak to him or her with a soft voice? Why do you yell at a person when you're angry?"

The men gave some other answers but none satisfied the sage.

Finally he explained,"When two people are angry at each other, their hearts distance a lot. To cover that distance they must yell, to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the stronger they will have to yell to hear each other through that great distance."

Then the sage asked," What happens when two people fall in love? They do not yell at each other but talk softly, why?Their hearts are very close. The distance between them is very small."

The sage continue, "When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that's all. That is how close two people are when they love each other."

Then the sage said, "When you argue do not let your hearts get distant, do not say words that distance each other more, it will come a day when the distance be so great that you will not find the path to return."

Fr. Jose Thayil, SJ

2011-04-01T06:10:00.001-07:00

Fr.Ramon Eizaguirre

2011-03-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

Fr.Ramon Eizaguirre died in the Lord at 10.30 a.m at jeevan Darshan Baroda on 26-03-2011 and the funeral is held at 5.30 p.m in the Rosary Church Baroda. May the Lord grant him the eternal rest.
Some information about Fr. Eizaguirre Ramon:

Father: Guillermo and Mother: Cecile Arregui

Born: 27-08-1925, Place: Tolosa Dist Guipuzcoa

Entered the society: 14-09-1943, Loyola Spain

Juniorate: Orduna ,Spain in 1945-1948

Philosophy: Shambaganur in 1949-1952

Theology: DNC Pune in 1955-1959

Orination: 24-03-1958 at Anand by Bp.Edwin
Responsibilities held:

Teacher: Loyola Hall, Ahmedabad 1960-1963

Minister: Loyola Hall in 1961-1963

Teacher: Rosary Baroda in 1963-1987

Vice Rector: Rosary in1975-1983

Principal: Rosary 1975-1989

Director: St. Xavier Tech, sevasi in 1987-1989

Parish priest: Valsad in 1991-1994

Treasurer: Rosary , Baroda 1994-2005

2011-03-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

Lent --- Dinesh

2011-03-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

Dear brothers,

Thought of sharing this reflection with you...

I just returned this morning from meeting my spiritual director Joe Lacey. Joe is a Jesuit of the Maryland province who had worked for a number of years in Jamshedpur.

One of the questions he asked me was, “How are you going to go about lent this year?” He then shared the process he had gone through a few years back. As part of being in a parish, and very much involved in giving the 19th annotation Sp. Ex, he wanted blend the journey of lent into the journey of the spiritual exercises.

The team he was reflecting with all began with the assumption that lent corresponded to the 3rd week of the exercises. However when they looked at the readings through lent, they discovered that these focused more on the “journey to Jerusalem” – Lent was actually the journey into Easter. This insight transformed how they approached the “spiritual exercises for lent”

What Joe suggested to me was that one could begin with Easter – What would it be like to experience the Risen Lord, who has triumphed over evil and hatred, and sin and death; what would it be like to be one in a community of love, filled with the Holy Spirit; What would it be like to like in an environment suffused by the presence of the Risen Lord. …

This is the backdrop to our journey of lent. … And we could fill this picture out more fully – what would communities look like; what would Gujarat look like; what would our apostolates look like; suffused with the transforming presence of the Risen Lord who has triumphed!

And then we allow ourselves to reflect on our present situation… what is it that could prevent me from reaching and experiencing Easter more fully? What “prejudices’, beliefs, attitudes, habits etc. could limit my experience of Easter? What kinds of relationships, works, involvements are keeping me from experiencing the Risen Lord more abundantly? These are the things I can choose to “FAST” from or abstain from … the disordered attachments that I choose to set in order.

And then we could turn our eyes to those areas that we choose to cultivate, that can open us to a more profound encounter with the Risen Lord; and help us to be more congruent and sensitively attuned to the movements of the Spirit within us, among us, and in our world. …

… Perhaps something as simple as the “Preparatory Prayer” as an introduction to our reading the daily newspaper;

… Praying for one’s community members; thinking/speaking/acting kindly and joyfully about those persons that one feels disconnected from or even resentful towards…

… Maybe standing back from the world (as in the meditation on the Incarnation- joining the Trinity in gazing upon our world) to get a wider, global picture of God’s presence and action in the world … and concurrently God’s invitation to us… (These could become what has traditionally been called alms-giving – cultivating the positive) … All that could help us on our journey towards Easter.

This could be our journey … individuals on journey with others to the shared experience of Easter. I was wondering how this could colour our journey in the days ahead as a province as we head towards the Province Sammelan…

And how would it be if some of us found this meaningful enough to want to share our own journey of Lent-towards Easter with our companions.

Wishing you a Joyful Journey of Lent

Dinesh

2011-03-06T18:55:00.001-08:00

cultural tour to Saurastra-- John Paul lobo

2011-03-01T02:20:00.000-08:00

Shraddha Parivar spared a whole week for cultural tour to Saurastra. Fr. Aubrey, the dean of Gujarati studies and Dr. Thomas Parmar accompanied 5 linguists. I would not be able to narrate everything, however, I would not be making apt justice, if I do not name a few places of our visit. They are Sarkhej Roza, Lothal, Dholka, Harnej, Bhavnagar lock gate, Palitana, Diu, Veraval, Chorwad, Somanath, Gir forest, Girnar, Porbandar, Dwarkha, Bet-Dwarkha, Mithapur and Rajkot.

Studies in/of Gujarati language, culture and its people are incomplete without being exposed and then experienced and interiorized the core of the cultural and religious heritage. Truly, this journey towards the faith gave us informative and in-depth knowledge of variety of things. Prior to the tour, we had a well-nurtured one week course on the ‘history and the cultures of Gujarat’, lectured by Dr. Thomas Parmar.

Much of what we saw, heard, experienced and felt is an experience of heart and mind. Each place was filled with the grandeur of divine beauty and conveyed a unique message of service to humanity and peace. Personally, I was amazed at the adventures people have been undertaking since centuries, believing in the welfare of self and others, despite heightened commercialization at temples and other monuments. I am fortunate to have listened to a number of people from different religious traditions sharing unique experiences. Vibrating spiritual presence helped me personally (in a few places) to delve deeply into myself and experience the spiritual joy. Is not every authentic prayer influenced by spirit? The spirit which is mysteriously present in every heart prays with an unutterable groaning.

The whole journey, especially our stay, was a grace-filled moment as we came to know more about religious congregations who are serving Jesus in his people. We are indebted to the royal treatment, hospitality and generosity we received from priests, brothers and religious sisters all through our journey. Thank you so much.

We utilized and savored the time for community-building as we came to know a bit more about each one. We feel energized, spiritually strengthened and renewed and culturally rich, after a fruitful and bone-jarring 6-days journey. Our hearts and minds are schooled and life continues to teach lessons always.

I strongly believe that other companions of mine too had a very rational and spiritual experience. It is time now to cudgel our creative minds, as it is the last phase of official language study.

John Paul Lobo

Sadhanalaya Novitiate Happenings- Robert Christi

2011-02-27T19:18:00.000-08:00

Sadhanalaya Novitiate Happenings

The month began with a one day recollection on 1st of February. The recollection topic was ‘Consecrated Life.’ With this our novice master prepared us for the ‘World Day of Consecrated Life’ which we celebrated with a solemn mass on 2nd February. We the 2nd years were given a special course on the consecrated life. Knowing the need of relaxation and refreshment to body and mind the following day we went to ‘Trimbakeshwer’ for a one day picnic. I witnessed the deep faith Hindus’ have. We also climbed the mountain to see the source of ‘Godavari River.’

The next day we spent much time to prepare a recollection that we Novices were to give. We were supposed to prepare on the topic of ‘Jesus – our companion and his values’ for Kilbil – St.Joseph High School. In the history of Sadhanalaya the novices used various media for recollection talks but never had they used the digital media. This year we were allowed to use the laptop and l.C.D projector. The school children really enjoyed and benefitted by the recollection. This initiative has opened a new way of thinking. It made us familiar with the use of various media for the apostolate in future.

On 7th of the same month Fr. Oscar Rosario- the former novice master, gave a week course on the Suppression and Restoration of the Society. Through his simple narration he took us into the root cause of the suppression. At the end of the course we had a small condolence prayer for those who suffered and died during the suppression. Fr. Oscar planted a real Jesuit spirit in our heart and called us to live with it till the end of our life. On 11th of February we celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes with the Rosary with our neighboring children. The children were given rosaries made by the novices.

On 15th ,we, the second years, were given a half day recollection to prepare us for the ‘Minor Orders’. On the following day the Provincial of Kerala conferred the Orders onto us. On 17th Fr. Robert Das (Pune province) gave us a one day course on the spirituality and education policy of the Society.

On 18th, 19th and 20th we were at ‘The Infant Jesus Shrine’ to render our services in the various needs of the Shrine during the feast. We witness that the Shrine was flooded with the devotees from Bombay, various parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa. Their faith really astonished us. We, the second years, were assigned as acolytes to distribute communion. This experience strengthened our vocation and faith.

From22nd to 24th, Fr. Simon D’Souza gave us a course on the psalms in order to develop our interest for the Scripture and taught us how to pray with the Psalms. We found that really meaningful.

Robert Christi (2nd year Novice), Sadhanalaya Nasik

SOAR BEYOND YOUR FEARS!!!

2011-02-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

SOAR BEYOND YOUR FEARS!!!

Once there was a king who received a gift of two magnificent falcons from Arabia. They were peregrine falcons, the most beautiful birds he had ever seen. He gave the precious birds to his head falconer to be trained.

Months passed and one day the head falconer informed the king that though one of the falcons was flying majestically, soaring high in the sky, the other bird had not moved from its branch since the day it had arrived.

The king summoned healers and sorcerers from all the land to tend to the falcon, but no one could make the bird fly. He presented the task to the member of his court, but the next day, the king saw through the palace window that the bird had still not moved from its perch. Having tried everything else, the king thought to himself, "May be I need someone more familiar with the countryside to understand the nature of this problem." So he cried out to his court, "Go and get a farmer."

In the morning, the king was thrilled to see the falcon soaring high above the palace gardens. He said to his court, "Bring me the doer of this miracle."

The court quickly located the farmer, who came and stood before the king. The king asked him, "How did you make the falcon fly?"

With his head bowed, the farmer said to the king, " It was very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where the bird was sitting."

We are all made to fly -- to realize our incredible potential as human beings. But instead of doing that, we sit on our branches, clinging to the things that are familiar to us. The possibilities are endless, but for most of us, they remain undiscovered. We conform to the familiar, the comfortable, the mundane. So for the most part, our lives are mediocre instead of exciting, thrilling and fulfilling.

So let us learn to destroy the branch of fear we cling to and free ourselves to the glory of flight.

-- From the Book "Why walk when you can fly"

INDIA: Stamp for the centenary of Doot review

2011-02-14T01:33:00.000-08:00

INDIA: Stamp for the centenary of Doot review

On January 15 the Indian Postal department has released a commemorative postage stamp on the occasion of the centenary of Jesuit-run Gujarati magazine Doot (cfr. Electronic Bulletin, Vol. XIV, N. 3, 5 February 2010). Doot was started in January 1911 and it is the second Gujarati magazine besides Gujarat Vidyasabha's 155-year-old magazine Buddhiprakash. Over the years the magazine contributed to build the spiritual and intellectual life of the people of Gujarat, instilling in readers the Christian values of love, compassion, justice, peace and brotherhood. Former editor, Jesuit Father Varghese Paul, said Doot helped establish a strong bond among Christians in Gujarat when no communication medium existed, particularly in rural areas, and it continues to be an agent of social and religious change with its commitment against social evils such as the caste system and discrimination in general. With a circulation of more than 10,000, it is read by about 50,000 people in India and among the Indians in the UK and USA.

The life sketch of Bro.Felipe Lazarralde

2011-02-05T01:41:00.000-08:00

19-11-1925 to 04-02-2011

The life sketch of Bro.Felipe Lazarralde

Bro.Felipe Lazarralde was born in Guipuco, Basque country, Spain on 19 November 1925. He belonged to a middle-class pastoral family known for its deep faith, rich family traditions and loyalty to the nation. As a youth, he came in contact with the Salesians of Don Bosco. He entered the society of Jesus on 29 March, 1944 at Loyola, Spain. After the novitiate. He followed the formal training in arts, crafts, mechanical and electrical skills. He was a dedicated religious and a perfectionist at work. Though outwardly he appeared to be serious, he could give a genial smile when needed.

In Christmas 1951. Br.Felipe arrived in St.Xavier’s school, Anand, Gujarat. He spent three years in the general maintenance work connected with the school, residence, church etc. In the mean time, he learnt Basic English and Gujarati and adjusted himself to the local customs. In 1955, he was transferred to St.Mary’s school Nadiad. He was assigned to take care of the boarding and the general maintenance work. In 1959, Br. Felipe was transferred to Rosary School, Baroda, Gujarat. Till his retirement he served tirelessly, doing a fine job, winning many friends. Spreading around in his humble ways the message of peace and love of God in season and out of season.

Br.Felipe was a man who brought up a high standard in sports and games at the school level as well as at the district level. He was an authority in this field. He had been in several organizing committees for sports and games for several years. He had been honored with several awards and received many citations for his dedication in this field of sports and games.

Happy Republicday

2011-01-25T04:56:00.000-08:00

Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of Independent India, in his special message to his countrymen, on the birth of the Indian Republic, said:

"We must re-dedicate ourselves on this day to the peaceful but sure realization of the dream that had inspired the Father of our Nation and the other captains and soldiers of our freedom struggle, the dream of establishing a classless, co-operative, free and happy society in 'his country'. We must remember that this is more a day of dedications than of rejoicing - dedication to the glorious task of making the peasants and workers the toilers and the thinkers fully free, happy and cultured."