Why don’t we see what they see – and do?

Thy Kingdom Come!

The town of Sagar is practically at the geographical centre of India, and for that reason there was a large military base there during the British Empire. Soldiers could be easily moved by rail from there to any part of India where they were needed. (There is a graveyard on the military compound which has the graves of British and Irish soldiers who died in there).

It was in fact the British government that assigned over 200 acres of land to an Italian Capuchin missionary, Fr. Rafael Mecchi, who had started to collect unwanted and abandoned children into a makeshift orphanage. That was in 1874. This October I visited the orphanage, ‘Sevadham’ (abode of service), with the third bishop of Sagar, Mar Anthony Chirayath. It was an evening of social celebration and different groups of the 250 children performed dances, mimes, songs and speeches for the local priests, religious sisters and friends of the orphanage. The physically and mentally challenged children from the neighbouring centres also performed remarkable dances, to everyone’s applause. Afterwards there was dinner for everyone, everywhere. What I saw were happy and holy children in an atmosphere that was so much more a home than an institution. The motto of St. Francis’ orphanage is Manavia seva Iswariya (serving humanity is serving God), and this is what the Father Rector, Fr. Paul Chungath, with the help of a few priests and some religious sisters do so well.

This orphanage was just one of the many surprises of the Mission Diocese (known as an ‘eparchy’) of Sagar. During the week I was in Sagar I was able to visit many of the other pastoral works that are in the charge of a quiet and creative bishop and about 50 priests with various congregations of religious sisters. There are about 15 schools in the Sagar diocese; the first I visited is called the Little Flower School and has ‘only’ about 750 students under the direction of a young diocesan priest (himself a graduate of St. Francis Orphanage) and about three religious sisters. The children in the classrooms are attentive to their teachers (teaching is a highly respected profession in India) and work hard (of course, there was a small line of children outside one classroom who had not done their homework).

The other school I visited early one morning has 2,500 students. It was assembly time, and to the sound of drums and noisy music the students are assembled in the massive playground. Again, a priest or two and a handful of sisters run this diocesan school. Two representatives of the students asked to pray for them for a ‘bright future’.

Practically all these students are Hindu. The anti-conversion laws of the state make religious conversion to Christianity very difficult. A conversion is easily interpreted as ‘forced’ and therefore outlawed. For a priest to contravene this law may mean 5 to 10 years in jail.

Together with these formal schools (I also met the sisters of St. Joseph, originally a French order, who have been working in Sagar for 125 years; they run a girls’ school with another 2,500 students) there are priests and sisters running ‘hostels’, which are camps for tribal children who come to live for long periods with the priests and sisters to receive training and education. They are then able to find good work. This is especially true for the young girls, who, otherwise, would live their lives fetching firewood in the forests (there has been a certain devaluing of women in rural society there).

There is a remarkable shrine to Divine Mercy just outside Sagar. Mar Anthony told me of his own devotion to Divine Mercy. Although as a seminarian he had done his practical training helping the first bishop of Sagar, Mar Anthony had worked for over 30 years in the Vatican Curia. There were many challenges and difficulties when he came to the Sagar diocese in 2006. It was his frequent invocation of Divine Mercy that enabled him to overcome each challenge. A few years ago he was diagnosed with lung cancer. Around that time he began a novena to Divine Mercy and on the last day he woke up knowing himself to be cured. The scans later confirmed his lungs free of the cancer scars. He told me of recent miraculous cures and Hindu devotion to Divine Mercy.

In the next months a 40 foot statue of Divine Mercy will tower over the sanctuary and over the new national highway that runs by the sanctuary.

The priests and religious sisters are mostly young and come from the Trichur archdiocese of Kerela, in the south of India. They visit their homes only once every two years and are to be seen in their white cassocks or peach-coloured sari or dress. It is they, with their bishop, who make all these things happen, as instruments of God.

There is new generation of priestly vocations being formed. I visited an exemplary minor seminary (the Indian church has many flourishing minor seminaries. One diocese in Kerala has four.) with 16 young men. I saw their attentiveness, discipline and vigorous prayer in their beautiful chapel.

The plans for Sagar continue. The cathedral is being built beside the Bishop’s house and will be finished next year. Money is being sought for another large secondary (high) school and there is land for a hospital in Sagar. Plans for the diocesan jubilee in 7 years time began while I was there.

There is something fresh and new and vital about the Church in India. I don’t doubt that the priests and sisters suffer the same ordinary difficulties as anywhere else in the world (and a few extraordinary difficulties peculiar to India), but they seem to see something that we ‘Westerners’ have lost from vision. They speak of Jesus, they see the rich harvest, and they begin with what they have (usually very little) and see their work grow.

Why don’t we see what they see – and do?

Fr. Eamonn O` Higgins, L.C