A Double Celebration

15th of August brings fresh to the minds and hearts of all Indians in India especially Catholics the Glorification of two Mothers, Mother Mary who is glorified in Heaven and the other Mother India who is glorified on earth. Now she is a Queen of Heaven and Queen of Earth.

Fr Thomas Kuriakose, SJ., Dean of Theology of Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) celebrated the Mass for us in our Post Graduate chapel. In his homily, he said that the Catholic Church celebrated the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady which made obvious the power of God in raising Mary from the grave to the glory of Heaven and the national celebration which reminded us to use the freedom rightfully and act justly.

There were 60 youngsters who joined in our celebration. They are students of the St Francis Xavier’s College, Mumbai and who are doing their Master’s programme in Business Administration. They came for their weekend camp “get-together” and exposure programme in our college from 12th till 15th August, 2011 and animated the Mass for two days.

After Mass, all of us went up to the viewing deck of our PG block for the flag raising and to sing the national anthem as well. This is the 1st time all of them gathered together to host the national flag on this new block.

On this solemnity day also Frs Saji and Sylvester greeted everyone after the flag raising and singing of the national anthem. They also thanked and prayed for all those known and unknown who have shed their bloods for the Independence of India.

Our country will be celebrating our “Hari Merdeka”(National Day) on 31st August 2011. We obtained independence 10 years after India. I had the opportunity to read the 6-page message of India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s speech delivered on the eve of their Independence Day. It was a very inspirational speech and I have not heard any of our politicians speak this well in Malaysia. I hope on National Days like this the memory of the martyrdom will live forever in our hearts and their sacrifices will always inspire every nation.

Visit from the former Chancellor

Rev Fr Lisbert D’Souza, S.J., the Assistant General of Society of Jesus who stays in Rome came for an official visit to College Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV).

Fr Lisbert was born in Bombay and served in Bombay province for many years before lecturing in (JDV). He was a former chancellor of JDV and Rector of De Nobili College before receiving his appointment as an Assistant General.

We had the privilege of joining him for lunch together with our college President Rev Fr Job Kozhamthadam last Saturday, 6th August, 2011. Our Monitor (Caput) for Post Graduate Students, Rev Fr Saji, welcomed and greeted him. He said that Fr Lisbert knew almost 4,000 Jesuit priests in India by name. It seems there are approximately 17,000 Jesuit priests in the whole world.

Fr Lisbert is a very simple man with his cheerful look. He encouraged all of us to offer our services to this college in the future as lecturers.

Farewell Bro Rana

Death and funerals are never an easy time for any of us. Unfortunately it happens – that’s the reality of life. I attended my first funeral in India on 30th July, and sad to say, it was the funeral of one of the seminarians who was studying at the college here.

28-year-old Bro Rana Pratap Minj, from the Congregation of Missionaries of St Francis de Sales was a 1st year Theology student and hailed from the province of Uttar Pradesh. He has 3 brothers and a sister who is also in a religious congregation.

Bro Rana, passed away while undergoing a surgery at the Inlaks Budhrani Hospital in Pune for a minor shoulder injury. Apparently, he developed Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) as a reaction to the anaesthesia and had a cardiac arrest. MH is a rare life-threatening condition that is usually triggered by exposure to certain drugs used for general anaesthesia. It happens to one in 100,000 people.

The funeral service was held at the Papal Seminary Chapel and attended by close to 50 priests and lecturers and more than 1,000 students and religious from the various congregations.

Fr Mario D’ Souza (MSFS), provincial of Pune celebrated the Mass, while Fr Sebastian (MSFS), Provincial of Nagpur preached the homily.

Fr Sebastian also shared about the good qualities of Bro Rana who was a very cheerful, humorous and an integrated person. He was very good in music and art and had an ambition to go to Mozambique in Africa for his missionary work. One of his classmates and some of the priests also shared a few words about him and expressed their heartfelt condolences to the family members and friends.

After the Mass, the coffin was kept in the chapel for 30 minutes to enable everyone to pay their respects, before it was taken to Nagpur province (14 hours journey towards North-India) to his home town. In Nagpur there will another funeral Mass with the family and local community followed by the burial.

We shall continue to pray for his soul to rest in peace. “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may His perpetual light shine upon him forever. Amen!”

Remembering St Alphonsa - India's First Woman Saint

Today the Church of India celebrates her first woman saint, St Alphonsa of Immaculate Conception who was born in Kudamalur, Diocese of Changanacherry, Kerala on 19 August, 1910.

She was known as Annakutty, a diminutive of Anne. Her mother passed away when she was 3 months old and she was adopted by her aunt. She joined the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists on 2nd August, 1928, taking the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast was celebrated on that day. She professed her vows on 12 August, 1936 on the feast of St Clare.

From 1930 to 1935 she suffered from poor health due to typhoid, pneumonia, nervous shock, tumour, gastroenteritis and liver problems. She brought her earthly life to a close on 28 July 1946. She is also known as a child Jesus of India. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and canonised on 12th October 2008 in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI.

Fr Jimmy Joseph, the celebrant of the day today, preached about her life and 3 aspects of her life for our reflection during the Mass:
i) Love Towards Christ as her Master and Lord.
Since young, she devoted her life for the sake of her Divine Spouse, Jesus Christ. In all her sufferings and pain she experienced them not apart from Christ but in Christ and with Christ. Even in the midst of the sense of loss, helpless, illness she appeared to be a person who filled with Christ. According to Archbishop Thomas Pothacamury of Bangalore said, “Her life was death to self and life to Christ and in Christ. Christ was centre of her life and she was dethroned herself to enthroned Christ, and made Him with unerring vision, the focus of her life.”

ii) Her Life was Her Attitude Towards Suffering.
The love for her Divine Spouse helped her to embrace and accept the sufferings. She had overcome her suffering to the transcendental level of meaning to her suffering and endured it joyously. She wrote in her letter: “Since only grief and suffering have fallen to my Divine Spouse, I too lovingly embrace them and my soul is at peace even my body continues to be tormented.”

During her beatification at Kottayam, India, Blessed Pope John Paul II said, “From early in her life, Sr Alphonsa experienced great suffering. With the passing of the years, the Heavenly Father gave her an ever fuller share in the passion of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity but also to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ and to love the cross through her love of the crucified Christ.”

iii) Her Perseverance in the Vocation of the Sisterhood.
When she was called to be committed into marriage life, she reached a stage where she voluntarily causing herself a grave burn by putting her foot into a heap of burning embers. In her letter she wrote: “O, the vocation which I have received, a gift of my good God! He distanced my difficulties and established me in this religious state.” When many illnesses tortured she remained faithful to her Master.

Fr Jimmy also stressed that even though there are a lot of crisis in our vocation, we need to be faithful and take the example of St Alphonsa in order to find meaning in all our crisis, challenges and sufferings in life.

As I reflect on the life of the first saint of India during the Mass, I asked myself when we will have our own Saint in Malaysia. What came to mind was our late Archbishop Tan Sri Dominic Vendargon who passed away in the year 2005 and who tirelessly worked hard and established the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur.

Football Tournament against Corruption

The Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (JDV) Culture Wing organised an “Interplay Football” tournament among the students. The annual tournament started on Monday, 18 July. Eight teams participated in the tournament (1st & 2nd Year Philosophy, 1st, 2nd & 3rd year Theology, Deacons and Post-Graduate students).

The theme for this year’s tournament was “2G – Golden Goal”. The 2G was a symbol of anti-corruption which is the issue going on in the country. So the 2G was chosen to show our fight against the anti-corruption.

The final match was held on 25th July at 4 pm in between the 2nd year Philosophy and 2nd year theology students and it was a real tough match.

The 2nd year Theology students emerged as the champions with a 3 – 0 win.
In his speech, the chairman of the organising committee, Bro. Jason Pulickel thanked everyone for their cooperation, building rapport among the students and the spirit of sportsmanship. Prizes were also given for the man of the match, best goalkeeper, the best team and not forgetting the best person for cheering at the tournament!

The Champions

During my seminary life at College General, Penang, we used invite a few hotels and clubs from the Penang Island for the annual league soccer tournaments every year until 1998. After that due to the dropping of number of students in the seminary and finally the sports life, the committee decided to end the tradition of having the annual soccer tournament at the college grounds. In 1995, the year I joined the seminary, our team became the champions of the tournament.