Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call asking me why I have not updated the web page. I asked, "with what?" With information and news about Alphonsa, was the cool reply. I said, why should I do that, what's so Salesian about it? Well, the conversation got to a point where the person was demanding from me some information. I retained my composure and guided him to where he can get the needed information.
Somehow, over the few days there's this euphoria about Alphonsa. True indeed it is something joyful that she is the first woman to be canonised from India. But is all this hungama justified. "we" have a saint. I thought all of us were called to be saints. This whole hungama is in some way for me an excuse to say, "You become saint, I'll rejoice at that. Don't ask me to be one!" Strange but true!
What about those poor tribals and poor people being hunted like animals and burned and tortured in Orissa - no one still knows about it! Not many want to hear about it. 'We are not that kind of people. Others do it...not we!' Aren't they martyrs? Shouldn't they too be exalted to the altars. Poor guys they have no one to focus the camera on them, or write about them. Why? Because so many are busy flying to Rome and watching television to see Alphonsa canonised!
Maybe my own prejudice against Alphonsa but this triple-face attitude where on the one hand we want others to walk down the hard way of sanctity and not us, on the other hand, casually pass by the present 'saints in the making' leaving them to their 'fate' and on the last front rejoice that 'one among us' is a saint today!
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