Fate of life

Compared to the previous years, this year the number of those who come to the Seminary seeking financial (or material) help, has been less.  Perhaps, I was not that observant earlier for Fr KT used to directly deal with all of them.  This year Fr Maliekal asked me to attend to all of those who knock on our door asking for help.  Interacting with them at different times, for different reasons and at varying lengths, I sometimes wonder how on earth some of them manage to survive!  Some truly are so plagued by illness that there is hardly any member of the family fit to work.  Some are rich indeed - rich in poverty and mired in debt!  There are others (especially the elderly) whom no one really cares about; not even their own children.

The other day there was a man who came along with his son, asking for some help to pay the school fees so that the boy could collect his hall ticket and write his half-yearly examinations. While speaking to him, I came to know that he was one of the masons who worked during the construction of the Seminary, especially the Chapel.  As I sat for prayer after meeting this father-son, I was thinking to myself: I have a safe and secure roof over my head and a beautiful Chapel to pray in - thanks to such as these men; and yet see the fate of life, he has to come asking for alms to the same place where he laboured.  Today he is an 'outsider' and I am the 'owner'!??