Lizards around the tabernacle!

 In his sermon today, Santiagu spoke of four ways in which we who claim to be men of God, can turn to be Godless men.  

It was his description of the second stage that amused me most.  He spoke that in the second stage we use God for our survival.  Rather than Him being the centre of our lives, he becomes a tool we use to make a living for ourselves.  

The analogy he offered was the best: lizards around the tabernacle.  Those creatures who practically live around the tabernacle, do so not out of love for the Blessed Sacrament or because they have a personal relationship with Jesus (perhaps they do!), but because that's the easiest place to secure their food.  With the tabernacle lamp glowing day in and day out, insects naturally get attracted to the light and become prey to the lizards. Moreover, most tabernacles are placed in such a way that there is enough space to hide behind or around it.  

Great!  Fits some (or most) of the lives of priests and religious!

Everyone is leaving!

 An excerpt from the book of Teresia Bosco, on the life and works of Don Bosco... 

As I heard the following passage, I was struck by the first sentence itself! 

Can't you see that everyone is leaving us?

As soon as the work of the Congregation began, the external difficulties ceased and the internal ones began! 

I remember that once, seeing that many people were leaving, I took the liberty of saying to Don Bosco: "Don't you see that everyone is leaving us?" He replied: "God does not need anyone. It is we, his poor creatures, who must be grateful to him because he has called us! If we do not, God will call others, who will listen better to his voice. You will see how the Lord will provide to fill the vacancies! Look, I remember that when at the beginning of the Oratory I was abandoned by everyone, God showed me the church, the house, the clerics, the priests... People would ask me: "Where are they?". And I answered: "They are not there yet, but I can see them.  If you have patience, you too will see all these thing!" I asked: "But what kind of habit would these clerics and priests have?" He replied: "They must have the habit of virtue."  This answer convinced them that he was mad.  But in the meantime, came the Oratory, the church, the porticos, the clerics and the priests.  Then he said: "Don't doubt: we will overcome this difficulty too."

Unworthy renewals

 Rubbing salt on the wound, as if summer heat perspiration is not enough, is the laid back attitude of some who take life for granted.  Who have everything they need and still make no effort at contributing their little to the common pool of resources.  That was my thought as I sat at the back of the Church this morning, attending the Mass for the renewal of vows.  How I wished I could toss some of those sitting before me, not just out of the Chapel, but out into a furnace! At the same time, my mind was also telling me, that it is God who calls and perhaps he has a plan for these young Salesians - something of which I am not aware or, in my present state of mind, am unwilling to see! 

After three weeks of spaced out programmes and inputs, we found a couple of guys smoking in the rooms last night - just before the night of their renewal of vows! Last year, on this very day a few others were found with alcohol bottles in their rooms!  In the latter event, I wouldn't open my mouth to protest, because drinks are often served at table in practically all our houses.  So when the seniors drink, that too openly and sometimes, excessively, by what authority can I tell the younger generation that they ought not to.  But smoking??? When on earth do these guys pick that up?  

Sitting in the Chapel, it occurred to me, right now, we have within the Province, a long list of confreres, breaking every rule not just in the Constitutions but of the Gospel as well!  Confreres involved in financial mismanagement, unhealthy relationships, addictions, brazen disobedience, abuse of power, blinded by caste affiliations... and I don't mean, these are rare occurrences; these are habitual, brazen and seen as normal. 

Anyway, I have to remind myself, that it is ultimately God who is the master of vocations and it is His work that we are engaged in.  So if he feels a drunkard or a womaniser or a chain smoker is who he needs for his ministry, who am I to object?  Nonetheless, my conscience tells me that I cannot leave it all to God, for I am convinced he has put me here and now, with this role and that responsibility, for a particular purpose.  That does not let me see, without putting up a fight, my home, my family, my province go up in smoke! However I need to constantly remind myself that it is not God who needs protection or defense; it is the individual who needs accompaniment. 

The caste menace

 I never really fathomed the extent of caste rot in the Province, till I actually started fulfilling my responsibility as the Economer of the Province. Over the last couple of years, I've seen first-hand the prejudices, anger, bitterness, irrationality and absolutely nonsensical idiocity of confreres swayed merely by caste affiliations.  It has amazed me how strong and deep are these connections that cloud the mind and heart so badly that one grows blind (and deaf, and dead and what not) to the most evident facts of life. If only some of these confreres (not even all such 'infected') were half so passionate about Christ and his Gospel values, we would have worked innumerable wonders.  Anything and everything is viewed and interpreted based on the caste equation. Even common sense, leave alone, spirituality and ethical reasoning, goes for a toss.  It is sickening!  

Religious life, or priestly ministry, or for that matter Christianity itself, has no place for caste.  As Salesians we either leave out the dirty caste politics out of our apostolate, or show ourselves out of the congregation and the Church.  

To BE rather than BECOME

Most of the disciples of Christ choose to be with Jesus, not become apostles or own possessions.  They chose Jesus, because they were enamoured by who he was, what he did and how he went about living his life. They chose to BE with him, rather than BECOME someone or something. 

Michael Rua and John Cagliero decided to stay with Don Bosco, not because they wanted to be his successors or bishops or leaders of the Salesian congregation.  They merely felt at home with Don Bosco and wanted to BE like him.  They had no personal agenda, rather they aligned their own aspirations with that of Don Bosco.  

Good to pay attention to this! These individuals who made an impact on the world, chose to BE with their models. Those who decided to stay with the models in order to become something, became politicians or businessmen, not leaders, not models themselves - at least not for the better! 

What am I full of?

 A lady good at teaching Maths is bound to be approached by the students for clarifications and assistance.  Certainly the number of students approaching her for tuition in Maths speaks of her capacity and talent. To such a lady no one is going to ask her to pack a kilo of pickle for travel abroad! (Unless she does that as well - in which case, sooner or later, the number of people approaching her for either tuitions or pickle will indicate what she is excelling at).  

Point of the story: what one is good at, or perceived to be good at, is that people approach one for.  

So the question: what am I good at as a religious, as a Salesian?  If young people don't find me good for anything, then why would they approach me?  Does anyone approach me asking for prayers, after all, I'm a man of the cloth and spirituality is supposed to be my specialty. So if no one asks me for prayers, they don't perceive me to be good at it. 

One thing I know that most people approach us Salesians, for: funds and financial aid!  That says something!  We have projected ourselves (can't squarely blame people for perceiving us all by themselves) as rich.  The distinction/clarification I wish to make is between people approaching us for funds for education or for education?  Do they see in me a teacher, an educator, or merely an ATM, albeit for education - for which they approach someone else. 

Religious dichotomy

 In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, Andy in one of his conversations with Red, makes this powerful statement, which once in a while I recollect. 

The context which reminds me of this statement is the kind of life some of us religious live.  Most often, our parents and siblings live a much holier life than us who profess to God and His people to live a life of poverty, obedience and chastity.  It is not a comparison that I am most concerned with. Rather it is the life we choose to live vs the life we profess to live.  The widening gap is often so wide that everyone except the one living it sees the incongruency. 

And this decline does not happen all of a sudden.  The foundation for religious life is often laid in the novitiate.  However, some never bother to lay that foundation, even after ordination. These drifters, even if guided by human values - leave alone divine or spiritual values - will still do good. However, often the case is that such anchorless persons only make use of everything - even God - for their own private agenda.  

Fiasco in the making

 Most of the time we fail to plan. We are severely allergic to planning.  Even if and when we do, we do it so shoddily that we achieve nothing. By luck, (and by the hard work of some passionate lunatic) even if we do achieve something, for lack of a long-term vision, the little results fizzle out and we return to ground zero, sooner than later.  

The worse part of such an unplanned enterprise is that the whole endeavour not only does not cause any positive ripples (leave alone, impact) it also destroys all that has been built up or invested in, over the years. 

And the comedy of the whole process is that we, priests and religious, come out of it unscathed!! This whole failure does not pinch us a bit!! 

One of the root causes of it all is our allergy to planning.  Even when we attempt to do so, it barely has teeth. Most often it is wishful thinking, not a concrete SMART plan. And once prepared, the only thing the earns is dust.  That plan is never looked at, leave alone implemented or evaluated.  

Vocation and service

 A poster created by the INB vocation promotion team. Quite apt on the occasion of Maundy Thursday.

Balanced apostolate

 Among the Priests and religious there is an allergy towards the paper and desk.  So anything to do with studies, documentation, forms, surveys, reflection is always the last thing to be attempted - if at all one does.  The contemporary religious are light years away from the priests and monks of the medieval ages who excelled in diverse fields. 

Today our morning discussion as part of the Mission Poverty Eradication review, I realised another dimension of the same 'desk-fatigue'.  But this dimension has more to do with a lack of organisation and repetition that leads one to slump everytime one hears or is told to fill out a form.  

There is a tussle between engaging oneself in/with charismatic services or apostolate on the one hand, and keeping tab on the impact or effect, on the other.  Called to be apostles, the Gospel does not tell us to keep track of all the good one does: let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing. One is called to love and do good. End of story.  But unless one does an assessment or review of what one has done and if that has actually done some benefit, one does not know if he or she has to continue the service, the style and the procedure or rework it all.  Furthermore there is the fear of the inability to answer the question: 'What are you doing?' or 'What did you do?'

While the value of accountability can never be undermined, on the one hand is the accountability to God and to one's own conscience. For this no log book or account abstract need to be prepared.  On the other hand, one is also called to be accountable to our benefactors, the government, the religious community, the society at large. 

One has to have a BALANCED approach.  If lobsided, one might as well live in a cloistered monastery (but even there one will have to be accountable in the latter sense!) or in a cave, all by oneself. And if leaning on the other side, one might not be charismatic.  

Chalk to tapes and poles

 Today I have been discussing with various people, about various issues, legal and land matters.  It has been very diverse and complicated.  During one such conversation after supper at table, here in Vijayawada, I remembered an incident nearly four years ago. 

I had just taken charge as the Economer and one day along with Thathi and KP Mathew found myself in Mallepalli, Nalgonda. We were doing a land survey of a plot of land promised to us Salesians.  As I was assisting the surveyor, with his tape and digital pole, at one point I noticed Thathi smiling.  When asked what he was amused at, he replied, "Instead of some chalk you are now holding tapes and poles!" 

Well, at times I chuckle to myself.  From what to where have I come, in these part four years!  From being a teacher of philosophy to a financial administrator! That too with no background whatsoever about matters related to law, land, administration and finance!  That said, do I have any regrets? None at all.  Because I know what I am here for is not to do what I want to, but what God and the Congregation wants me to.  Mine is not to ask what and where, but to do with my whole heart whatever it is that is asked for the good of all, especially the young. 

Parking confreres

 I had a good laugh when I came across a statement in a letter written jointly by the Formation councillor and Economer General.  The statement reads 'Rome is not the place to 'park' out of the province for a few year difficult confreres'. 

What an expression!! Park confreres! Very very apt and direct.  Couldn't agree better! 

I remember almost two decades ago when I was in a student community comprising of priests and religious from various congregations, there were a couple of priests who certainly were there purely because their congregations had 'parked' them there!!  No other reason!  Not for studies. Not for their growth.  Not for the mission.  But purely for those back in their own Province or Diocese, to breathe easy for a couple of years... at the cost of that student community!  The only good thing the rest of the community felt because of their presence in our religious house was that the lives of two families (if these two gentlemen were to have got married and had families of their own) were saved! 

I guess that's one of the serious drawbacks of priestly and religious life: when someone is absolutely an unfit - even by his or her own judgement - in the community, province/diocese, anywhere and everywhere, no one can do anything other than bear and bear (the patience to grin is long evaporated!). Neither will the person himself/herself have the moral conscience to walk out; nor can others throw him/her out.  

Religious discipline

Most of us look for motivation... mostly to stick to our goals and resolutions.  Hence the plethora of motivational talks and quotes that one finds on social media and whatsapp messages.  Nonetheless, what keeps one going is a commitment, a discipline, a consistent rhythm.  In that sense, motivation gets you going, but discipline keeps you growing.  

So I ask myself, is religious life and its principles, my motivation or a discipline? It ought to be a discipline.  Motivation can be temporary and not always available.  But what I can and should commit myself to is a discipline, a rhythm of life based on the Gospels.  

Life as a religious is no different from that of a sports person. Both the streams of life demand a certain stringent discipline, without which one gets no where and barely achieves anything worth at all.  Perhaps, just a difference of reason and purpose. A religious lives for God and people to whom he or she has committed his or her life to.  A sports person lives for the merit of the game. 

The beauty of this discipline is that when supported by love, it becomes a vocation; if not, it is an obsession.  

Being unambitious

 Last night it struck me that in religious life, ambition has no place.  Ambition in the sense of personal ambition, wherein I am both the focus and reason. 

Being the Economer of the province I have asked myself right at the beginning, if I have any plans and ambitions to be achieved during my term in office. Plans, yes. Ambition, no!  

The biggest difference between ambition and commitment, I feel is when the ego comes into picture and worse still (or always is the case) at the cost of the other.  And as a Salesian religious, if God and the poor, the young are not the focus and reason of my every thought, word and action, then I'm not a genuine religious at all.  The yeast is to leaven the flour and ultimately become bread, not to stand out as yeast apart from the bread!  

Strangely enough, the first reading of today, as we commemorate the feast of St Francis de Sales is this: working for peace and justice, instead of being filled with jealousy and ambition. 

Bourgeois Salesians

 From the General Chapter 29 document... (AGC 445 p. 20-21)

... it is true that there are numerous confreres with great sensitivity. But we are not all like that. (...) we take care of the poor, but we are not 'with the poor' nor 'are we poor', and with little capacity for personal and and institutional testimony.  And where - alongside holy Salesians - there are 'bourgeois' Salesians who desire more social life than missionary life, attracted by careerism and with superficial attitudes, with distractions and various comforts and - what's worse - everything is considered normal. 

This observation says it all!  

Sheep and the shepherd

 In the Christian tradition the imagery of the sheep and the shepherd dates back to Jesus himself. In the gospels we read the umpteen number of times Jesus speaks of these two characters while driving home a point.

While many exegeses and commentaries ha e been recorded, there is one quite common misinterpretation that I've not come across much. Of course, there are references quite close to it. It is about the character of the sheep. 

Shepherds today tend to look upon the sheep as dumb, naive and worth nothing but being bossed over. This is not the fault of the sheep. It is due to the prise and arrogance of the shepherd. Jesus' concern and action towards the sheep was purely out of love for the sheep; not out of pity for them, not out of a false sense of doling out charity just to boost his own ego, not out of looking down on them, not as a means of self-glorification. 

Jesus loved the sheep. Period. There was nothing about himself in any of his thoughts, plans, and actions.

Thunder and lightening

 In our Salesian religious communities, the common community prayer moments are a dynamic in themselves.  Often they inadvertently reflect the level of community relationship and the vibe. 

In most communities, after the initial days of new members joining and the people getting used to one another, fall into sync in a couple of weeks.  The prayers, usually recited in two choirs, have their own rhythm and there is some sort of semblance, in most places.  

Nonetheless, there are some communities where there is always an orchestra on!  The prayer, even though recited, is in two voices!  There is sometimes one or two who are out of sync in their speed, if not in the words themselves.  Either someone recites so fast that by the time one is halfway through the verse, the other has ended the verse.  Or someone is so slow, that no matter how slow you recite, the other will still be slower!  Akin to thunder and lightening - never together, always one after the other! 

Some confreres have no clue or intention of modulating their voice as per the size of the group.  No matter how many in the Chapel, their volume is set. There are a select few who have a peculiar tone of ending the prayer or the verse; and some cartoons like me are more attuned to these handful of individuals and their comical sounds, drawing amusement from paying closer attention to these, than to God himself. 

Then there are those who pray so loudly that the one sitting next to them is the only one who can hear them - not sure if God himself is able to!  Worse is when such individuals make an intercessory prayer. The rest of the community either does not hear what he says or cannot follow what or whom he prayed for.  So invariably there is silence after he has concluded the prayer - unless the one sitting beside him (the only one for whom, something is audible), starts the common response, 'Lord, hear our prayer!'. And someone mockingly does not resist from responding, 'Lord, hear HIS prayer!'

At times, there are those who start a prayer, but in the news-reading mode.  More than a prayer, it is an update on the event or the person; and by the time he has concluded his lengthy prayer, even God would be confused as to what exactly to grant him, as per the request.  

The lost tribe

 In between the frequent tussle – not so much in person, but at least in principle – between the priest and the brother in the Salesian world, now all the more invigorated due to the recent discussions on whether a Salesian brother can be made rector of a Salesian community or not, there is a silent lost tribe! It is the Salesian cleric. Most often the cleric is either taken for granted or totally forgotten. 

 From the perspective of the cleric himself, I gather most of them like it that they are forgotten! They would prefer to be left alone, lying in wait, a period of tolerant mode, waiting for ‘my time’ ie., post-ordination!

Redeeming all alone!

 As soon as the Israelites of the Old Testament start to grumble about the food (manna) that they are surviving on in the desert, on route to the Promised Land, Moses is upset.  He calls up to Yahweh and he moans and groans to the extent of telling Yahweh, to do something about it, or bump him off!! Now, that's a bit of an extreme.  

Nonetheless, I can understand his position.  He is in the same situation as they are. Although brought up in a royal palace, he is now facing the heat and harsh desert.  One could say that the Israelites by this time are used to hardships, but not Moses.  And so, his anguish is palpable.  

Moreover, it is the common attitude about food. Those of us living and working in the south of India know how much food matters in one's life.  So the notion doing the rounds in Moses head could be, 'After all, it is food. Can He not provide them some chicken and mutton? Surely He can, so why isn't he?'  

But I think there is a significant line in the first reading of today, towards the end, which persists throughout today's Gospel - although very very subtly! Moses petitions Yahweh saying, 'I cannot handle it ALONE anymore'.  For Moses to think that it is he who is actually leading the people of Israel out of Egypt, to Israel, is a great hallucination!  But I guess, it is in our human nature.  We always feel that whatever good is happening, is because of me!  So, Moses feels the burden, being ALONE!!  

This attitude of doing all the good ALONE is the inherent feeling of most of us - and perhaps one of most deadliest sin of us, priests and religious.  Leaving out God, is perhaps our biggest reason for failure.  It undermines our basic relevance and meaning as religious. Jesus first tells his apostles to feed the five thousand themselves!  And they give him what they have: five loaves and two fish. Jesus multiplies those.  He does not do magic or create ex nihilo. 

Death of John the Baptist

 Listening again to the episode of the beheading of John the Baptist, as part of the Gospel reading today, a couple of points that struck me: 

That Herod could find his promise more demanding and compelling than the life of a person is strange.  Is the worth of life lessor than a mere word, that too given to someone for a dance performance?! But it didn't take me long to realise that it was never about honour.  Herod was not honouring his word; he was merely giving in to his fear.  He had already decided to kill John the Baptist; he just didn't have 'sufficient reason' to justify his plan.  The promise was a mere excuse, to actually carry out what he had already made up his mind about! 

On a totally different note, the concluding lines of the Gospel speak about the disciples of John the Baptist, burying him and then informing Jesus about it.  What suddenly hit me was Jesus' response.  Of course, there certainly would have been an emotional response; but the text says nothing. Whereas when Lazarus dies, Jesus weeps.  Here the death was of his own cousin; someone he had known all his life. Surely, this would have been a very sad moment for Jesus. If Lazarus' death could move him to tears, I'm sure John's death would have been no less a tragic moment.  

Or did the Biblical authors perhaps skipped recording that emotional response, lest they show him 'human'.  Or maybe they did not want to show his affinity to family more than his mission?  Too many may be's!! 

Beheading of John the Baptist (by Caravaggio)