Nothing is Impossible

Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil sdb

It has been a long time since we in the Northeaster region have set out on a journey searching for more effective ways of being at the service of the people of God. I am referring to the efforts of the Pastoral Conference of the Northeast during the last several years to study more carefully the various sectors of our activity in order to orient everything with singleness of purpose towards the building up of God’s Kingdom. Thus, for example, we critically evaluated during the last few years our social work, our service of education, use of communications media, youth work, and liturgical animation, to make of them more spiritually and apostolically effective.

Similarly, under the auspices of the Pastoral Conference, special consultations were held on inculturated formation, work of the touring sisters, and other contextually relevant themes. A time has come for us to reach a conclusion and say, “Everything we do, somehow must contribute to the effectiveness of our pastoral work and the mission of evangelization”. If we fail in this, even if our individual works taken in isolation look impressive and eminently successful, the sum total of all we do will not add up to much. That is why the regional Conference chose for this year’s theme: “Pastoral Work and Evangelization”.

Evangelisation and Pastoral work, then, are our central concerns. We may risk failures in any other field, but not in these. If all our activities do not contribute to this cause, they become like blunt instruments, unsuitable tools, salt that has lost its saltiness, light that has gone out in the wind. This core service forms the soul of all our Church work… becoming both the motivator and energiser, the measure of all things.

A Success Story

Humanly speaking, the Church growth in the Northeast has been a success story. It is too early for us to interpret the events of the last century and a half and give them the right place in the long history of the Christian people. That, for many reasons… not the least for the possibility that what has happened till now may merely be a prelude to what is going to happen. If we are conscious of such a possibility, we shall also act accordingly. We shall be driven by an absolute desire to develop adequate strategies in order to make earth-shaking things happen. We shall mobilize the necessary human resources and build up the needed generosity to make extraordinary things take place. For, nothing is impossible to those who believe. But, if we are people who set timid and diffident limits to our horizon, the future of the Church that we claim to represent may miss immense opportunities to grow to its full stature. That is why we are gathered here today.

Looking at the past, we can only rejoice. We rejoice at the wonders that the Lord has worked in the Northeast through the heralds of his message. We do not know for what reason he chose this corner of India, this land where many routes of migrations to Southeast Asia intersect, to be the scene of his mighty deeds. We remember with gratitude the early pioneers: the two Portuguese Jesuits, Cabral and Cacella, the Foreign Missionaries of Paris, Krick and Bourry, the Foreign missionary of Milan, Fr. Jacopo Broy, the Salvatorians, the Salesians, the early diocesan clergy, pioneering religious women and all successive generations of missionaries, who brought the saving message of Jesus Christ to this land and laboured here right till our own days.

We praise God for the amazing way the people of these beautiful hills and enchanting valleys received this message with enthusiasm, grew in numbers, appeared on the national scene quite unexpectedly as a significant Catholic community, giving vocations, proposing new theological perspectives, making an impact on the larger society, emerging as a force to reckon with, that no one at the national or the Asian level can ignore. The recent creation of two dioceses in Meghalaya and two in Arunachal Pradesh is just a small pointer to the vitality, energy, vibrancy and strength of faith of our Christian communities.

Success has its own Punishments

It is usually said, ‘Nothing succeeds like success’. Some have sought to complement this insight with other alternative statements, like ‘Nothing succeeds like failure’, meaning that the lessons learnt from failure can lead to success; or again, ‘Nothing fails like success’, meaning that the complacency derived from success can take one on to failure.

I would like to put these ideas in a different way: ‘Success has its own Punishments’. History can give any number of examples of nations, civilizations, associations, religious orders, spiritual movements, business companies, clubs, teams…and even Churches that placed themselves definitively on the path of decline, just because they took their success too seriously. Roaring business concerns began to move downhill when the management got lost in self-importance, when courtesy to customers was replaced by an eagerness for show and display, when commitment to quality yielded ground to attachment to convenience, when a culture of hard work, attention to details, constant product improvement, accountability, and self-correction through internal criticism, gave way to a culture of compromise in all these areas.

Robin Sharma, a business consultant, says, “Success actually breeds complacency, inefficiency, and - worst of all - arrogance. When people and businesses get really successful, they often fall in love with themselves. They stop innovating, working hard, taking risks and begin to rest on their laurels. They go on the defensive, spending their energy protecting their success rather than staying true to the very things that got them to the top” (Robin Sharma, The Greatness Guide, Jaico, Mumbai, 2006 pg.6). We can apply this to our missionary context as well.

The achievements of the Northeastern mission have been built on the pastoral zeal of committed missionaries, their assiduous follow-up of Christian communities, the linking of education-health-formation related activities with evangelical commitment, happy relationship among the members of the team (clergy, religious, men, women, youth, neighbourhood), warm collaboration with the laity, and enthusiastic support of youth. Watching the size and stature of the young Church in the Northeast, many quiet activities that were the very cause of this greatness may escape our attention: e.g. village tours, house-visiting, personal care of boarding children, spiritual animation of catechists and other lay leaders, continuous effort to enter into new villages and contact ethnic groups.

All these are like bricks, iron and cement that combine in right proportion to give us the mighty Church of which we are rightly proud. But if the iron is inferior, the bricks unsuitable and the cement of poor quality, we can never know when the entire edifice will collapse. Planned work, result-oriented effort, closeness to people, consistent follow-up of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly programmes in the parish context were firmly planted into our tradition. In this era of detraditionalization, may be some of these valuable traditions are going out of practice. Success can draw you on to forget the humble services—the very activities and attitudes—that led you to success. For, success has its own punishments!

For example, there are punishments awaiting a missionary team when announcing the Gospel is replaced by advertising its own achievements, when relevant and down-to-earth ministry is forgotten in favour of prestigious forms of apostolate, when lands and properties in Church hands increase with no visible growth in service output, when donations for charity are used for the projection of the grandiosity of our works, when ‘holidays-rest-sabbaticals’ and periods of irrelevant qualifications and foreign trips lengthen, when properties destined to serve the larger society is made to serve merely an institute’s interests, when distances grow between the clergy and the laity, when hostels-dispensaries and similar buildings that have been put up at great cost are under-utilized or their destination arbitrarily changed.

Similarly, even though houses of formation are privileged places for every diocese and congregation, when they dominate the attention of the members at the expense of their services to the people, some imbalance is bound to arise. So, for example, when a cluster of houses of formation in a particular town or location forget their obligation to the larger public, some unpleasantness can be expected. I am not predicting uprisings like the French or Russian revolutions. I am referring to possible neighbourhood troubles, extortion notices, demand notes, pressures, memorandums, various forms of anti-clericalism and harassments, stirrings among the laity, protests from local community or ethnic group. And if we are incapable of interpreting these happenings, then, many other unpredictable things may be ahead for us. That is why we need to be self-critical at this turning-point in our history.

I am not arguing that disasters are necessarily bound to come. In fact, groups like Naxalites in Andhra Pradesh, MCC’s in Bihar, Maoists on the Nepal border, and insurgents in many parts of NE India, have spared us, because they have thought that we were close to the people and were busy with services most needed in their society. But when our houses become closed fortresses, another attitude can arise.

Nor am I arguing against big buildings or more spacious land acquisitions. If these are fully used for public purposes, it is the public that will stand with us. I can still recall Mother Teresa once telling me, “The poor also deserve a good house”. All I am pleading for is a measure of balance between our advantages and our commitments, a proportion between what we take from society (and the Church) and what we give back. What I am urging is an awareness of public expectations (which our internal debates and movements can obscure), evidence of good sense, commitment to common causes, generosity, self-forgetfulness, sacrifice, and concern for society.

The Deskilling of the Missionary

When, during the era of rapid industrialization, mass production replaced traditional modes of economic activity on a massive scale in the Western world, many inherited skills were lost. Arts like that of cooking, gardening, repairing, maintaining, healing, caring, experimenting…. greatly suffered. Readymade food items only needed to be warmed. Clothes, brooms, pots, furniture, equipment, garden tools……everything came mass-produced in new shapes and strange but convenient varieties. The earthly paradise called ‘market’ seemed to solve every problem. Everyone became dependent on the ‘supermarket’. Self-reliance made an exit. Similarly, tradition went out by the backdoor.

This phenomenon has been called the deskilling (of America or whatever other country). Romantics raved against this trend, artistically sensitive people lamented the decline of aesthetic tastes, traditionalists wept over the disappearance of house utensils like tools, brooms, brushes, vessels, jugs, mugs, spoons, forks, rakes, spades, indigenous healing systems and beauty styles, traditional childcare and attention to the aged, home appliances… all that gave variety, beauty, and meaningfulness to work, events and to life itself. But to no avail. What was offered in compensation was a series of “do-it-yourself” manuals, which made people even more dependent on the market for tools, devices, techniques, and newly proposed skills.

Something similar can happen to our missionary skills as well. For example, evangelization work implies the art of persuading. But if this art is gone out of fashion, what remains with us is the skill for commanding, coercing, organizing, may be even of overawing. Are we moving a little in this direction? But nothing can take the place of the art of persuading….it is so precious. This great skill implies entering into contact, building up relationships, sharing ideas and life at depth, bringing convincing aspects of your vision and values to discussion and winning over someone to your convictions with a serene sense of equality and eagerness for sharing.

Another basic missionary skill is that of motivating. What urged Apostle Thomas to say ‘Let us go and die with him’, or Peter ‘I am prepared to die for you’? It was love. Similarly St. Paul’s words, ‘The love of Christ is a compelling motive’, reveal the same urge. Indeed, the love of Christ is the only motivating power we can count on, which will stand us in hard days—whether due to opposition from anti-Christian forces, criticism from Christian communities, humiliation from members of the team, or even actual failure. We never give up or change our course, never skip a catechists’ meeting, or First Friday gathering. We find it possible to motivate seminarians, novices, catechists, teachers, young people and others to work hard for the spread of God’s Kingdom, because we know how to lay the foundation of our work on Christ’s love.

But are we gradually becoming deskilled in persuading, motivating, inspiring, encouraging, guiding…and beginning all over again after every failure? Are we becoming deskilled in being constantly on missionary tours, wading through water and slush, crossing a river, climbing a hill, staying overnight in a village, chatting with people, entering into their lives and their concerns, and rediscovering the destiny of the human person with them amidst their struggles? Are our ‘touring sisters’ who were the pride of our team, losing the skill of staying on in villages for several days and even weeks as required, taking a census, following up each family and each member with pastoral love, preparing children for communion, adults for the sacraments, everyone for God’s love and the wonderful way he works among human beings?

Are our qualifications and sophistications and prestigious forms of apostolate, continuously deskilling us in other areas? Are we becoming deskilled in travelling more economically, cutting down on expenses and sparing some money for a poor student, sick person, or an apostolically fruitful activity? Are we becoming unskilled about matters that are essential, central, basic, and evangelically productive, while acquiring super-skills in the area of electronic media, entertainment channels, internet information, (even pornographic zones), rare gadgets?

A Sense of Call

Ours is essentially a spiritual call, a God-given vocation. Everything takes on a new meaning when we remind ourselves of the ‘call’ that we have received. We are not careerists, we have been called. We have been chosen. It is not we who have chosen Him, He has chosen us, and sent us forth. As long as this sense of call is alive in our hearts, we preserve a ‘sense of mission’ in our hearts. Even the smallest thing we do acquires a new spiritual quality, orientation, direction. Nothing is too small or unimportant. Cleanliness around the house and campus, punctuality and short visits to the Blessed Sacrament, catechism classes and supervision of children during break—nothing is of little consequence. A person who has a sense of mission wants to be best at the job no matter what it is. Martin Luther King used to say, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or as Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well’”.

We have been called and sent forth. If we were pursuing a career, we would be looking forward to a promotion or a pay-raise. If our interest were self-cultivation, we would have been eager for greater appreciation. But, if it is the Kingdom that is our concern, we should be prepared to make every effort, even lay down our lives, so that His reign may be established. This is the very foundation of our vocation to greatness. The human person by his/her very nature is great. We know that. The celebrated neurosurgeon Ben Carson once said, “There is no such thing as an average human being; if you have a normal brain, you are superior”. I am not saying that you need to pretend to be superior. But if you have been called by God, you are a person of destiny. Big things are in store for you. You are called to accomplish much for His people.

If you feel really convinced that you were called by God to work for His Kingdom, you would be taxing every brain-cell you possess, using every fibre of your muscles, every bit of energy you have and talent you own, to take forward His reign. The business consultant Robin Sharma says, “When you find the mission that your life will be dedicated to, you’ll wake up each day with fire in your belly. You won’t want to sleep. You will be willing to move mountains to make it happen. You’ll find that sense of internal fulfilment that you may now be missing from your life. And you’ll preach that message to anyone who’ll listen. You’ll become an evangelist” (Sharma 58). I wish we could catch the same fire with half that enthusiasm. Jesus said, “I came to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already kindled” (Lk 12:49).

A Sense of Responsibility

What flows directly from a sense of call is a sense of responsibility. It is in keeping with an awareness of our human dignity. Because we are called by God and given our mission, we are responsible to Him. We are responsible to the Church, to the people, to our co-workers, our neighbours, parents of children under our care, to the public at large, to the whole of humanity...the whole of creation. Our sense of responsibility will not allow us to be absent from our God-given tasks. Long holidays, absences from parish or school work at the wrong time, celebrations and get-togethers that distract us from serious responsibilities, late rising, skipping prayers, TV-addiction, not to speak of alcoholic and other forms of addictions…these do not combine well with our sense of responsibility. Equally, a responsible missionary takes care of his health, uses his/her time wisely, develops his talents.

This same sense of responsibility will urge us to learn well the specific task given to us: as a parish priest, assistant parish priest, religious superior, headmaster/headmistress, teacher, touring sister, catechist, leader of any particular organization. Everyone has an irreplaceable role. We learn by watching others, asking, enquiring, reading up, doing, profiting from mistakes, experimenting...never feeling our task is done well enough…always feeling we can do something more and a little better. We keep learning new things in order to be more effective. Our sense of responsibility will not allow us to be half-hearted about our assigned tasks: missing at the hour of confessions, being forgetful of time-schedules and chaplaincies and promised appointments, ungenerously delegating unpleasant tasks, or backing out at the last moment. It will prompt us to correct a priest/religious friend who is failing in his/her religious duties, pastoral or priestly obligations, who is wasteful of Church money, who is proving himself/herself to be a contentious team member. It will not allow us to have recourse to various forms of escapisms: shifting blame, offering excuses, swapping jobs, engaging in evasive rhetoric, indulging in groupism, seeking escape into mere document-making during chapters and meetings.

Persons who go for higher studies to other parts of India and return culturally alienated, and those who go westwards and fail to return to help the missions that raised them, are not showing a high sense of responsibility. In fact, only those who are culturally inserted and pastorally committed should be chosen for higher studies.

Our universal sense of responsibility will demand that we keep informed of world affairs, we pray for the solution of global problems, we have and help our dependents to have intelligent and ethically valid views on public matters as citizens, that we rush to the aid of victims of disasters, we write a letter to the editor calling for public attention to some social disorder, that we always have in reserve energy, time and resources for the emergency needs of people in our neighbourhood, that we develop our talents for teaching, healing, communicating, organizing, reconciling, and composing music for the good of our people. A responsible person accepts responsibility for his/her decisions, failures…good and less good results of what he/she has done.

Personal authenticity is the key to any successful evangelical work. A responsible person seeks to be genuine, authentic: to be a genuine priest if a priest, religious if a religious, missionary if a missionary…a detached person, true to his/her identity…not a person who takes shelter under such glorious titles to serve his/her own interests, to build up his own kingdom. Business consultant Robin Sharma says, “If there is a gap between what you do and what you are, you are out of integrity. I call it the integrity gap. The greater the chasm between your daily commitments and your deeper values, the less your life will work (and the less happiness you will feel). Why? Because you are not walking the talk” (Sharma 64). How true! The children of this world are wiser than the children of light.

An Awareness of Being Accountable

Speaking of accountability, let me first refer to administration. We are stewards, not owners, of Church finances. We are fully accountable for money raised from Church collections, charity, specific donations, income from Church properties and institutions. We ought to be conscientious stewards. Even if we claim that we have put in a lot of personal effort to raise those resources, we ought to remember that our own overall contribution still is relatively small and limited, and what we have received from the Church is so very much. Nothing can authorize us to administer arbitrarily this common fund that belongs to the people of God. Church resources are sacred. They correspond to the exertions of generous benefactors. Even the impressive funds of mighty aid-giving agencies have been raised from the small contributions of ordinary, even poor Christians: children who forgo a chocolate, retired persons who sacrifice a holiday!

When we are aware of all this, certain administrative liberties we sometimes take can be shocking: giving or taking large loans, buying or selling Church land or property or costly equipment or vehicles, undertaking unauthorised constructions. What can be even more shocking would be the maintaining of undisclosed personal bank accounts, engaging in secret money transactions, double bookkeeping, siphoning off money to relatives or favourites, or even one’s own pet projects. If the right of the Christian community to information were to be legitimately exercised, such abuses would not take place. It has a ‘right to information’ even about the evasive financial transactions of persons in Church service. It would come to people as a shock that Church personnel should be having in their personal accounts amounts that are totally incompatible with their known sources of income. Abuse of public trust and of the confidence of ecclesiastical authorities is to be considered a serious failure in society.

Unfortunately it happens that the one who takes such unedifying liberties is the very person who underpays servants, exploits cooks and drivers, and is permanently short of funds for helping a poor boarding child or a sick person in the village. It is curious that in early Christian history the Apostle who was dishonest about the common fund was also the one who betrayed the Master. There is no limit to which one can go when one ceases to be faithful in administering the fruit of someone else’s exertions. It is the pride of the faithful and diligent administrator to keep his/her accounts ready for inspection – both external and internal – at any time. True apostolic fruitfulness can arise only on the foundation of fidelity, as Jesus said, in ‘little things’. Certain administrative guidelines proposed by ecclesiastical authorities in our region need to be faithfully adhered to for ensuring this fidelity.

Diligent administration calls for hard work: development of the parish land or institutional property; maintenance of buildings and equipment; care of tools, utensils, pumps, generators, vehicles; keeping the floors sparkling clean and toilet tidy, furniture and window-sills dusted, window-panes glowing; books, magazines and papers neatly arranged; care of the sacristy, liturgical vessels, vestments, books, holy oils, holy water sprinklers; attention to domestic animals, flower-beds, general vegetation and greenery in the campus. Announce the Good News to the whole of creation...to the vegetation as well! The Psalmist invites the trees to clap their hands. For, they ought to glorify God! Ecological sensitivity has become very important in today’s context of the accumulation of filth in growing cities and deforestation on a massive scale of our green hills and fertile valleys. The Chinese say “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is today”.

We are accountable, not only for our finances, but also for our public conduct and even for our personal behaviour. Before our ordination as priests and deacons, and before our religious profession, we made public pledges before the people of God. Our accountability is not merely to our religious superiors and to provincial chapters and councils. There is a measure of accountability to the believing community…and when we hold a public trust, to the larger society as well. So our celibacy must be transparent, our poverty convincing, our obedience evident. Our community life should be visible, our apostolic zeal manifest, our prayer life unconcealed, our humility genuine. We seek advice, we take instructions, we accept transfers, and we make it evident that we are happy to do so.

We priests and religious stand under severe scrutiny. People watch us on our journeys, during our visits to hotels and quiet appearances in private houses that do not look like pastoral visits. In fact, we should always go out for family visits with a catechist or some other responsible person. People observe a person’s unexplainable relationships and undue familiarities. Once our good name is tarnished for such things or for our financial unreliability, we cease to have credibility, our words will not have even a vestige of evangelising power. We are very upset when there is a stir in the community against us or when the secular press blows up our failures out of proportion. But we may have lost our credibility much earlier!

For a person who has learned to be accountable to others for his/her conduct, performance and services, it is a matter of joy that others watch the way he/she behaves. We rejoice that we are like a lamp set on a lamp-stand for all to see. We ought to be like a city set on a hill that cannot escape notice. There is nothing embarrassing about it. We are called to be witnesses to the world. That is our mission.

Bringing a Measure of Balance into Your Lives

A wise person keeps a measure of balance in his life. There is no room for exaggerations, fanaticisms. Buddha spoke of the ‘middle path’. Moderation in everything is a sound norm. So when you are strict with children, you also ought to be human as well. When you wish your collaboration with sisters, catechists and teachers to be well-planned and you insist on orderliness, you can be flexible too. Flexibility is a necessary missionary quality. While you are eager to act according to law, you need not adopt a legalistic attitude. If firm, you can be friendly too. Strong but not rigid. Generosity should not mean going bankrupt. Overlooking mistakes should not lead to lawlessness. Patience need not go to the length of conniving at actual evil.

In the same way, severe fasts in Charismatic zeal that will weaken your health and negatively affect your performance are not advisable. Over-long prayers that keep you away from your duties are not in our missionary tradition. Struggle for justice that alienates everyone around you is poorly thought out. Zeal does not stand for the use of force or any form of compulsion, much less slighting the beliefs and practices of the people of other religions. Loving the Catholic Church does not mean being anti-ecumenical. There is imbalance when a pastor confines himself to one area of activity in over-zeal, to the neglect of others. There is something terribly weak about single-programme careers, one-point annual planning, single-issue five-year plans: we become one-sided and make others the same. Confining one’s energies and resources to a few pet areas of one’s own interests is wrong. These mistakes do happen. And many areas of pastoral life come to be neglected.

When your life becomes more varied but internally unified, and richly productive in diverse ways, even with less strenuous efforts you achieve more. On one occasion, Picasso drew a picture in 30 seconds to oblige a friend. He then added, ‘It took me 30 years of hard work to learn to do this in 30 seconds’. Even in our pastoral field, we must keep learning. The many years of our priestly or religious training, and many more years of fruitful experience, should enable us to achieve more with less effort, if all the while we have been exerting ourselves to learn, to evaluate our performance and keep improving.

To Keep Learning all Our Lives

If we truly wish to be effective, we must keep learning all the time. We learn from early pioneers, we learn from our immediate predecessors, we learn from those who are doing better than us in our diocese or in a neighbouring diocese or elsewhere. We imitate, we modify, we innovate, we create. But we never sit idle. Distant hills are calling us. Remote villages need our presence. Broken homes call for encouragement, unmotivated youth seek our advice. We organize health camps, leadership camps, training programmes. We lend a book to an enquirer, send a young person to the seminary, another for IAS coaching, a third for engineering or MBA, a girl to the Grihini School. We follow them up. We plunge ourselves into peace-initiatives so greatly needed in our times. Life is too short and too precious to be wasted on passing thrills, temporary satisfactions, and impermanent achievements. We are busy right round the clock and right round the year helping to build the Kingdom of God, and serving humanity.

It is amazing how the business community has taken so many of the ideas and values that we seem to be leaving behind. Business consultants take executives and top officers for ‘retreats’, they conduct ‘meditations’, they teach courses for self-study and self-scrutiny (examination of conscience), they propose serious reading. They suggest that business leaders keep cultivating curiosity, reading, learning, making better use of time, evaluating, motivating themselves and others. They ask them to be bold, to venture, to be fearless, to work harder, to commit themselves to excellence, to take risks, to be optimistic, to be enthusiastic, to be passionate for a cause. Would that we could be truly passionate for Christ, that we cultivate truly a “Passion for Christ, Passion for humanity”.

Business Gurus tell their students to learn to relate warmly with people, to listen to them with absolute attention as a sign of respect, to go out of the way and enter into dialogue with even strangers. “Nothing really happens until you move. Shake hands. Do lunches. Show genuine interest. Spread your good will. Evangelize your message. Remember that before someone will lend you a hand, you need to touch their heart. And that business is all about relationships” (Sharma 25). If our own missionary team was as committed to relationships as business executives are today, we would have won the world.

Here is a surprise for you. What do you think of a business teacher suggesting: “Wake up each morning and ask yourself ‘How would I show up today if this day was my last?’”. He says, “Die daily. Connect with your mortality each morning. Then give yourself over to life. Live like tomorrow will not come. Take some risks. Open your heart a little wider. Speak your truth…Shine brightly today” (Sharma 95). While religious communities are giving up the ‘exercise for a happy death’, business Gurus as advocating a revised version of it with re-doubled zeal. Why? Because they know that these things work. Because they know that silence, meditation and prayer motivate people to work hard, to relate with people, to dare, to take risks and to aim at excellence. And that success itself motivates people to work even harder for more success. They for profit, we for the Kingdom! Are not the children of this world really more astute than the children of the light?

What may surprise you even more is to know that the Rama Krishna monks teach St. John’s Gospel and the Imitation of Christ in their novitiate, and recommend The Confessions of St. Augustine, writings of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and the Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence for their spiritual reading. Amazing! Books that have long since been forgotten in our houses of formation, are found inspiring and spiritually beneficial by those beyond the fold. Would that we would revisit some of the Christian spiritual classics that we have long given up and take to some serious reading every day: documents of the Church, history of Christianity, theological reflections of the day, founding documents of the congregation, any motivating literature that can launch us into egolessness and generous service.

A Triangular Relationship

While I referred to our apostolic work all through this paper, I emphasized more attitudes, motivations, value systems, because these latter are decisive. As for the apostolate itself, we rejoice that there is an inherited tradition of dynamic pastoral service in our region. The first thing we need to do is to prevent the deskilling of our missionary workers. Pastoral traditions may be slightly different in different parts of the region, but there is something in common: radical commitment, warm interpersonal-relationship, constant creativity, bold venture, nearness to people.

At this stage, let me speak of a triangular relationship between the Missions, Institutions, and Houses of formation. If institutions run as though they are an end in themselves, they remain uprooted. If the houses of formation remain in isolation, they become lifeless realities and send out young members into the mission field with irrelevant competences, and without the needed skills or motivation to confront the missionary realities of the region. Such things happen! Only when one realizes that our institutions and formation houses are meant to serve our missions and they actually do so, can they draw support and strength from the missions themselves (resources, vocations, emotional support).

What I say about institutions would be equally true of regional houses, provincial houses, centres for development, for youth, communications, health, physically or mentally challenged, and others. It is important for the institutions to remember that they belong to a parish, a diocese, and are meant to assist the pastoral needs of a particular area. It calls for interaction among those in charge, it demands from them a constant awareness of what is happening in the neighbourhood, helpful intervention, healthy relationship in all directions. Religious superiors, educators, formators and those in formation must keep close to the missions and missionaries in the field; take part in periodic events like sabhas, jingiasengs, congresses, conventions; and must be conversant with needs, trends, problems, and possibilities of the society around. Relevance is the keyword here.

Parish Clergy: Architects of Unity

As for the parishes, the parish priest is not merely and administrator. He, along with his assistants, is the animator and the architect of unity in the parish. Under his guidance all pastoral endeavours take their shape, grow and yield fruits. He stimulates action rather than control initiatives. He encourages, strengthens and follows up various types of activities that go on in the parish. He respects the autonomy of competent bodies. He builds up relationships among various persons, groups and organizations. He reconciles contending groups and brings peace to divided communities. He is attentive to the needs of his assistants, the touring sisters, catechists, and lay collaborators. He sets a marvellous example of unity within the parish.

The most important task of the parish priest and his assistants is to build up a community of faith, a community that prays. They spare no pains in the preparation of the community for the worthy reception of the Sacraments and active participation in the liturgy. Liturgy is made both beautiful and meaningful. The church singing is well prepared, and the church equipments and sacred precincts are carefully looked after.

The animation of the Christian community receives the full attention of the parish priest and his assistants. They carefully prepare their sermons and help the catechists to do the same. They guide the teaching of catechism in the schools and in the villages. They organize annual retreats for the catechists, women, young people, teachers, and others, and for the communities in the villages. They plan their own village tours and those of the ‘touring sisters’ and full-time catechists, and ensure their effectiveness. They set an example by spending considerable amount of their time in the villages. They organize the annual feast or sabha at the centre or in one of the villages for a collective manifestation of faith. They ensure the solemn and meaningful celebration of the various feasts of the liturgical year.

Among all their tasks, the formation of catechists, lay leaders, youth in the boarding houses and other groups will receive the special care of the parish priest and his assistants. Their annual retreats, monthly meetings and animation programmes are carefully planned to achieve definite goals. They promote vocations.

Ecumenism is a very important part of our evangelical work. Genuine zeal stands for both love for one’s own community and immense respect for all others. Love and respect for people of other faiths will win us love and respect in equal measure. A personal example of prayer, austerity of life, a brotherly and helpful attitude, generosity in service, faith and optimism in difficulties, these and other qualities make of the team at the parish centre a force of reconciliation and a powerful agent of evangelisation that nothing on earth can resist.

We Believe in Miracles

What has been happening in the Northeast for more than a century is a series of miracles. From a handful of Christians we have grown to be a significant believing community in the country. Every decade we have entered into new areas and announced the message to new ethnic groups. We do not know what God has in store for us. But if we cultivate confidence in His design, something unforeseen and unheard of till now is going to take place. We need to be prepared!

In Alice in the Wonderland the Queen says, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”. For her it was mere fantasy. But for us believers, it is Faith. We do believe in impossible things. Indeed, nothing is impossible. Everything is possible to the one who believes. But such impossible things can take place only through you and me. We are imperfect instruments. But He is going to make use of us imperfect beings to prove to everyone that to Him belong glory and honour, and power and might and blessing. We say with the author of the book of Revelation, “Praise, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honour, power, and might belong to our God forever and ever! Amen!” (Rev 7:12). So be it.