The Secret of my Seventy Eight

As I started writing this article, I remembered a wise saying of late Archbishop Angelo Fernandez of Delhi. “Do not get bogged down with the idea that we are old, and get stuck. The fact is that we are all getting older every day,” he quipped. That means all of us should be mentally prepared to accept this inevitable fact of our lives with great magnanimity and gratitude to God, believing that our life is the greatest gift from Him and we are accountable to Him for the gift that He has given us. Life’s journey may differ from person to person – some very short, others long, and still others very long. The journey is full of ups and downs, joys and sorrows, successes and failures. A negative attitude, in general, brings sadness, anger, hatred, and an unforgiving attitude to life. This in turn can lead a person to consider his/her life a total failure. Such a person can make miserable for himself/herself and for others.

On the other hand, if one is able to live one’s life with deep faith in God and with the conviction that for those who love God everything works for good (Rom 8.28), one will be able to move forward with greater serenity and peace no matter how many ups and downs. The secret of the art of getting old gracefully also depends a lot on this conviction. My own life journey proves this. I had heard from my mother that I was very weak and asthmatic from early childhood, subject to bouts of cold and cough. In fact, in spite of undergoing treatment from umpteen doctors from every system of medicines, I have been suffering from that debilitating and annoying cough all these years. My infirmity did not stop with that. Twice I had typhoid. I also had chickenpox, and jaundice before I was twenty. At forty four I became a diabetic; at fifty seven I had the first angioplasty; within twenty years I had four more angioplasties! But the fact is that none of these could dampen my spirit. Neither did they prevent me from carrying out the various responsibilities assigned to me from 1976 onwards. I do not think that I come across to people as an invalid or a sick man unable to carry out the works assigned to me. In fact, all through my adult life I remained healthy and carried out demanding tasks like helping to shift St. Mary’s College, Kurseong to Delhi, and Sacred Heart College, Shembaganur to Chennai in addition to the many administrative assignments I was given in the course of the last forty years of my life in the Society. Some of the factors that helped me to grow old gracefully are:

My family background: it helped me to imbibe the basic elements of Christian spirituality early in life. The faith life of my parents, elder brothers and sisters helped me to develop a love for personal prayer, devotion to the Eucharist, regular reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, etc. As a young man I started nurturing the idea of becoming a priest and immediately after passing the final school examination I joined St. Joseph’s Mission Home, Palai, Kerala. The early training at the Mission Home and the initial experience of life in the Society of Jesus in Patna helped to lay a firm foundation for my spiritual journey. I am happy to state here that I have remained faithful to the basic duties of my spiritual life all through, no matter what the stage of my formation.

My mother’s attitude to the poor and needy: it influenced me and helped me develop deep love for the poor, and a readiness to lend a helping hand whenever and wherever it was needed. My exposure to the suffering poor of the villages of Bihar, especially during the 1967 famine, further helped me to grow in my conviction to stand by the poor. This was further strengthened during my stay in 1971 with the Bangladeshi refugees in Sultanpur, West Bengal, where I saw the plight of thousands of innocent people suffering in the refugee camps. I have this very vivid memory of helping dig three graves a day to bury people who had died of cholera.

A thirty day retreat under late Fr. Tony D’Mello, SJ at the end of my first year of theology made a great difference in my subsequent Jesuit life. My deep personal experience of the Lord and my firm resolve to commit myself to His mission as His servant helped me to look at reality not only rationally but also from a faith perspective.

It was around this period I came in touch with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and took active steps to spread it to the Hindi speaking areas of North India while remaining a member of the National Service Team. The year-end Charismatic Retreat in Navajyoti Niketan, Patna from 1974 till it was shifted to Fatima Retreat Centre a few years ago, was another initiative of mine to spread the renewal to every section of the larger society.

Do not get bogged down with the idea that we are old, and get stuck. The fact is that we are all getting older every day.

Another assignment that energised me most was the opportunity to accompany, advocate, and serve more than one hundred and thirty thousand Bhutanese refugees for eight years in their camps in Damak, Nepal. This was a 24×7 commitment year in and year out and I had many opportunities to get involved in the burning issues of the refugees. These eventually helped in the resettlement of more than one hundred and ten thousand refugees in different countries of the world.

Other than these factors what helped me most to get old gracefully is the trust and confidence the Society put in me by assigning me one responsibility after another, starting with my first assignment soon after my ordination in 1976 as Socius to the Provincial of Patna. Since then I have had various administrative responsibilities.

In short, the secret of my remaining cheerful and content is my personal attachment to the Person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and my deep conviction that I am on His mission no matter what I am assigned to carry out. I am also convinced that if I am on His mission then, according to His promise, He will be there with His Spirit to help me to carry it out perfection even though at times it can be tough and require a lot of hard work. If my Master had to sacrifice His very life to carry out the mission assigned to Him by His Father, then if there are some inconveniences or discomforts in carrying out my mission, I should not fuss and fret. I should rather accept them gracefully as part of the ordinary way of getting things done. Finally, through these assignments God gave me opportunities to get close to the lives of thousands of individuals, Jesuits and non-Jesuits, all these years. These interactions with the young and the old have energised me and kept me going without worrying about my comfort and convenience. Another important factor worth mentioning here is that in the course of my long years of administrative involvement with people I generously gave my time to all. This, in turn, helped me to maintain a cordial relationship with all. My faith assumption is that for those who love God everything works for good. So I move on in life with great hope as I stand at the threshold of seventy eight. Just as I had left my life in His hand in the past, I do so now all the more earnestly under His providential care moving towards whatever is left of my earthly journey. May His name be glorified in and through all of us.