By Varghese Alengaden
Indore, April 24, 2020: Those who hold leadership positions in the Church and religious congregations are often criticized for not walking the talk.
Many are good in preaching about the importance of setting example by leading from the front, but fail to practice the same. They do not follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd who not only led the sheep from the front but also risked his life for them.
So, it was a refreshing to see Father Justine Akkara, the head of the Bhopal province of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, walking through the slums and housing colonies of Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh state.
He wore a PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) to conduct a Covid 19 related survey in the hot spots of Bhopal city as requested by the government. He was among 30 members of various religious congregations (local unit of the Conference of Religious India) who had volunteered to do undertake this service.
The religious responded to the request of Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal to collaborate with the state government in this program. Provincials of many congregations, mostly women religious, sent their members to this risky mission.
Although more than 60 nuns came on the first day, about half of them had to return because they wore their traditional religious habit or uniform sari. They found it difficult to put on PPE over their uniform. Father Akkara, 58, was the only provincial who joined the mission for all three days.
The religious divided themselves into groups of three or four and visited designated areas from 9 am to 4 pm. It was a nonstop job in the hot sun without food or refreshments. Seeing Akkara’s dedication, his vice provincial Father Paulson Muthipeedika joined the survey team for the next two days.
Father Muthipeedika was among a handful of men religious and a diocesan priest who joined the task. Each team visited 100 to 200 families in a day to conduct the survey.
Archbishop Cornelio, who just crossed 75, blessed and encouraged the volunteers on the first day along with CRI Bhopal president Sister Francis Regis. Although provincials of several congregations live in Bhopal city, none was present at the inaugural gathering to motivate their sisters. Many provincials are much younger than Father Akkara.
One of the volunteers was Benedictine Sister Asha, who has been engaged in distributing food packets and masks to the poor in Bhopal in collaboration with government officials. She felt happy and proud of being part of the three-day survey mission.
“I was impressed by the collaborative work Archbishop (Cornelio) and the CRI initiated with the Madhya Pradesh government. Usually religious and priests do their charity works under separate banner and as a result misunderstood as propagating their religion by the Hindutva fringe groups,” she explained.
Another volunteer, who did not want to be identified, said it was the first time the local CRI unit responded as a proactive group in “instead of being a passive body.”
A number of participants expressed disappointment seeing many nuns returning to the convents on the first day just because they wore religious habit or uniform sari.
“When we are waging a big war against pandemic Covid19 the religious congregations are still attached to their petty external identities and outdated traditions,” one the volunteers bemoaned.
It is sad that some congregations are still obsessed with the colonial legacy of protecting the external exhibitions even more than half a century after the Second Vatican revolution. Inculturation is replaced by aggressive presence of the institutional and colonial presence even when the Church faces unprecedented hostilities from Hindutva fanatics.
It is unfortunate that many priests, religious and bishops fail to understand the teaching and example of Jesus of being the “salt” of the earth.
Why didn’t Archbishop Cornelio, who made such proactive response to make the Church enter the mainstream, instruct the religious to wear the secular and convenient dress when they opted to go to the front line of a battle ground? Why are we mixing up external exhibition with genuine witness and service in emergency? Did those nuns who returned to the safety of their convents ever introspect about the opportunity they lost to make hundreds of families to encounter Christ through them?
I was already impressed by a circular Father Akkara sent to the members of his province during the initial days of the lockdown with many challenging suggestions of making use of the lockdown period for reviewing the religious life through study and contemplation.
He wrote, “The present moment gives us a great challenge and purpose in life to define our activities, apostolates, spirituality, rituals, goals, definitions of success and achievements to evolve new ways of ‘being’ in the world, new ways of being religious, new ways of being a brother/sister to the millions in the world.”
He then practiced what he wrote to his men in letter and spirit. When he put on the PPE and walked through Bhopal colonies and slums in the hot sun for three days, he was exploring the new way of being religious in the changing world.
When I asked him about his motivation he sounded unassuming, ‘When I got the information I just went. Because of the risk involved in this work I did not ask anyone to join me.”
Some may say self-righteously that many priests and nuns do a lot works in different parts of India such as distributing food to the hungry, making masks and doing many charity projects.
How many of our nuns and priests have volunteered to be foot soldiers to be in the front line along with medical personnel and other government department staffs in this critical time? How many have communicated their readiness to the local administration to work as volunteers as per the need?
Instead of delegating their job to God sitting before the tabernacle it is time we became prophetic and served people shedding our petty identities and exhibitions. Father Akkara and a few consecrated persons of Bhopal have shown the way. Let their tribe increase.