KOLKATA WILL SURVIVE

 

KOLKATA WILL SURVIVE     

Life in cities may be harsh and precarious, but as social organisms they are robust. This paradox surfaced, for instance, in the aftermath of the New York twin tower attack on 11 September 2001, another day that would “go down in infamy” but also in honour since Pearl Harbour and Hiroshima.  Another such urban theatre of World War II was London that was all but razed to the ground by the Blitz, yet proved to be the archetype of a city’s indomitable spirit under stress. “No time for regrets”, “stiff upper lip, Jeeves”, “business as usual” characterised the ethos of the Londoners during those horrific months, a natural source of inspiration that helped rally the New Yorkers, in their turn, after the collapse of the twin towers. Malta, Antwerp and many of the German cities, like Dresden, fared worse than London. Nagasaki and Hiroshima suffered the ultimate and unspeakable horror that “never again” shall happen.

  

And yet, seventy-five years on, all these cities stand proud and tall, proving once again that a city is not its buildings but its citizens. It is not defeated by external assault but by internal decay. When the Romans, glutted on blood and lust, handed themselves over to their slaves, the empire collapsed from within. Babylon, symbol of enslavement to corruption, could not last. Jerusalem, turned towards the Lord and blessed with peace and justice, will turn out resilient. This is true “survival of the fittest”, where fitness is endowed with moral fibre and spiritual muscle. However, despite the understanding that Jerusalem builds up and Babylon self-destructs, no city can pretend to be purely Jerusalem, since Babylon still circulates in the bowels of power and commerce, until purged by the forces of divine love and neighbourly concern, assured by the presence of the Risen Christ.

  

          Kolkata will survive because it has the spirit that cannot be crushed. Such a spirit is kept alive by the networks of charity and dialogue, of small Christian Communities, of the clubs and associations comprising generous workers and professionals, of families and students at the service of the needy. The dwellers of posh high rises and industry’s captains (who park their consciences with their cars before entering their board rooms) may just about notice the poor tenements and slums from a clinical distance, but they do not know from within the informal structures of helpful human relationships among the interactive poor. “It’s the poor what ‘elps the poor” was the by-line of an old cockney one act play. Indeed, well below Kolkata’s rising glass-concrete and underlying its fabulous festivals there are pockets of power of another sort that provide the endurance in Coronavirus and disasters, that gives the city its peculiar charm.

  There have been two great Teresa’s in the long history of the Church: Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux.   In the mid 40’s, the people of Kolkata awoke to the phenomenon of a new apostle in their midst; someone who took them by surprise and with whom every encounter was a refreshment of soul and body. Frail-looking on the exterior, but, robust with rectitude and mobile with the Spirit, she led her legions from the vibrant heart of Kolkata to the wider world of the “poorest of the poor”, as no armies of Alexander or legions of Rome had ever done, and with no more intent of conquest than that of giving them God in the form of a healed and healthy humanity. This woman was inserted into the grand narrative of the God of salvation. There is no nook or cranny left on this earth that has not received the comforting benediction of this apostle. This is the one who illumines the streets and shops, the slums and high rises, the parks and stadiums, the schools and theatres with the transfiguring light of the saints, for the world has awoken to  SAINT TERESA OF KOLKATA!

 

FROM PRAYING TO CONTEMPLATION

 FROM PRAYING TO CONTEMPLATION

True Lectio Divina

Lectio means learning to read in a new way and learning to listen as we have never really listened before. We are so bombarded with reading materials from all sides that we have had to acquire a habit of reading at a breathtaking pace. Every day there are the newspapers to be read, mountains of junk mail to sift through, memoranda to be absorbed and letters and bills to be dealt with. Our only concern is to glean the relevant facts as quickly as we can and to move on to something else. If we apply the same techniques to the way we read the Scriptures, they will not enable us to get to know Christ more deeply. They should be read as we would read good poetry, endlessly going over them to plunder their contents. This is the beginning of true Lectio Divina.

Having read and re-read the sacred texts it is time to reflect – Meditatio. Pore over them again and again, ruminate on them, as St. Augustine would say; allow the inner meaning of every word to seep deep down into the very marrow of your being so that their dynamic impact can register with effect. To facilitate the use of this profound meditation, some people find it helpful to recreate the scene in which the sacred words were first spoken in their imaginations. Let us suppose that you have chosen to meditate on those profound words of Jesus at the Last Supper. Begin by setting the scene in your imagination. Picture the Apostles preparing the tables, see Christ coming into the room, watch the way he moves, look into his face when he speaks, then mull over his every word and try to penetrate the inner meaning.

The same sort of scene-setting could be used to build up the atmosphere before meditating on other Gospel texts. The Passion of Christ, for instance, would lend itself to this method of praying. Do not just think of what Christ went through in your mind, but go back in your imagination and place yourself in the event. You are among the soldiers at the scourging, one of the crowd during the carrying of the cross, an onlooker at the actual Crucifixion. You see everything as it happens, you open your ears and hear what is said and then you open your mouth and begin to pray. The more we penetrate the inner meaning of the sacred text, the more we feel moved to react prayerfully with our hearts to what we have assimilated – Oratio. Real prayer begins now as we start to try to raise our hearts and minds to God, as we respond to the inspired words upon which we have been reflecting.

The State of Mental Paralysis

To start with, the truths of the faith are too big, too enormous, almost too incredible for us to take in effectively. When I first heard that the stars in the nearest galaxy Andromeda were two and a half million light-years away, I simply could not take it in. The distances were too enormous for my mind to cope with. It is exactly the same with the truths of our faith, at least to begin with. They are too much for us to cope with, too great for us to take in. It is as if our minds are paralyzed by their transcendent enormity. We simply cannot penetrate or comprehend their meaning. 

However, in time, this state of mental paralysis gradually begins to lift thanks to the Holy Spirit. The slow meditation on the sacred texts suddenly begins to bear fruit; the spiritual understanding begins to stir and the emotions are touched and begin to react. What began as rather dry academic knowledge about God changes and begins to strike with an ever-deepening impact. Knowledge begins to turn into love, as the love that God has for us begins to register with effect. Nobody can remain the same when they realize that another loves them. We respond automatically, the emotions are released and we begin to express our love and thanks in return. This is the beginning of real prayer that will grow with depth and intensity as the truth of God’s love is brought home time and time again in so many different ways through slowly poring over, digesting and assimilating the sacred texts. As the impact of the Gospel message begins to explode with maximum effect, the believer finds that even the most extravagant words do not sufficiently voice the depth of feeling they experience welling up from within. In the end, the words of thanks, praise, adoration, and love give way to silence that says far more than the most potent man-made means of expression. 

The Simple Loving Gaze Upon God – Contemplation. 

The slow meditative penetration of the texts now opens out and envelops the whole person as the believer is ever more deeply absorbed into a silent contemplative gaze upon God. The most powerful and poignant expressions of the new relationship with God seem to be emptied of their meaning in face of the reality. All one wants to do is to remain silent and still in the simple loving gaze upon God that has traditionally been called Contemplation. It is the fruit of this profound prayer that is, in the eyes of St Thomas Aquinas,  the perfect preparation for sharing the faith with others. He could have said that we should first meditate and then share the fruits of our meditation with others, or pray and share the fruits of prayer with others–but something even more profound is required. We must persevere for long enough in prayer to experience for ourselves something of the love that we are called to share with others in sublime mystical contemplation or we will have little to give.

In this contemplation in which the whole person, heart and mind, body and soul is more united than ever before, a subtle change begins to take place. Initially, it was through meditating on God’s love, as embodied in the human body of Jesus that led the believer to contemplation, but now a change gradually begins to take place. Meditating on God’s love as it was embodied in the historical Christ gives way to contemplating his love as it is now, pouring out of the risen Christ, whether the believer realizes this or not at the time. The first was generated with God’s grace and human endeavor, the second is a pure gift of God. However, before the gift of contemplation can lead to the full union for which the believer now craves, a purification begins to take place so that the selfish seeker can receive the Selfless Giver without any let or hindrance. This is the only way to the full union with God that is our deepest desire. The purification is the work of the Holy Spirit–all we have to do is to faithfully persevere in prayer.  He will do the rest.

                       

 

UNDERSTANDING HOME

 

                   UNDERSTANDING HOME

                                    Fr. Mervyn Carapiet

Home. It is a magical word that resonates with all of us. Even those from broken homes, or homes that no longer exist, there is still something in the idea that is sought after. Home is that place where we are meant to be safe, nurtured, known for who we are, to freely live and love.

Home’s universal appeal populates culture. Take Me Home, Country Road, Home on the Range and I’ll Be Home for Christmas are a few songs that invoke the theme. Movies and literature end happily with protagonists, like Odysseus, finally going home. The entire goal of the American pass-time of baseball is to be safe at home. YouTube videos of joyful homecomings fill up our social media feeds and we spend a lot of money constructing and decorating our own houses, turning them into Home Sweet Home.

Our homes are the great theatre where the drama of our lives unfolds, as G.K. Chesterton eloquently said:

“The place where babies are born, where men die, where the drama of mortal life is acted, is not an office or a shop or a bureau. It is something much smaller in size and much larger in scope. And while nobody would be such a fool as to pretend that it is the only place where people should work, or even the only place where women should work, it has a character of unity and universality that is not found in any of the fragmentary experiences of the division of labour.”

Home, by its nature, foreshadows heaven. Pope Saint John Paul II’s final words in this life were “Let me go to the house of the Father.” He wanted to go home – to the home that all of us are willed by God to go to, even if he allows our own will to lead us somewhere else. The home is sometimes described as a “domestic church”, which, to be cautious, does not excuse home birds from attending Sunday Mass in church!

 

Feminism hasn’t led women to happiness, just to more searching, grasping, transitioning, with the next best thing around the corner. What they don’t know is that no career, string of lovers, exotic trips to Bali, or Louis Vuitton handbags will fill this gap.

What happens, then, when you have generations of people that have wilfully killed their own children through abortion? The Medievals were against abortion because it takes an innocent life, but also because they knew it was mortally damaging to the human soul. It isn’t just a child that dies in an abortion, but something in the mother and the father dies as well.

As St. Thomas Aquinas said, bonum est diffusivum sui, “the good spreads itself out”. The opposite is also true: evil spreads itself out. This grave evil has reached into every area of familial life.

This doesn’t absolve them of their crimes, but at least helps us to understand how those entrusted with the care of so many souls could respond with gross malfeasance. When some women can view the destruction of their children as a social rite of passage to join the “sisterhood,” it isn’t too far of a leap to see that bishops could abandon their spiritual children to join the “brotherhood.”

“There are two ways of getting home,” Chesterton explained, “One of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place.”

We are a culture that needs to reclaim the home, having looked the world over for happiness. Radical feminists, although they have looked high and low, still have “that ache that cannot be defined.” Their restless hearts are a God ache, which will remain until they make their way back Home again.