Showing posts with label Challenges. Show all posts

The Cross, and the Face of Christ, In Calcutta

A group of young guys we visited on the way to Mother Theresa's Center for Lepers
I’m starting to write this listening to the rain pour down on the roof outside.  Scratch that, I’m writing this as Niagra Falls apparently has relocated to the skies above me; the amount of water that has precipitated from the heavens during the past five minutes seems borderline impossible.  I should note that I haven’t seen any cats or dogs falling along with the rain drops, but there are plenty of those outside wondering the streets as well, along with goats, and chickens, and cows.   I’m in Calcutta (in India), it’s monsoon season, and I’m spending 3 and a half weeks working with the Missionaries of Charity, at the place where Bl. Mother Theresa started them 65+ years ago.  


Not that I ever expected to be here - almost exactly on the opposite side of the world as home, and nearly as far from Rome as Rome is from the mid-west - but ever since the middle of last semester it became evident that coming here was an option, and quickly something I was very interested in doing.  Unfortunately, I thought of the experience very abstractly, very idealistically.  “it’ll be beautiful”, I’d think, “to help the poor of India, to see the places where Theresa of Calcutta walked and worked, and to experience a culture very different than my own.”  And so it is, but the beauty took a while for me to find it.  

The thing was, Calcutta is anything but abstract.  The torrential rain; the mangy cats and dogs, and cows and goats; the gazillion-percent humidity; the throngs of people - some selling street food, clothes, or hindu offerings, others carrying buckets of water, kids, chickens, or whatever, some swathed in eastern-garments, others in jeans and t-shirts, others in not much at all; the ancient busses, taxis, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws (and person-powered rickshaws), bicycles, and carts of all kinds; the grime on, and surrounding, so many buildings (somehow still there after even the most powerful deluge), the garbage and sewage on the streets, and everything else.  Calcutta is an eye-opening experience like no other, and I was unprepared to be confronted by it when I got here.  I told people that this would be quite the experience, but where I was ready to see the city, help the sisters, see if I could handle the food (answer: sort of) I wasn’t ready to see 3rd-world destitution first hand.

The convent where we got lodging is a 15-minute walk from the Mother-House of the MC’s, through a pretty poor area of the city.  It’s not quite people living in cardboard houses, but it’s close.  The buildings are poor, many very dilapidated, people bathe in the streets, along with all the trash, chicken-butchering, and food-cooking, and only recently have I realized that this isn’t the slum, it’s not far off from the way the average person lives here.  The MC’s immediately assigned me to Nirmala Hriday each morning - Mother Theresa’s first center in Calcutta (after the Mother-House itself), - a home for very sick, and dying, men and women.  It’s right next to a Hindu temple (Kalighat), and entails a 30 minute ride on the Calcutta bus system (an experience all its own, with the old, now heavily decorated busses, and loads of people), and then a walk through the market up to the Hindu temple (some days absolutely jammed with people, as in, the densest crowd I’ve ever been in).  But, of course, that is just the beginning.  After arriving, I was confronted by the site of 50+ men, of all ages, slowly moving (sometimes crawling) from their cots to the main room, being washed, fed, bandaged, medicated, and otherwise cared for.  I had never seen anything like it, and I didn’t really know what to do.  So I helped where I saw a need - washing clothes, trying to talk with the men, spoon-feeding some of them, mopping up, scooting them around on chairs, holding their hands and just smiling at them.  It was exhausting work, a bit terrifying, sometimes revolting.  

After Kalighat, we usually try to find something to eat, whether that be bread and peanut-butter from a grocery store or some food at a cafe (there’s a couple that other volunteers have pointed us to that are sanitary), but after lunch we have ended up doing a variety of different things.  We’re officially assigned to Daya Dan, another MC center, this one for young men/boys who are disabled in one way or another.  Some are blind, some very emaciated, some with mental problems or learning disabilities, others just under-developed.  It’s hard work all the same, again it’s just very draining to try and figure out how best to help these guys, especially when I don’t know the language or how capable they are.  The other day I was trying to help teach one of them who is blind how to climb the stairs.  He did make it up eventually, but I was frustrated by his inability to really do it on his own.  He just didn’t seem to ever pick up the rhythm of stepping, pulling, stepping, pulling…  Another one of the boys I tried to feed a snack the other day, but I didn’t know how to tell him to swallow, and he didn’t seem to understand that rather important stage of the process, so we ended up with most of the snack, and a good bit of added saliva, still in the bowl afterwards.

So, basically, on the face of things, the days have been filled with a lot of challenges.  It’s frustrating because everything is so different, disgusting because so much of the city is so squalid (not the MC centers, I must emphasize), distressing because these men, and so many of the people I see, are in such dire straights, and disconcerting because I am so unprepared to cope with, and respond to, what I’ve been seeing.  I just finished spending 3 weeks studying Catholic social teaching, but we had mainly discussed bringing the faith back to a western world, that is ignoring, rejecting, or persecuting it.  I have spent a year studying theology, but we’ve stuck mainly with Scripture (reading and interpreting it), the Trinity, the Church (theologically, historically, currently), and doctrines of the faith (understanding and explaining them).  I’ve spent 3 years in seminary, gradually growing in my ability to pray, study, think, reflect, and trust in God. I thought I was doing pretty well all-in-all, and then I got here and I found myself at a loss as to what I could do in the face of so many struggling people, and my person discomfort in the face of, and living amidst, all of that.

Thankfully, God’s grace has been abundantly active over these past couple of weeks!  During all those moments of frustration, or disgust, He’s given me glimpses of beauty and love.  So often on the walk back each evening - when I might be lost thinking about the smells or grime - some of the kids who live there chase after us calling out “hello!”, “good night!”.  Their laughter and friendliness is just beautiful.  At Kalighat, the guys are so grateful simply for our presence.  One of them, Thomas, has a condition where all his muscles are locked up, so he can barely move and is kind of curled in on himself.  So, myself and some of the other volunteers will usually try to spend some time each day trying to stretch those muscles and loosen him up a little.  He will say “more” to tell us to keep pushing/pulling, “volunteer tea time” when our break-time comes each morning, and will break into the most beautiful, single-tooth, grin when we’re working with him.  Just the moments of grace that come each evening during our Holy Hours (either with the Missionaries of Charity at their motherhouse or sometimes the MC Fathers at their rectory) are awesome.  Our Lord is so generous in His consolations after my pitiful attempts to be a glimpse of His love to those I work with each day!  

In the end, I’ve been forced nearer than ever to the cross, mainly in the sufferings of those that live here and in my own pitiful attempts to help them.  It’s a daily struggle to be here - when I work, I don’t know what I’m doing, when I sleep, I sweat, when I eat, I mostly want things I can’t get here (a salad would be absolutely amazing!), when I move around, I am repulsed by the roads, crushed by the crowds, or ripped-off by the taxi drivers.  Yet all these things, as I said, I’ve realized are a chance to draw close to the heart of Christ.  When Peter rebuked Jesus for thinking about going to Jerusalem to die, Christ had tough words for him.  Why?  Because the cross is the heart of who Jesus is.  It is only on the cross that Our Lord allows “king of the Jews” to be written (before He had always avoided that title) - not because He wasn’t king before, but because the cross shows Him to be the king of love, the king who suffers for us, the king who takes our sins upon Himself.  So yeah, Calcutta isn’t much fun, but it has been an amazing experience nonetheless because of that great grace that it is to stand for a while nearer to the cross.  Pray for me that I will accept that grace without complaint, asking Our Lady to help me (she's the first and closest one to the cross) and learn to love a bit more like Jesus because of it.

Water, on the roads (in a bus on the way to Kalighat)
Random side note: it’s now a couple days after I started this post and now it’s sunny and hot outside…  BUT, between now and then, there were also times when a foot of water was covering about half of the roads in Calcutta…  

Less random side note: I also have now experienced the so called “kiss of Calcutta”, otherwise described as being miserably sick for 3 days with a high fever and not being able to keep anything down - thankfully, now I’m just about back to 100%.
Final note: because I wasn't able to get to the internet over the past week or so, I'm actually now back in Rome having spent the last couple days in Chennai (further South in India, still on the East coast) seeing the city and especially the tomb of the Apostle St. Thomas.  
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My Sister's First Profession

Every month or so we have what is called a travel weekend, which is pretty much what it sounds like - everybody is allowed to travel some place around Europe and experience a bit of culture, food, art, history, nature, or whatever, all while building friendships with other men here and having a chance to get away from the bustle and business of Rome.  So far, I have gone on three such trips - the first to San Giovanni Rotundo (we visited the shrine of Padre Pio, Monte San Angelo, and Lanciano), the Amalfi Coast (we saw some beautiful scenery, and also got to pray before the relics of St. Andrew, St. Matthew, St. Benedict, and St. Scholastica), and this last weekend - which is probably going to be the craziest travel weekend in the foreseeable future, when I got to fly back to Alabama and be there when my sister took simple/temporary vows at the Dominican Monastery of St. Jude.  Needless to say, it was an amazing blessing to be back there, but - as seems to usually be the case - it was a whole lot more amazing than even I thought it would be beforehand!

While I was in Assisi I found out the date that my sister would be taking vows - November 22nd, the feast of St. Cecilia - and, of course, I was excited for her, but I knew that it wasn't very likely that I'd be able to be back for it, not only was it a long trip, and in the middle of the semester, but it was also NAC policy that guys don't go home for their first two years here.  However, then I heard of one of the new men who had gotten permission to return home for one of his sibling's wedding.  I didn't know if the same exception would apply to me, but I was certainly not going to pass up at least trying!  So, at my first meeting with my formation advisor - the priest who, you know, advises me as regards my formation (I meet with him once a month, we talk about how things are going - academically, pastorally, humanly, practically, etc. - and he helps to make sure I'm balancing my time/effort well and gives tips/advise/direction as regards any of the problems that could crop up from studying over here) - I asked if there was any way that I could go home for my sister's profession.  He hadn't ever experienced that question, but promised to investigate it with the "powers that be" (the formation staff here at the NAC).  I hadn't heard anything for a couple of weeks, which I tried hard not to interpret as a sign one way or the other, when I had my meeting with Msgr. Checchio.  He met with all the new men during our first month or so here, and, at least in my case, most of the conversation was him asking how things were going, talking about the process of settling in, challenges that I might encounter, and things that I should focus on during this first bit of time here.  It was a great conversation, he is a wonderful rector, but near the end of the conversation I was surprised and excited when he casually mentioned that "I'm glad to hear you'll be able to go home for your sister's profession."  I'm pretty sure my mouth fell open for about a second while I tried to comprehend what he had just said, and then I rattled something out about how great it would be, and he responded with something about loving Dominican nuns and being happy to give me the go-ahead to return for that ceremony.  I, to say the least, was excited!  I got permission from my diocese as well and a couple of days later dropped the news on my family when we were skyping.  They too, were pretty happy (alright, maybe that's an underestimation...), and dad was also really helpful in tracking down a decent deal on the flights that I would need (and would fit around everything).

So, last Thursday (the week before Thanksgiving), I left class at the Gregorian (Christology is that morning) and power-walked over to the bus stop where I had a ticket to Fiumicino.  Of course, because of some uprising/protest/strike, the bus was going to be like 45 minutes late.  I already was pushing it close to get through the airport, so I was starting to get a bit worried when an Italian lady had the bright idea to hire a taxi.  Five of us (myself, the lady, and three other young ladies) found a cab - I got back middle, as always - and off we went.  30 minutes later, nobody having had the guts to start a conversation, we pooled our money, paid the driver, and entered the airport.  I found the desk I needed, they gave me my boarding passes (after a bit of difficulty), and I made my way through security.  Off to Amsterdam!

Pretty cool, no?
In Amsterdam, having not done much except whiling away the hours of waiting/flying with a couple different books and stuff, I eventually boarded my flight to Atlanta and then settled in for the long flight.  As it turned out, I was right next to a couple who were returning from a trip they were taking with their church to the Netherlands.  We had a really nice conversation about Christianity, the priesthood, theology, the church, celibacy, and several other such topics - it was great!  Not awkward, they were very open, and I really enjoyed it.  After a pretty tasty meal (the food was good and they served wine, which was surprising, and enjoyable), I watched Guardians of the Galaxy, which was not only funny and entertaining, but also relatively clean (always nice when you're not constantly wondering at what point you'll have to turn something off).  Then I spent a bit of time in prayer - not the easiest thing in the world in a plane, but being "up there" lent a different feeling to the experience, so that was cool.  I think I watched another movie at some point, and I spent some time reading some different books (Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth, a book on the Pentateuch, Fr. Gaitley's 33 Days to Morning Glory, and probably a couple of other ones).  The hours slid by and before I knew it we were being served dinner (again, pretty good) and only an hour out of Atlanta.  After an uneventful landing, and a bit of walking through the Atlanta airport (and customs...), I found my last gate with an hour or two to wait before boarding.  Being back in America, I decided to find some American cuisine and after debating about whether a certain burger place was going to be worth it, I just went with Chic-fil-A and got my fill of chicken nuggets and fries.  Again, most of the time was past with a bit of reading and some listening to podcasts and whatnot (mainly homilies and other Catholic stuff) - it's funny, I've only been on a plane several times now, but it was already getting pretty usual.  Soon enough we were boarding and then - only like 30 minutes later - I was in Birmingham.  And, 10 minutes later I was elated to see my family at the bottom of the escalators (that I was riding).  It was so good to see them again!  We stayed up late chatting together and then I dropped in bed - some 28 hours after getting up (it was a really long day). 

One month folks!
The next day, Friday, we checked out a couple of things in Birmingham - including the Cathedral (beautiful - it was a lot simpler than the churches over here, but it had stained glass windows, which aren't very often found here) and a museum of art (which had some beautiful pieces - religious and otherwise - though to some extent I have started to take that sort of thing for granted, so it wasn't quite mind-blowing).  Yeah, it was a fun day, just spent hanging out with the family, and that evening we drove over to the monastery and brought our things into the guest house.  After another short night of sleep (which is getting more and more typical) and another banana (which isn't typical over here; they provide plenty of apples, pears, peaches, oranges, plums, and kiwis, but not bananas), my brother and I met with the priest who was going to be saying Mass.  As I was expecting, it was in the Dominican Rite, which was the Roman/Papal Rite of the 1300s (very similar to the Extraordinary Form, with a couple variations), and as I wasn't expecting, one of the servers was expected to chant the Epistle.  My brother - being the generous, humble guy that he is - let me have fun with that, and after 30 minutes of reviewing what we were doing (how the profession ceremony would happen, what was different, who was doing incense, etc.) and a good bit of practicing on my part (actually, I wasn't that nervous, the tone wasn't difficult and the passage was short), we banged the set of chimes that they use to signal the beginning of Mass and processed out.  The chapel - as often in cloistered monasteries - was set up with the sisters/cloister lined up with the altar and the lay congregation off to the side (like an "L", with the sanctuary in the corner) - and because it was ad orientum, I only had a glance of my sister (in the cloister) and grandparents/uncle (who were in the congregation, obviously, but whom I hadn't seen yet).  Mass was like a Low EF Mass, but with incense, so everything went relatively normally until around the homily.  Right after the Gospel (about the foolish and wise virgins), but before the homily, my sister announced her desire to take temporary profession in the monastery.  It was simple phrase, but she was so excited! 

Before the trip I was excited to be back with the family for a bit, to visit my sister, and to enjoy a bit of American cuisine, but - looking back - this was the best moment!  There was my twin sister, much like those 50 men here who gave their lives totally over to Our Lord 2 months ago, giving her life to God - more officially/completely than before - and absolutely overjoyed to do it.  The homily was great - expounding on the beauty of the cloistered call to chastity, and the idea that kept running through my mind was that of joy.  I had been thinking about my sister's vocation in terms of difficulty.  Entering the cloister is tough, it means giving up a lot, and I thought that for that reason it was a great call.  I mean, we all have to give up something to follow God's will for us - that's the cross - but the cloister seemed a particularly difficult one regardless.  However, my sister wasn't filled with trepidation - at the difficulty - or bravado - at the challenges to come - or even excitement - for the life ahead; she was filled with joy, peace, happiness, and other such awesome gifts of God.  The thing was, where I see challenges to be pulverized (with God's help, of course), she wasn't even looking for the next challenge to be attacked, but instead simply looking at God, and trusting that He would help in whatever might come.  Where I focus on the incoming/upcoming thing to do, finish, learn, grow, or become, she simply focusses on the end goal of all that "doing", which is God, and His will.  I've wondered in the past how some of the sisters you see are always so joyful.  I mean, I'm trying to follow Christ too, but I'm not exactly constantly beaming with joy and excitement...  What's the difference?  They trust God better than I do.  Boom, now I know my next challenge, oh wait...


Receiving the black veil!
Yeah, so not only was it amazing to see my sister taking the next step in her vocation (after the homily she made a couple of promises - to the church, the bishop, the order, etc. - and also received the black veil), but it was amazing to realize that that supernatural joy is truly a gift from God.  Not in the sense that he only gives it to some people, but that only some people take Him up on that offer.  It was a beautiful moment, and one that I will cherish for a long time.  Mass continued as normal - at least as normal as Jesus transforming the host into Himself for our reception usually is - with no major hiccups at any point (oh, the Epistle went fine by the way).  After Mass, in another incredible blessing of the trip, we were allowed to come up to the grille in the chapel (where there is an opening for the sisters to receive Communion) and give my sister a hug.  She was still grinning, as you might imagine, and it was just a blessed moment (the first time my grandparents and uncle were able to visit her in there, so it was especially touching to see them meet her for the first time as a nun!)  After Mass, we got to converse for a bit - during which my sister spoke about her preparation for that big day, how the sisters had kept my coming to the ceremony a surprise till the last minute, and in general, everybody was able to fill each other on what had been happening and congratulate Sr. Mary Thomas (my sister's religious name) on her first profession.  We had a delicious - as usual - lunch provided by the sisters and then got to spend part of the afternoon continuing to speak with my sister. 

Who's the happiest?
I guess, I could prolong this post quite a bit further, droning on about the intricacies of what I was up to, but I won't, because the big things had already happened.  As usual, we struggled to come up with a poem to send back through the turn for the sisters...  Yep, I got to talk a lot with my sister (not another, but still) and we stayed up late catching up as a family (it felt like 5 AM to me)...  Yeah, I had another banana the next morning, and Mass was beautiful again (as was all the prayers that we were able to join the sisters for), and saying good-by to everybody was hard (though we did enjoy a 5-Guys burger before parting, which was about as American as it gets).  Of course, the flights were long (Spiderman 2 wasn't as good as I was hoping, but I got a tiny bit of sleep in and a bit of praying/reading in), and the airports somewhere between exciting and exasperating.  But the trip ended on a good note because the busses were running from the airport, and - annoyingly, but mostly amusingly - the wheel on my bag (with chocolate chips and BBQ sauce inside, among other things!) decided to self-destruct mid-way back to the NAC (approximately when I was passing St. Peter's), and, when I went over to St. Peter's for Mass (it was now Monday, because of the time-traveling that I had been doing..., so I hadn't been to Mass yet), I found that it was the funeral Mass for Cardinal Angelini.  I was pretty much a zombie standing there (I was going on 30 hours without much sleep - I would have never imagined they could make a seat as hard to fall asleep in than those on airplanes), but it was pretty obvious I was back in Rome.  Mass in St. Peter's, Swiss Guards, tourists, the mad rush for Communion, hearing Italian...  Va bene!

Super recap: Flying on planes can be fun, American food is still great, seeing the family after a couple months is even better, and God's grace in action, in my sister, is amazing!  The whole experience fit really well with Thanksgiving (which we are still celebrating here at the NAC - with tons of food, football, and the new/old-man shows); it truly reminded me what I am most thankful for.  Yep, being here in Rome is awesome, the food is great (here and back home), and I'm enjoying myself immensely, but life is about so much more than that!  It's about being thankful to God for His much more precious gifts: tremendous friends (here and in America), an amazing, loving, supportive family, and a call from God Himself, to follow Him, to love like Him, to give like Him, and thereby live with Him forever (starting now!)  Tremendous, right!  Thanksgiving indeed! 

Photos in the monastery from their website, otherwise from myself...  Please keep all the sisters in your prayers, especially as we begin the Year of Consecrated Life tomorrow (with the beginning of Advent!)
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