Farewell

July 27-30

I left Calcutta and arrived back in Kerala. Now I'm on my way back home.

I was able to visit Champakulam, the place where my dad grew up, and visit a special friend of mine from the United States.

He came to pick me up in the bright red car.

If you know the car he drives back in the US, you’ll have no problem guessing who drives this car in Kerala

The backwaters of Champakulam are beautiful.

I also had the opportunity to attend Qurbana at the ancient St. Mary’s church.

There were several videos that I wanted to post throughout my trip, but because problems with internet speed in certain areas of my trip, I wasn’t willing to wait four hours to upload a two minute video.

So below are some videos that I wanted to post earlier.I guess they can be considered the “deleted scenes”

Children at the SOS house singing Why this Kolaveri Di

Seminarian for the Kottayam diocese, Br. Toms, sends his greetings to the members of the Knanaya community in America. If you’re Kna, there’s a twenty-five percent chance he’s your first cousin.

Jesus Youth from Delhi jamming out to the classic contemporary Christian song –Awesome God

One of the girls living at the Home for the Blind at the Children’s Village reads the first reading at mass. She’s blind, so she’s reading in braille. She also has a beautiful voice. Her name is Kavitha.

The last video is a short video of me riding on the back of a motorcycle in Calcutta. Organized chaos.

All the students I’ve met in India have such high regard for American universities. It seems like so many people in India have the dream of coming to America to study, but because of high tuition costs, especially when you convert dollars to rupees, the chances of studying in the states are very low unless your family is rich or if you somehow get funding/scholarships.

Here is a list of top universities in the world that a nearby test-prep center gives its students in India who are hoping to one day study in America

If your school is on the list, congrats. Millions of students in India can only dream about studying where you are.

I’m sorry if my knowledge of Hindi movies, particularly movies of Shahrukh Khan, has creeped you out. There will always be two kings who will forever reign in heart –Christ the King and the King of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan.

…and you’re probably creeped out even more now. Sorry.

Many people have said nice things about my blog. Thank you for your kind words. If you enjoyed the blog, thank the One who worked through me to write whatever was written.

You wouldn’t attribute the beauty of the Last Supper to da Vinci's paintbrush. Likewise, attribute whatever goodness you experienced in this blog to the One who used me as His paintbrush.

And if you didn’t like the blog, please go ahead and blame the paintbrush for not doing its job properly.

A few people have asked if I will continue to blog when reach back to the US.

I will not be continuing this blog, but in the future, if I do go on some other trip like this, I might start up again and blog about my adventures in another part of the world.

And as a fair warning, if anyone asks me how my trip in India was, I will simply respond with:

It was good

…and then direct you to my blog for further details.

In doing so, I’m only trying to be like Jesus Christ.

Over the past two-thousands years, the Church has been teaching and defining several key elements of the faith. The many ecumenical councils, the arguments of the nature of Christ, the teachings on the Holy Trinity, works compiled on moral theology, treatises published on the seven Sacraments, homilies preached on the duty to help the poor, encyclicals issued to address problems of the time, and dissertations written by Catholic theologians all reflect and explain the command of Christ to:

Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34)

Who ever knew that people would dedicate their entire lives throughout the centuries to understand the command of Christ to love.

If my blog has challenged you in any way to be a “better-version-of-yourself”, you’re not alone. The one person who my blog has challenged the most is probably me. It’s not so easy to practice what you preach.

And I’ll always remember the words of Fr. Ray during my first winter retreat while I was studying at St. John Neumann seminary in New York:

It’s easy acting holy, but it ain’t easy being holy! 

(said in a heavy Brooklyn accent)

very true.

I thank you for journeying with me during my trip in India and reading about the Catholic Church I know. 

The media often portrays the negative aspects of the Catholic Church, many of which I am thankful to the media in doing so because it functions as a megaphone screech to members of the Church hierarchy to let them know that there are many areas that the Church needs to clean up, such as the priest sex abuse scandals, but very rarely is the Church every portrayed by the media as welcoming of every person, regardless of social status/caste, gender, and sexual-orientation. 

This is the Catholic Church I know. 

More than any pope, Saint, or Church document, the words of Stephen Colbert express most beautifully the reason of why I love my Catholic faith:

The real reason I remain a Catholic is what the Church gives me, which is love

If you enjoyed reading about the life of Blessed Kunjachan --God-willing Saint Kunjachan one day --know that there are thousands of other holy men and women that the Church recognizes and esteems because of their love for Christ and love for neighbor.

They all have some crazy radical story. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be Saints.

I ask you all to please pray for me and all seminarians around the world as we continue in our formation to be holy priests for the Catholic Church.

I have been blessed to have two awesome brother seminarians from the St. Thomas Syro-Malabar Catholic Diocese of Chicago, Rajeev Philip and Melvin Paul, who are with me on this journey to priesthood. Please pray for them as well.

Members of the SyroMalabar Catholic Church (but not only the SyroMalabar Church) are blessed to have their roots traced back to the arrival St. Thomas the Apostle to India in the year 52 AD. 

These early St. Thomas Christians identified themselves as followers of the Way of Saint Thomas, also known as Mar Toma Margam.

Fr. Kochappilly CMI speaks about the Way of Saint Thomas saying:

Mar Toma Margam is the chosen title to identity the sum and substance of the Saint Thomas Christians of India, who have shaped a living tradition of Saint Thomas the Apostle, the father in faith on account of his proclamation of the good news of the Lord and his subsequent martyrdom in India during the very first century of Christianity

St. Thomas the Apostle experienced Jesus Christ as the Way and brought that experience to the people of India.

Jesus is the way to life
Jesus is the way to truth
Jesus is the way to peace
Jesus is the way to joy
Jesus is the way to the poor
Jesus is the way to justice
Jesus is the way to love

Jesus is the Way. Jesus is the Margam.

Praise to you, altar of sanctification! Praise to you, the sepulcher of our Lord! May the Holy Qurbana that I have received from You, be for me unto the forgiveness of my debts and the remission of my sins. I know not, whether I shall come again to offer another sacrifice

-Farewell Prayer, SyroMalabar Qurbana

Find Your Own Calcutta

July 23-26

I left Delhi and arrived in Calcutta.

A really awesome young man named Robert was anxiously awaiting my arrival at the airport. He was nice enough to even make me a sign.

In Calcutta, I stayed with a family that I never met before. I found out about this family through my brother seminarian’s mother, Vimala Philip, who knows an uncle in Houston, Matthew, who used to live Calcutta. They usually host foreigners at their home when they come to visit Calcutta. Such a blessing to stay with their family for the past few days.

It’s amazing how people are connected in in India. Some scientists have come up with a theory that any person in the world can be connected with any other person in the world through six intermediary people. It’s called the “Six degrees of separation”. I feel like everyone in India somehow knows everyone else. It’s a lot of fun to watch people meet for the first time and try and find out how they’re connected somehow. There are probably three degrees of separation in India. Seriously.

But before I speak about my experience in Calcutta, I want to invite Kanye West to say a few words.

Really. I don’t know how many Indians would agree with me, but thank you British for making my trip much smoother than expected.

In every place I went in India, I was somehow able to survive by only knowing English. Most of the signs are bilingual –having the particular local language in bold with English written underneath.

You can see a lot of British Influence in Calcutta. Calcutta was actually the capital of India at one point, before it was moved to a more centralized location in Delhi.

Calcutta is the only city in India to have the “tram system”, thanks to the British.

This is the Victoria Memorial, which is dedicated to the last British Empress of India, Victoria.

 I also got to visit the India Museum in Calcutta. There was a fee. 

I was able to pass as an Indian! But it's not like I was lying or anything...I'm an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI)...so it kind of counts...

And of course, having the steering wheel on the right side and driving on the left side of the road was a British influence as well. Though I’m not sure if drivers more time is spent on the left side or the right side of the road (if you’ve been to India, you know what I’m talking about)

One of the guys I’m staying with, Paul, took me out to get street food. (pray that I don't get sick)

Not sure what it was was, but it was good.

Then we came across the infamous gol gappa. Move over 53rd and 6th.

Gol gappas are REALLY GOOD. Like really good. Paul told me that there's one rule while eating gol gappas: keep eating until you can't anymore. I wasn't sure if he was indirectly challenging me to a gol gappa eat-off,  but if he did, I would've gladly enjoyed beating him.

Now, I know what you’re thinking

and if you’re like Tony Patteril and need some more clarification because the only Indian movie you've seen is Slumdog Millionaire (which doesn't even count)

Now, I know what you’re thinking (again).

Kevin, you’re in Calcutta –where are all the pictures of you helping the poor? Show us some pictures of you holding an orphan baby on the street and washing the dying elderly man on the street.

Helping the poor was one of my intentions, but it wasn't my main intention

Of course, I did visit the Missionaries of Charity sisters and visit their home for the dying, but my main reason for coming was to visit the tomb of Mother Teresa and experience the city of Calcutta, also known as “the city of joy”.

I was so amazed to see so many volunteers from America and Europe come to Calcutta to help the sisters. It’s so inspiring to see these people adjusting to a whole different culture in Calcutta and getting on their hands and feet to help the poorest of the poor.

Many of the volunteers from abroad come to Calcutta and leave the city as a whole different person, having experienced extreme poverty and the seeing the love the Missionaries of Charity sisters have for the neglected, unwanted, and abandoned.

If you have been following my blog, you know that before I came to Calcutta, I had the opportunity of being with the poor and unwanted –the orphaned girls at Children’s Village in Haryana, the slums in Aluye, the children at the SOS house, and the people living in the slums by the garbage dump in Kottayam. I didn’t have to leave Delhi or Kerala to be with the poor. In fact, I didn’t even have to leave the US.

Mother Teresa knew the desire that so many people had in wanting to experience Calcutta and be with the poor. But because of whatever difficulties they had, they were not able to come all the way to Calcutta. So this is what Mother Teresa told those people who had a desire to come to Calcutta and be with the poor:

Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are — in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society — completely forgotten, completely left alone.

Mother Teresa wants us to find our own Calcutta wherever we are. To simply say that the poor does not exist in the United States would reveal a person’s severe blindness.

The immigrant mother who raises her children in constant fear because of status as “illegal”; the young woman who feels she has no other option but to have an abortion; the young man who feels unwanted by his own family members because of their inability to see his dignity beyond his same-sex orientation; the alcoholic father who takes out his anger by abusing his wife and children.

These people are the poor among us. 

If we are so blind to think that we can only serve the poor by going to Calcutta, it would probably be better if we actually physically go blind so that we may empathize with someone who is deprived of something we easily take for granted, and through that, develop a compassionate heart to see those neglected, unwanted, and unloved in our own society.

But to show compassion is not to merely show pity for.

The word "compassion" comes from the Latin "passus", which is the past participle of the deponent verb "patior" which means to suffer. "Com" comes from the latin "cum" which means "with" (like in cum laude; with praise). 

Compassion means "to suffer with" --much more than "to show pity for" (one of the few moments when you’re thankful for learning Latin in the seminary, with a little assistance from Wikipedia).

Jesus Christ was compassionate. And so was Mother Teresa.

But what drove Mother Teresa to serve the poorest of the poor? How did she do it? What was her secret?

Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai 

Mother Teresa saw God in the people she served; she saw Jesus Christ in every person she met. Again, Mother Teresa says:

Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, and his hand in every happening: This is what it means to be contemplative in the heart of the world. Seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor

Blessed Kunjachan too, saw the face of Jesus in the oppressed Dalit people he cared for. He wasn't a “missionary” in the traditional sense. He wasn’t part of any religious congregation of priests like the Jesuits or Franciscans. He didn’t go on long journeys searching thousands of kilometers for people who were being neglected and unwanted. He was a simple parish priest from the Diocese of Palai and helped work towards the liberation of the untouchables who lived within his own parish boundaries.

Blessed Kunjachan stayed where he was at his parish in Ramapuram and there he found his own Calcutta.

Let us implore the God of compassion,

Who showers lasting grace in the minds of all,

Prayer is the source of life-giving stream,

Bestowing mankind with life and salvation,

Blessed is he who bears the armor of the spirit,

To conquer the spirit of the world below

-Onitha d'Mawtwa, Lelya(night prayer), Season of Lent, SyroMalabar Liturgy of the Hours

"The Catholic Church Hates Women"

July 17-22

I moved on from Delhi to Haryana, which is the neighboring state. It rained a lot. But that didn’t stop anyone from driving on the roads.

My next assigned place was Sanjoepuram Children’s Village. The area was a lot different from the upbeat city-life of Delhi. This was more of a village/rural place.

The SyroMalabar Catholic Diocese of Faridabad runs the Children’s Village and in there is a school which has over one-thousand students from kindergarten to 12^th grade.

When the principal found out that I came from the U.S. for a brief visit, she immediately had me visit all of the upper level classes to talk to them about life in America and the education system there.

The students were all so loving. They wanted to know everything about America. They wanted to know everything about my life, my family, and my schooling. They were so curious and had such a genuine desire to know more about my culture. They felt so happy to meet someone from America for the first time.

I could never see American students so genuinely interested in asking someone visiting their class from India about his or her life experience in India.  If an Indian born person did come to my 11^th grade classroom, I’m sure half the class would zone out, including me. How pathetic.

That’s the thing about India; they love when foreigners come to visit them. They want to know everything about your background and what life is like for you in a different country. And they absolutely love when they hear foreigners try to speak a few words in Hindi.

But in America, we don’t really care much for foreigners. In fact, if you don’t speak English, better get out of our country! God Bless Amurica!

I asked the 12^th graders about what their schedules are like at school, and it’s really packed. They have so many subjects in one day –biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, English, Hindi, physical education (which is more of a sports medicine class), and electives. They have so much to study and the exams are painful. Doesn’t seem like much fun.

After about thirty minutes into discussing life in America, one of the students raised his hand and asked me to sing an American song.

It was a really awkward question for me, but then it struck me that they don’t have any music classes in their schedule, so they probably aren’t used to hearing singing in their classes.

Woah.

Wait! Where have I seen this before?

And if your name is John LoCoco and are not fully sure what I'm talking about

I decided to be a rebellious American and so I went to my suitcase and brought back my wooden flute.

Today’s class will be about jamming out to music, hearing the students sing, and showcase their talents.

It was awesome.

I played a few Hindi songs on my flute and they were all so surprised that I knew so many of their favorite film songs. They all seem to know every word to every single Bollywood movie ever made. When it comes to movies and songs, North Indians are like Malayalis on steroids.

So many of the students really love to sing, but they don’t have the opportunity to grow in their singing talent through a music class offered at school.

I felt like such a boss. Look at me, arousing the talents of the students and having a somewhat “music class” like how Shah Rukh Khan did in Mohabbatien, minus the violin, Hitler-like school principal, and imaginary Aishwarya Rai following me around everywhere.

They asked me what my favorite movie was and I said DDLJ. They all gave me a really weird look and said that was a really, really old movie.

For these kids, I guess it’s comparable to asking an American teenager what his or her favorite movie is and hearing him or her respond with The Sound of Music. A classic, but really old.

They asked me to sing a song from DDLJ, but I only knew the first five words of Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Janna Sanam. They told me to sing it anyway, and so I did, resulting in an uproar of laughter from the class.

I was a bit sad. Why were they all laughing at me?

And so I asked the class to sing an American song for me and so they did. I was about to burst out laughing, but I had to control myself. Not sure what’s funnier –hearing Tujhe Dekha To Yeh Janna Sanam in an American accent or Justin Beiber’s Baby in an Indian accent.

One of the students asked me if I knew any dialogues from any Hindi movies.

Dialogues?

I barely know any Malayalam movie dialogues. I wish the phone-a-friend option was available. I could’ve called Geordie Daniel and duped them all.

So I asked one of the boys to do a dialogue instead, and he did, though I’m not quite sure what movie it’s from. Om Shanti Om?

Most of the students at Infant Jesus School belong to neighboring villages, but there are about one-hundred female students who live in special homes run by religious sisters on the campus itself.

Why are there special homes on campus for girls?

The girls that live in these homes either are orphans, have physical disabilities, or both.

Around forty-percent of the girls have at least one member of the family back home. Many of these girls have fathers who are in jail, and because of that, their mothers, who are housewives, cannot financially support them in their education, so the girls are sent here.

The remaining sixty-percent of the girls are fully orphans. They were picked up on the streets by an agency and brought here to the Children’s Village to be taken care of.

I asked the priest who runs the facility why these girls were abandoned on the streets by their parents and he said that many people in certain areas of India find it extremely burdensome to have a daughter and to prefer to a sons instead. I asked him why boys are preferred over girls and he gave me a list of reasons:

-Having a daughter means having to pay dowry. In the nearby village, the minimum dowry for a girl is  ten lakh Rupees (one-million Rupees, around $17,000) worth of goods, consisting in electronics, furniture, property, and even cars.

-Having to live a life that is constantly concerned with your daughter’s safety, especially at night.

-If your daughter is raped, there goes any chance at “marrying her off”, since no guy in the right mind would want to marry a woman who has become “impure” through rape.

-Also, if your daughter is raped, your family must deal with the shame brought onto your family name.

I took a few Women and Gender Studies courses this past year and I’ve read so many articles, seen so many videos, and heard so many testimonies about the reality of women in certain parts of India. But to experience it first hand and in front of my eyes was a whole different experience.

These girls were orphaned because they weren’t born as boys.

But the priests and sisters at the Children’s Village take in these orphaned girls and treat them with highest dignity and the equality they deserve.

Their housing and meals are fully taken care of. Their schooling is fully paid for, including college. When the time comes to get married, the facility pays for their wedding expenses, including their dowry, since dowry is an unavoidable part of marriage in many parts of India. After they get married, the facility even finds a place for the girl and her husband to raise a family, paying for most of their expenses, including a home.

And also, the priest in charge has even hired a basketball coach for the girls so they not only learn to play the sport, but to play it well.

Equality is big here at the Children’s Village. Equality is so big here that when the girls scrimmage, the coach equally applies the rules of the game to each person on the court, regardless of physical disability.

The day I was there, he called a “double-dribble” on a girl with one arm. Not exactly sure how that’s possible, but equality is what matters here.

I was the guest captain that day and I got to be on a team with a few other girls. I asked them if I could name our team, “Team USA”, and they rolled their eyes and said sure. Team USA it is.

Watch out Team JOY, a new team is on the rise.

The Catholic Church gets a lot hate for her teachings on many womens’ issues –contraception, IVF, abortion, women’s ordination, etc. Because of these positions on womens’ issues, the Catholic Church is often seen by many as the Church that discriminates against women.

Now, I do not wish to go into every single womens’ issue and explain why the Church teaches what she teaches, but what I do hope and pray is that those people who think that the Catholic Church hates women, may discover these hidden places in the world, like the Children’s Village, where orphaned girls are taken into loving homes, where they are educated, empowered, and treated with equal dignity in a society where they are abandoned because of the number of “X” chromosomes they have.

At this small orphanage, in a remote town in India, the Catholic Church does not hate women.

At the Children’s Village, the Catholic Church loves women.

They are treated as equal to men, both created in the likeness and image of God, and thus both having an inherent human dignity that must be respected and valued.

I do not know how someone can say that the Catholic Church hates women when Church-run institutions like the Children’s Village exist in the world.

When any of the girls get sick, they are rushed to a nearby medical clinic where their immediate medical needs are taken care of. If one of the girls needs serious medical attention, the priest in charge will rush her to the nearest hospital and make sure she is properly taken care of.

A few days before I came, one of the girls needed a surgical procedure and so she was brought to a major city hospital. The total cost of her medical care was one lakh (100,000 Rupees).

The Children’s Village does not have an unlimited amount of money, but when situations like these come, the priest in charge puts the health of these girls above any amount of money.

Medical care was a big part of Blessed Kunjachan’s ministry as well. During his time, there was only one government hospital in Ramapuram. Though Kunjachan did not have any medical training, he had a natural skill for using herbo-mineral remedies to take care of physical ailments.

Many people, regardless of caste, would come to him for treatment and healing. Whenever Kunjachan heard about a sick person in the Dalit community, he would rush there with his medicines and stay with the patient until he or she had been fully relieved.

Kunjachan did not have an unlimited amount of time, but when situations like these came, he put the health of the Dalit people above whatever scheduled tasks he had that day.

Boss.

As the Lord rose from the dead in glory,

And appeared to Mary Magdalene,

God gave this blessing to a woman, than to a man

To fulfill the scriptures he was born of woman

As soon as Lord Jesus rose from the tomb,

He appeared to another woman in all his grace,

Lord, in Your loving and caring providence,

Every woman is the image of Mother Church

Wednesday, Period of Dedication of the Church, Onitha d’Mawtwa, Lelya, SyroMalabar Liturgy of the Hours

 (Hindi SyroMalabar Qurbana at the Children's Village)

If you are interested in volunteering here, please let me know.
mndckl@yahoo.com