Faith

The greater global pandemic is not COVID-19. It is satan and sin. While there seems to be no vaccine in sight for the pandemic there is a cure for sin. When God looked at this world in awesome mercy and love he decided that he would not let us die from this disease of sin  injected by satan into the world and so he gave his only son Jesus as our saviour. Sin and Satan are the greatest pandemic and yet we do so little to fight it.

Jesus took on Satan and sin head on. The Gospel of today narrates a miracle in one verse (11:1) but the response to it takes on the next twenty six verses. Scripture notes that the adversaries of Jesus are mentioned in Luke’s Gospel with the word “some” but we know that Matthew calls them Pharisees and Mark mentions scribes. (Mt 12:24-30 Mk 3:22-30)

This exorcism, this miraculous act of mercy causes two very different reactions; amazement from the crowd and accusations from the so-called religious men who claim that it was accomplished by the power of Beelzebub. Beelzebub is the name given to the prince of demons, satan. The name probably originated from “Baalzebub” literally meaning lord of the flies or lord of dung; a Philistine god, Baal. This wicked accusation was equivalent to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Jn 12:10).

It has become evident that the convincing nature of Jesus’ miracles  have made a deep impact on the masses forcing the Pharisees to come up with some explanation for them. They could not deny the existence of  the miracles when they were happening before their eyes. Hence they choose to discredit Jesus.

Note the irony; In verse sixteen, the religious establishment accuse Jesus of performing a miracle by the  power of satan, yet they follow up with the classic line, “Now show us more miracles.” If the miracle is of satan, then why do they want more? Again they say, ‘you gave us an earthly miracle now give us a heavenly one’. Jesus knew that their motives were to trick and condemn him and so he refused.

Jesus answers their accusations with three arguments.

Firstly, their accusation was illogical. Would satan fight against himself and divide his own kingdom?  No general wanting to win the war would send his soldiers to the front lines with orders to shoot their own comrades.  Hence to suggest that Jesus is winning battles against Satan by Satan’s power is absurd.

Secondly, their charges are self-incriminating. Jesus reminds them that he wasn’t the only one who exorcised demons. They themselves performed exorcism (vs 19).We are not told if they were successful or not; and so rivalry and jealousy may be fuelling the religious leaders argument. By their logic, If they condemned Jesus then they were also condemning themselves! Because they were doing exactly the same activity that Jesus was doing? So by their own reasoning they too would be in league with satan.   

Finally, their accusation is actually an admission of Jesus’ power. So Jesus illustrates his argument with a story that everyone would know; His point is simple, he could not defeat Satan unless he was stronger than Satan. The “strong man armed” in the example is Satan. The demon-possessed man was evidence of his power. But, you see, Jesus is stronger than Satan, which is the reason he could cast out the demon. The point is obvious, since Jesus is spoiling the devil’s kingdom he can’t be Satan’s lesser minion, he must be stronger than the devil. After the strong man (Jesus) conquers, he distributes the goods which were formally Satan’s; the spoils. The spoils become gifts to men

What is our takeaway from the Gospel?

When we talk about spiritual warfare most people tune out. They don’t want to think that someone would want to hold us down and destroy us spiritually. It is much easier to think that God loves us and won’t let anything happen to us. But as the faithful, we know that we need to get spiritually smart about the things going on in our lives.

Ironically we strive to make our future secure; education for the children, EMI for a home, savings in the bank; what about securing our lives from satan and sin? What about securing a path to heaven?

Jesus came to destroy the devil, to give us the freedom from the enslavement the devil has over us. And this is not exaggerating. Pope Francis called on the faithful to reflect on whether they guard their hearts feelings, graces and presence of the Holy Spirit or “do I let go, feeling secure, believing that all is going well? If you do not guard yourself, he who is stronger than you will come.”

Finally, How could anyone say that Jesus was casting out demons through the power of the prince of demons? The hardness of heart, so evident all around us, and within us, remains a great mystery. How can we resist the truth, goodness, justice and simply seek empty excuses to justify our hardness of heart?  Ask the Lord for an open heart, and for light to see the hardness in each one of us.

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Art/ Heritage

THE BOMBAY SEMINARY: Operation Goregaon

 ‘Now comes the time to appeal to you to help me finish the work. We cannot stop half-way…This is the first major project with which we have come to you during our episcopate. We call it Major because it embraces the full life of the diocese. It is more than building a school, college, orphanage, or hospital. It is even greater and more inescapable than the building of a Cathedral.’ – Valerian Cardinal Gracias

The success of the Bombay Seminary project was very dear to the Cardinal’s heart and understandably so! For who wouldn’t be excited about the birth of a baby, the baby of one’s dream, the dream that spanned decades? However, you would agree that palpable dreams offer both sleepless nights and threatening nightmares. The construction of the Goregaon Seminary had begun. But would it reach its completion? Undoubtedly the need of the hour was steel and finance.

It is important to note that while substantial funds came from abroad, there was a need to tap local resources as well. The Cardinal was confident that he could count on his people. In 1958 the Cardinal decided to call the laity to a new expression of their generosity. In his all-out appeal for funds, the Cardinal was ably assisted by his then Vicar General, Msgr. Vivian Dyer, who devised a scheme called Operation Goregaon. The scheme embraced two plans of action:

  1. The circulation of information on the Seminary through a book titled ‘Diocesan Seminary, Bombay – A Dream Coming True’. This was edited by Fr. Tarcy Mascarenhas.

  2. The extensive and organized collection of funds from all sections of the community.

This campaign was launched on November 24, 1958, through an Official in The Examiner. The campaign was to be operated between Christmas 1958 and Easter 1959. The Cardinal stated: ‘Our benefactors in America and Europe will have the satisfaction of learning at Christmas that their substantial donations, which helped me make a start, are bearing practical fruit…Now is the acceptable time for our people to play their part, and to play it courageously and generously.’ (The Examiner, 1958)

Through the ‘Campaign Booklet,’ the Cardinal encouraged the laity to be involved in the project in ways of interest, funds, vocations and prayers. Desiring to keep the momentum of the Campaign going the Cardinal once again spoke of the need for vocations, and financial assistance in his Lenten Pastoral Letter of February 2, 1959. He also chose to celebrate Mass on his feast day, April 14, in one of the future classrooms of the Seminary building. A large number of faithful including priests, seminarians, school children, nuns, laypeople joined in the celebration of the Eucharist.

The Campaign bore fruit. The Bombay Church selflessly supported the Seminary Enterprise, an involvement not witnessed in ages. With pride and gratitude, the Cardinal stated: ‘We had fixed the target of eight lakhs from Bombay; and I am happy to announce that we have reached it. Heaven helps those who help themselves.’

On October 5, 1960, the Bombay Seminary at Goregaon was inaugurated but with a deficit of 10 lakhs rupees. In his inauguration speech, the Cardinal informed: ‘With the generous aid received from the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda, the Cardinals and the Bishops of America, friends from Europe, and from our own people in Bombay, we were able to make a start and produce this Building which you behold. We certainly are not out of the woods. The Seminary has been a costly project; but let each generation bear its burden, for the seminary is not an Institution for the day but for all time. Fortunately, a Seminary to be inaugurated need not be free from debt. ’

The approximate cost of the Seminary was rupees 45 lakhs. The deficit was met post-inauguration. Thankfully till-date the woods of the Seminary help us breathe in pure air filled with the faith and hope of those who labored with love for this beloved institution. It inspires our path as we navigate our way to the Storeys of Stories.

Stay tuned as we explore more! Please feel free to share this story with others and your story of the Seminary with us! You will get regular updates at this blog site on this exhibition.

© – Archdiocesan Heritage Museum   

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Faith

Memorial – Our Lady of the Rosary

If you were to ask what object is most emblematic of Catholics, people would probably say, “The rosary, of course.” The rosary is a devotion in honour of the Virgin Mary based on the mysteries of Christ and consists of a set number of specific prayers. It comes from a Latin word Rosaria, which means a crown of roses or a garden of roses.

The prayer itself is sometimes seen as too simple and therefore as superficial. The rosary is simple, but the gentle repetition of its prayers makes it an excellent means to moving into deeper meditation.

Prayed on the beads of the rosary, the beads strung together are not just decorations. Battles have been won because people prayed the rosary! There have been hearts converted, and impossible intentions answered too.  

It’s commonly said that St. Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers (the Dominicans), instituted the rosary as the rosary was given to him in a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. While St Dominic did have a vision in 1221 he certainly did not ‘institute’ the rosary. Certain parts of the rosary predated St. Dominic; others arose only after his death. The use of knotted prayer ropes in Christianity goes back to the desert fathers in the 3rd and early 4th centuries. These counting devices were used for prayers such as the Jesus prayer in Christian monasticism.  

St. Dominic however preached its use to convert sinners and those who had strayed from the faith. We know the religious order Dominic founded (the Dominicans) clearly played a major role in promoting the rosary throughout the world in the early years of this devotion. Paradoxically, at least a dozen popes have mentioned St. Dominic’s connection with the rosary, sanctioning his role as at least a ‘pious belief’. That of course is not historically true.

Centuries before St. Dominic, during the medieval period, monks had begun to recite all 150 psalms on a regular basis. As time went on, there was a desire to give the laity (many of whom accompanied their masters to the monastery) and the lay brothers, known as the conversi,  a form of common prayer similar to that of the monasteries. These lay people and conversi were distinct from the choir monks, and a chief distinction was that they were illiterate besides the psalter was an expensive book.

The laity and conversi needed an easily remembered prayer. Since monastic prayer was structured around the Psalter, a parallel to the monastic reading of the 150 psalms was developed with the praying the Our Father 150 times throughout the day. The  laity and the conversi used beads to keep count, and this method of prayer came to be known as  the  Paternosters (Our Fathers). This devotion came to also be known as “the poor man’s breviary.” ­The rosaries that originally were used to count Our Fathers came to be used, during the twelfth century, to count Hail Marys—or, more properly, the first half of what we now call the Hail Mary. (The second half was added some time later.)

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Art/ Heritage

THE BOMBAY SEMINARY:  A Tribute

On this glorious day where memories and hopes meet, we present to you the composition of celebration as published in the College Magazine, 1960. Happy Reading!

 COLLEGE OF ST. PIUS X

Behold this hour the curtain rises, to inaugurate a new era in Bombay’s star-spangled history!

A new expansive edifice, and all it means, in Goregaon’s rural environs, is now the seminarium of her future priests;

The infallible object of admiration, of every passerby and visitor,

A landmark which while yet unfinished, merited a name from the local inhabitants:

“Panchmala” they called it, “The Five-storeyed”.

Lodged midst Nature’s inimitable beauty, recipient of her attentions

The perfect setting for the “Benedicite” or Francis’ “Canticle to Brother Sun”‘

’Tis Nature inviting to prayer…and contemplation.

 

In this atmosphere of peace, each priest-to-be may undisturbed

Unlock the secrets of his books,

Striving to know what men and priests must know,

Qualifying as far as weak humans can,

For that herculean enterprise which Christ has entrusted to him:

“Go, and teach ye all nations…’ But success is never cheaply won;

While we sound the trumpet of accomplishment,

Our tide of joy may rise above the grey rocks of anxiety,

But we do not forget, we cannot forget

The secret sacrifices, the plenteous sacrifices,

The rich offerings, the widow’s mite,

And the unstinting labour, that have built it all

Though not these only,

For “Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it”.

 

We look into a sunlit future, a future of prosperity and increase,

Though we rule not out the shadows! For we trust in Him whose promises

Calmed the fears of Moses and Joshua, of the prophets Isaias and Jeremy,

In His Son who to tongue-tied fishermen said. “I am with you…

We trust in the spirit, the Enlightener, The Fire, which moves every heart to Generosity!

To them we pray that this College, may be the birth-place of saintly priests;

We likewise pray that every giver may receive due meed,

For theirs was at least a cup of water to a Christ in need.

 

BRO. JOAQUIM PAES

(Fraternitas, 1960)

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Faith

In chapter twenty-one of the Gospel of Mathew, Jesus has entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and gets into a run in with the chief priests and Pharisees. They question the source of his authority. “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (21:23). In response to their question regarding his authority to cleanse the temple Jesus breaks into three parables of judgment the first two of which use the imagery of a vineyard.

For a first century Jew the allusion to vineyard found in the writings of Isaiah was unmistakable (Isaiah 5:1-7). The Jewish nation, as the vineyard of God, was a familiar prophetic picture and a metaphor for the house of Israel and the people of Judah.

The parable is unmistakably direct in its message and verse forty-five tells us that when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables (both the first and then second parable), they realized that Jesus was speaking about them. Jesus was not merely critiquing temple leadership he was now tearing it to shreds while pronouncing judgment on them.

The parable of today’s Gospel needs some attention for it is beautifully woven to encompass salvation history in ten verses.  The parable begins with a situation that was business as usual in Roman-occupied Palestine. In the time of Jesus, Palestine was a troubled place with little luxury. Hence, culturally, the leasing of land to tenant farmers was a common experience.

While many of these absentee landowners were foreigners who lived in the far-flung territories of the Roman Empire it was not uncommon for the Jews to be landowners.  The rent was paid in any of three ways. It might be a money rent; it might be a fixed amount of the fruit or grain, or it might be an agreed percentage of the crop. Those who failed to meet the landowner’s standards would be removed from the land and landowning elite could usually pay others to remove them forcefully if necessary.

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