We never know how or why God calls us, unworthy though we are, to consecrate our efforts and energies for His purposes.

I must have said these words hundreds of times during the past fifty years, either to myself or to those who bothered to ask me how I became in 1936 the first Rector of the Seminary of the Bombay Archdiocese. But it was, if anything, a partial and very general response. The real answer might sound a little dramatic, but I’ll say it because it is not only real but really dramatic.

On Ascension Thursday, May 28, 1936, at about six in the evening, as l was saying my second vespers, the Tertian Instructor came over quietly and whispered in my ear, “See me after your prayer.”

My head buzzed with images of all sorts as minutes later, I stood knocking at his door. What could have gone wrong, I asked myself. Did I break something in the kitchen? Was I in for a ‘culpa’? When the door opened, I realised to my relief that it was none of these that interested the Instructor.