By: Sr. Ching Madduma, ICM

It is hard to believe that there are 200 million “Untouchables” in the subcontinent of India, people treated as less than human beings. There is also another group even less visible who are often retarded as even worse off-the seriously handicapped and mentally retarded. Sr. Ching has worked to bring these people out of what she calls ‘the valley of shadow.’ Here she brings us up to date on the story of her little friend, Kamal.

Free from Chains
I, Kamal am free! How I wish he could have spoken these words! Nonetheless, I was touched when our little 12 year old boy from the local unit for children with mental retardation came to our convent compound and grinned broadly as he gestured awkwardly to show that his chains of oppression were gone.

Fell from Rickshaw
Kamal is first and above all a person. He happens to be a person who is mentally handicapped. In an earlier story I introduced this rare and beautiful person. I told of his birth into a poor Indian farming family here in Sarnath, North India. Kamal’s problems began with a high fever when he was a small child. His development was further slowed down after a fall from a rickshaw and consequent head injuries.

Chained like a Bear
The local pujari or religious leader considered Kamal possessed and so to his tiny wrists and weak ankles were placed steel bracelets and anklets eventually to be links by chains. And this became part and parcel of his daily life. The chains enabled the family to peg Kamal near the buffaloes when these animals were bedded for the night. Kamal had chains similar to those worn by captive bears and other animals that are paraded on occasions through the streets of this old Buddhist site. The chains enabled people in the area to catch the almost-always naked Kamal and to hold him until his aged grandmother would come and to lead him away.

Little Bruised Limbs
Life changed greatly for me and Kamal when we first met. He was my first student in my education work with the mentally handicapped here in India. Kamal could communicate very well; not by voice but by a winning smile, soft eyes and innocence. From the beginning his message to me was “Set me free, please! Set me free through education to be accepted and not chained or pitied by society! Set me free from these chains which bind much more than just physically!” To set Kamal free has been my challenging and fulfilling work for the past eight years.
I received Kamal into our Special Education Unit so that he might have the same respect and dignity given to the other members of his family. I gave him love and care he needed as a child and he gradually responded with childlike greetings. He began to wear clothes and to be feed like a normal. I gave my best to educate not only Kamal but also his family and the Sarnath community who needed to be taught about the needs and the care of special people like Kamal. In time, I could thank the Lord that the chains of prejudice were removed. Kamal could now walk more freely. He could reach out better and run faster just like any other normal boy.
He would think that life is worth living. However, for a long, long time the steel bands continued to bind him and to bruise and blacken his little limbs thus oppressing the thin, young boy.

The Steel Bands were Gone
Years have passed since then... and today Kamal came to our window. He grunted a greeting loudly. He grinned and waved his small arms over his heads. He kicked his legs high. He was telling us in his own way, “I Kamal am free at last!” The steel bands- his –bands-were-gone! But Kamal is still far off from being liberated in today world. Indeed, he has yet a long way to go. And I his teacher am honored and grateful to be able to walk with him.

By: Pedro Morelos Peñaranda, CICM

Concluding Pedro Peñaranda’s reflections on his trial period as a CICM seminarian in Cameroon

Disciples of the Man from Nazareth
There are only three Filipinos in North Cameroon- all of them CICM missionaries. The people call us Nasara meaning white, a term applied to all non blacks. At first I found it impolite of them to call names till I discovered Nasara originally meant disciple of the man from Nazareth. In Maroua, however, the seat of the diocese and a commercial district with rather large Moslem population, we were tagged Chinois.

Prayer at Sunset
I was in charge of religion classes in the Lycee or late high school and early college. Students walk 5-8 kilometers to and from school under the heat of the sun. I made the rounds of our smallest and farthest communities and involved myself in the liturgical life of the parish. I would compose common prayers in French which are then translated by a student into the Mafa dialect. Family prayers are recited at each home before the principal meal of the day that is, at six o’ clock in the evening at sunset. The majority of Mafa homes cannot afford an oil lamp. Normally they light a fire using the dried stalks of millet outside their round clay houses during moonless nights. Or else they go to bed as soon as night falls.

Equation of Symbols
At Christmas our celebration among a predominantly animist and Moslem population was very meaningful. For the first time we had Vigil Mass complete with a live and dramatized nativity scene. Afterwards there was popular dancing to the music of their traditional tambours around a giant bonfire. Happy coincidence: Christmas falls at the same time as their grand annual harvest festivities. I was just one step further for me to do a little inculturation or dynamic equation of the symbol of faith. The people subsist on millet which gives them life, is a gift from God.

Twelve Women Mourners
For Holy week I stayed for the triduum in the mountain part of our mission. On Holy Thursday we again had an all night prayer vigil by rotation of groups. We had to sleep outside the chapel under the moon. On Good Friday, afternoon we made the way of the cross across the mountain, a good three kilometer walk. We had a big cross adorned with thorns. Based on the Mafa funeral liturgy, however, the cross was surrounded by twelve women representing mourners. For someone like me accustomed to the different liturgical tradition, it seemed funny at first, but it was, all the same, very touching.
On Easter Sunday we welcome 140 new Christians. They were adults because here infant baptism is rare.

 

My Second, My Real, Novitiate
In Koza, I found myself in my second perhaps, even my real novitiate. Here my heart heard loud and clear call to live in solidarity with the poverty of the people other than my own.

In Koza I felt humbled by the pre-dominance and pride of an animist and Moslem population. But this led me to discover the frontier of the Church; there to declare the testimony of my faith and my vocation as a CICM missionary.

Folks Images and Local Wisdom
My work with the catechist, most of whom were unlettered, taught me the value of inculturation. A missionary is called to integrate himself more and more into the milieu where he works. We have no valid excuse for a less demanding approach because of the example of God himself who took flesh and who lived among His people.
With regards to the explanation of the gospel, I have noticed that the catechist (precisely) because they cannot read and have no theological formation) manage to reach and move their audience more through folk images and tales, proverbs and comparisons which they draw from the concrete, sometimes banal realities of their everyday life. Was this not the method Jesus himself often used?

Re-Evaluation of Symbol
My Koza experience makes me wary of using universal symbols of black and white, the light and darkness to represent life and death, virtue and sin. I wonder whether we should not be doing radical re-evaluation of our theological symbols in favor of the black race, given the fact that biblical images were created in a non-black world. For instance how can a black person be at ease with himself when, with the psalmist, he prays: “wash me and I shall be whiter than snow!”?

Worth in Gold
In mission such as Koza you realize how your community becomes really your family. The smallest details of everyday life are worth their weight in gold in interpersonal relations.

I was Trembling but...
There is nothing I have experienced in Koza that I had ever asked for because I didn’t even dream of Africa at all. Everything that I imagined about it frightened me. I kept joking about it. I kept smiling because deep within me I was trembling. But I prayed for the courage to accept reality. And behold, even that courage to accept has been grace upon grace. That is why today my heart gives thanks to my God and sings out: “Thank you my brothers and sisters in Koza! Sun, wind, dust, water, rocks millet, sauce, drums cows... I have eaten, drunk, felt, heard touched and breathed you. You have become part of me now, I have become part of you”
 

 

By: Fr. Antonio Barriatos, SVD

Fr. Tony Barriatos a Filipinos priest in Latin America

 We are missionaries Ad Gentes
Sent to all parts of the world
Animated by the vision of our missionary vacation:
To bring all men to affirm the person of Christ,
To proclaim the gospel and announce salvation to all creation,
To educate and offer service to the poor.
Leave your place and go
Implant the Church among the peoples of the world
So that there may be peace on earth.

The whole Church is missionary
In its essence and nature
You and I called to bear witness to Christ
Here in Latin America,
In Europe,
In Asia,
In Africa,
In Oceana.
All countries- mission territories!
All situation closed to the gospel or
Where the Word is unheard of and totally unknown.

Mission before was different
From 1530 to 1950
To evangelize was to baptize;
To baptize means equally to colonize
And to colonized was to be slaves of the whites
Indians and Negroes paid dearly
When the cross and the sword were joined
Today, to evangelize is our mission.
We learn and we discover how to proclaim Christ
Knowing that the kingdom of God is already present 
in every country
in every culture
in all the peoples.
The reign of god:
A kingdom of justice and peace;
Fraternity and freedom;
Human dignity for all;
Good news, above all, to the poor.
How, if not through missions
Could we reach the poorest of the poor?
The factory workers?
The Indians fighting for their survival and tribal identity?
The farmer struggling to own a piece of land?
The multitude of youth scattered,
The children in the streets, victims of war and unjust structures?

Wake up, Latin America, wake up
You have a missionary vocation.
We have so many challenges before us to confront:
How can we open Latin America to the rest of the world?
How can we evangelize fully our continent?
How can we share poverty with other continents?
How can we form our local churches according to the demands of time?
And how can we celebrate life with our incarnate liturgy?

We are missionaries ad gentes
Called to share our experience of faith,
Open always to leave and to go difficult places and transform our communities to become more human and Christian.
Conscious to respond to their realities,
And also continuous of our commitment to our prophetic mission to announce and denounce.

We are missionaries ad gentes
Help us Lord.

By Bro. Paul Bongcaras SVD

Bro. Paul Bongcaras is finishing many happy years in Papua New Guinea. With deep respect for the local culture, with drama and music he introduced the people into the mystery of Christ.

Not only that, but with a special eye for those most in need, he made the blind his special care as we see on the opposite page.

Now as he prepares to leave for his next mission he says: “I love this young country and its people of many cultures. I’ll miss my students, fellow teachers, our musical Drama Theater group and my fellow missionaries. I know I will shed a tear when I leave PNG”