Aid to the Church in Need: India: Where members of different world faiths pray together

India: Where members of different world faiths pray together

Posted by ACN News on 5/8/2009, 11:34 am
Message modified by board administrator 5/8/2009, 4:59 pm

ACN News: Wednesday, 4th August 2009 – India

Where members of different world faiths pray together

• Catholic charity visits the tiny Catholic minority in northern India

By Eva-Maria Kolmann

Atish is happy. Yesterday this young man became a father for the first time. After Holy Mass in Jammu, the second largest town in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, close to the Pakistani frontier, he asks Father Kuriakose to drive with him to the hospital and bless his wife and new baby. Two representatives of the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), who happen to be visiting the tiny Catholic community in northern India, are invited to accompany the two men.

Inside the hospital, relatives crowd around the young mother's bed. Everyone is delighted that the priest is coming. As Father Kuriakose blesses the newborn boy, they join in prayer reverently, along with the visitors. Véronique Vogel recalls, "It was very moving for me. Asha, the young mother, sat there with her baby in her arms, bowed very low. One sensed that these people have a deep sense of spirituality". The surprising and unusual feature of this story however lies in the fact that Atish, his wife Asha and all their family are in fact Hindus. But Asha did attend a Catholic school, and so she was able to tell her husband about Jesus Christ. Now Atish regularly comes to Holy Mass and wears a rosary round his neck. And he is by no means an exception, since many other Hindus in Jammu are very open to the Catholic faith. The Church is cautious, however, when people express a desire to convert to the Catholic faith, since she could be accused of trying to actively proselytise among those of other religions. But this is not her intention. "People should come to us of their own accord and only seek baptism when they themselves are truly ready to do so", explains Marie-Ange Siebrecht, who for several years now has been in charge of ACN's projects in India.

Bishop blessing a new born child at the house of a catholic family on
our way to Ramkot. (India, Diocese of Jammu Srinagar July 2009)

In Jammu and its surrounding area almost everyone is Hindu. But Véronique, tells us that the Hindus and the Muslims, who also live in this area, are delighted at the presence of the Catholic schools and at the wonderful work the religious sisters are doing. "In Batote, one of the mission outposts that we visited in the mountains, even the Muslim men came and thanked the sisters for the fact that their wives and children would now have a better life and better prospects for the future as a result of their work", she reports.
The young parish priest in Batote is also there to help the people with advice and practical assistance, regardless of their religious affiliation. ACN has helped him build his church, and very soon a parish centre will also be built where the faithful can attend retreats and various other events. Veronique and Marie-Ange have been deeply impressed by the living faith of the handful of Catholics here. The people pray together in the family and their homes are usually adorned with many pictures of the saints. They have a particularly deep devotion and love for Our Lady and for the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There is also a school next to every church, they add.

The two ACN representatives continued their journey further by plane into the Ladakh region in the Himalayas. This is an overwhelmingly Tibetan and Buddhist area and is frequently called "Little Tibet". Numerous Buddhist temples and monasteries are dotted across this picturesque landscape and prayer flags flutter in the wind. Less well known is the fact that there are also nomadic peoples living here, who pasture their yaks on the mountain slopes. Véronique explains that these people live in round tents known as Yurts. "As we were travelling along one road up in the mountains – almost at the end of the world, so to speak, we suddenly found one of these round tents in front of us with the inscription "Hotel" on the front of it", she relates. This is one of the few concessions to modernity among them, for these nomadic tribesmen still keep many of their ancient traditions and live much as their forefathers have done since the earliest times.

What is still less well-known is that there are also Christians here. For although Christianity has never become a majority religion here, it has long been established in the Himalayas. The first missionaries arrived in Ladakh as early as the ninth century in fact, travelling with the traders from Samarkand, along the old Silk Road. Crosses carved in the rocks would seem to bear testimony to this early Christian presence.

To this day a tiny Christian minority has survived here in Ladakh; it consists both of Catholics and also of Protestant Moravian Brethren, who arrived here even before the Catholics, as it happens. So it is that one finds Christians today living in the town of Leh, at an altitude of almost 12,000 feet (3,500 m) – one of the highest inhabited cities in the world today and internationally known, since it is from here that many mountain climbers set out on their trekking tours. But the two visitors from ACN have a different goal. They have come to visit the school run by Catholic nuns here. Outside in the playground, the children stand, arranged in their various classes, before school begins. After the obligatory morning exercises, they all pray the Our Father together. It is a moving moment for Véronique. "Not all the pupils here are Catholics, but everyone understands that the Lords Prayer is the prayer for every one!"

Burn Hall School assembly where the children all pray the "Our Father" and sing "King of King" although more than 90% of the students are Muslims (India, Diocese of Jammu Srinagar July 2009)

It is an excellent school, and the pupils in their immaculate uniforms are highly motivated. The difficulties tend rather to be external ones, from the harsh winds that leave the people virtually cut off from the outside world at temperatures of -40° Celsius, to the sheer altitude, which causes not only the children but also the sisters themselves to experience memory problems. The climate is the greatest challenge here in fact.

A totally different situation faces the two ACN representatives when they travel further west, as far as Srinagar. Although this 2000-year old city has important Hindu and Buddhist sacred buildings, including a Hindu Temple from the fourth century AD, the population today is almost entirely Muslim. The Catholic Church is still comparatively young in the Kashmir region, the earliest missionaries having arrived here as late as 1894. Here again Catholics make up only a tiny minority to this day, but despite this the Catholic Church still maintains schools in Srinagar and does precious social work. Sisters from Mother Teresa's congregation the Missionaries of Charity teach children in the slums who would otherwise have no future at all, while sisters from other congregations work among women and girls, teaching knitting and sewing, or caring for the sick. The Church is tolerated on account of this social work, but her life is certainly not always made easy, as Véronique Vand Marie-Ange were able to see for themselves on the spot. Fanaticism is not uncommon here, and the Catholic schools sometimes find themselves facing explosive situations. But for all that, it is precisely the Catholic schools that often contribute most towards a more peaceful coexistence among the people.
During their visit to Srinagar the two ACN representatives were able to share in a beautiful encounter involving both Christians and Muslims, when the young girls and women who had been learning needlework from the sisters performed a dance for their overseas guests. There was an atmosphere of great joy and, although women normally only perform their traditional dances in front of other women, on this occasion, as they received their examination certificates, there was a wider audience. The sheer joy of the occasion was able to transcend all barriers.

During their two-week journey, Véronique and Marie-Ange were able to visit Catholics living in vastly different circumstances in three quite distinct regions of northern India – indeed where people speak quite different languages. In the entire diocese of Jammu Srinagar there are no more than about 17,000 Catholics altogether. And yet these few Catholics contribute a great deal to the societies in which they live. But although their faith is strong and they are willing to set to work with great love and devotion wherever their contribution is required, they could achieve little without help from abroad. ACN continues to provide support so that all their hard work will not be wasted for lack of financial resources. The charity helps with the building of churches and parish houses, supports the ministry of the priests through Mass offeringss, funds vehicles for priests and religious who have to cover great distances in their pastoral work among the faithful and has even translated its Child's Bible God speaks to His Children into Hindi. All this aid likewise represents an important contribution to peace and tolerance among the members of the major world religions, who do not always live peacefully side by side in India. In Ladakh, Jammu and Srinagar the Catholic Church is at least attempting to help them do so.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 46.5 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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