I discovered that a fresh start is a process. A fresh start is a journey, a journey that requires a plan. And it’s this discernment of our congregation had extended its missionary presence to incredible India. India is a land of Lords and a nursery of temples and mosques; where in religious diversity has been a defining characteristic of India’s population for centuries. It’s a country where the people are of different castes, creed, religion and culture live together and speak different languages. That’s why India is said to be a country of “Unity in Diversity”.
Passion is what consumes your heart and your mind. Purpose is how you use that passion in a concrete way. With sparkles of passion in their hearts our sisters landed in India with an authentic missionary spirit of making our presence and our charisma in this land on 2008. No constructed rooms, no furniture, no compound walls, no comforts, no atmosphere of a convent but all that was there was an unconditional trust in the Divine Providence and a warm welcome with a brotherly hospitality of our Capuchin Fathers. As it’s said “venture outside your comfort zones, the rewards are worth it. Yes, with few months of our stay in the Friary, we slowly put up our own building and from there we had been collaborating with the Capuchin Fathers.
Great things never come from comfort zones. Indeed my experience as first TC, challenged me a lot not just to adopt to the culture of the congregation but to adopt myself to the culture of my own people and to twin them with the gospel culture. To break my own cultural traits, caste boundaries, attachments to regionalism costs me a lot. I said “Princy, be open, let God do the rest in you. It was a long process for me to sculpt myself in the hands of many sculptors through formation or various experiences that molded me to have a conviction that I am called to be an authentic TC, to embrace reciprocity, to bloom into relationships of circularity.
In the beginnings the community existed with the three sisters who come and go out due visa issues. There was always a problem of consistency of the sisters which also demanded a lot of adjustments to climate, food, culture and language. We begin to work in the college of the capuchin Fathers which helped us economically. Our presence in Rameshwaram has become more vivid in the due time as we venture to collaborate with the parish activities like taking care of the substation, visiting the families, giving catechesis, preparing for first Holy Communion and distributing communion to the sick brought us more closely to the people. People, priests and other religious in the island began to appreciate our presence as it challenged them to live a simple life, to make oneself approachable, to roam around the streets with smile and to talk to the people whom we encounter on our way as it broke their the image of priests and religious are people who live in pedestal. This community also functioned as a formation house for the aspirants.
When years rolled by we were also offered to take care of the children’s home which is under the administration of the Capuchins. So now we had two communities with three sisters in each working as missionaries. Due to the government policies the avail of visa became harder and continuous discernment brought to a newer presence in a different community by closing down these two communities that already existed.
And now we stay in Anugraha Institute of counseling and psychotherapy administered by the capuchins as they offer easy student visa to the foreign sisters. Our community Montiel Illam- Anugraha (means house of Mercy) consists of three of us where in we study as well as we work here. We realized that as we lose ourselves in the services of others we discover our own lives and our own happiness.
God’s work done in God’s ways will never lack God’s supplies. This had been my enormous experience during these years of our presence here. Many are the blessings that I encountered through various persons, have met many crossroads; have to unlearn many things to learn anew. The gift of this life has not simply been the myriad of opportunities offered to me as a sister, but also the relationships that I have developed in and out of the community and the aspects of myself that have emerged as a result of these experiences has broadened my perspective rather than narrowing it. In all this I could always say my sisters had been there beside me and I am proud to be a TC in out our charismatic Identity here in this land of mine. I would say that there is no true gospel-centeredness that does not lead to mission, because the gospel is the story of a God with a missionary heart. And I am as His follower called to live so of living out this God with a missionary heart in daily living. Let each of us Stop, look around and ask ourselves “WHO NEEDS ME TODAY”?
SR. PRINCY JOSEPH, TC