Mother and Her Absence

One of the things that I noticed in my own life quite recently is that how the passing away of your dear one affects your life without its many expressions.  When my mom left this world on the 7th of February 2019, I was with her holding her.  Even though, her passing was so quiet, peaceful and graceful, she had come to that stage with a lot of pain and suffering, leaving her with many questions which she did not hesitate to share.  One of such questions was, “why God is not taking me from here?”  

The serenity with which my mom breathed her last left in me, too, a grace, a sense of thankfulness and peace.  I said to myself, mom has done everything she had to do in this world as God’s beautiful creation, moreover, she has taught me what I am.  Through her suffering I too learnt what that suffering is.  Offering oneself to God was the only way out in all the suffering.  Nothing else.

(With mom on my Ordination day 28 Dec 2008) 

I experienced the great pain of my mom’s passing after 30 hours; the day of her funeral.  I could not control myself the grief and inner sorrow.  The very thing that came to my mind again and again was, now on I will not see mom and will not hear her voice again.  I will not have her phone calls which I did every alternate day.  I will not have her presence henceforth to make me comfortable at home whenever I reach my native place. 

At a fairly young age, I left my country because of the kind of life I chose, that is to be a Jesuit and to be "sent".  On my rare home visits from abroad to my family home were full of joy.  Mom prepared the dishes that I would not get elsewhere.  She made a special point to ask. She prepared pickle for me so that I could carry to Russia and have sometimes at my meals; this was also appreciated by my fellow Jesuits in Moscow.  Probably, in the life of a priest and the kind of life he lives as a consecrated person and single either his mother or sister become very dear and near to him.  Certainly, I am not immune to that mystery of life.  Perhaps the attachment that I have towards my mom will be part of my life let I take any vow of renunciation.  Nevertheless, I should turn to a Church Father to whom his mother meant a lot in his life, not only bringing him forth into this life temporal but also praying for him so that he too becomes part of her faith and life of salvation.

Very interestingly St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, talked to her son at her deathbed on the island of Ostia regarding her funeral: “Lay this body anywhere, let not the care for it trouble you at all. This only I ask, that you will remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you be.” (Confessions IX, 11).

This is what St. Augustine writes about his mother after many years of her death in his book “Confessions”:  “And when we were at the Tiberine Ostia my mother died.  Much I omit, having much to hasten.  Receive my confessions and thanksgivings, O my God, for innumerable things concerning which I am silent.  But I will not omit anything that my soul has brought forth as to that Your handmaid who brought me forth—in her flesh, that I might be born to this temporal light, and in her heart, that I might be born to life eternal.  I will speak not of her gifts, but Yours in her; for she neither made herself nor educated herself.  You created her, nor did her father nor her mother know what a being was to proceed from them.” (Confessions IX, 8)

Furthermore, the good son, Augustine enumerates the virtues of his holy mother: “She had been the wife of one man, had requited her parents, had guided her house piously, was well-reported of for good works, had brought up children, as often travailing in birth of them (cf. Galatians 4:19) as she saw them swerving from You.  Lastly, to all of us, O Lord (since of Your favour Thou sufferest Your servants to speak), who, before her sleeping in You, (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:14) lived associated together, having received the grace of Your baptism, did she devote, care such as she might if she had been mother of us all; served us as if she had been child of all.” (Confessions IX, 9).

There is nothing more to add. St. Augustine speaks for us all.

- Olvin Veigas

25th March 2019

The Feast of Annunciation

Empowerment of Women and Their Protection - Speech in Kannada

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My untiring, ever smiling mom- Lethisia Veigas

Mom on her golden marriage day

My mom Lethisia (Rodrigues) Veigas (1944-2019), aged 75, passed away in our family home in Kalyaradda of Badyar Parish after having lived 56 years of married life with my dad Athus Veigas on 07 February 2019.  She leaves behind her husband Athus Veigas and half a dozen children, Raphael, Marcel, Philip, Fr Jerome SJ, Sr Irene BS and Fr Olvin SJ. 

My mom was a person of simplicity and amicability.  With a broad smile she won the hearts of all our Hindu neighbors, Muslim customers in our shops, Christian faithful in our parish and a large band of relatives.  Mom was very active in the parish life of Badyar Church.  Bring a member of the “Sodality of Our Lady of Sorrows” and the “Third Order of Franciscans”, she was actively involved in its activities either in the parish level or deanery level along with her husband, Athus.  She was so much attached to the Church and its community life. When she had to forgo going to Mass on Sundays to a parish because she had to be with me in an apartment in Ernaculam/Kochi taking care of her sick priest son, she felt something missing, even though her son did private Masses for her.  For her relationship meant a lot.  It had to be lived actively in a practical way.  Sunday’s was the day she looked forward as she could meet her contemporaries and others.  She would often express her dissatisfaction of being unable to be with her parishioners especially when her health deteriorated in the last few months.

Mom’s end came in a very powerful way symbolising how her deep faith in Christ and devotion to Rosary could bring such a happy death.  I had reached home around 6.30 in the evening of 07th February 2019 from Bangalore.  After spending an hour and half with mom, we decided to say the family Rosary. Just as mom was so well disposed to evening prayer in everyday of her life, on this day  she ended her earthly life during the evening prayer at 8.30 PM. 

Mom was a woman of great faith and prayer.  She was the one who taught us all the first Christian prayers and prepared for first communion.  She had a beautiful voice.  Her voice could be heard so well in every prayer meetings and other liturgies of the Church.  I have recorded some of the old Christian hymns and other folkloric songs while planting the paddy and could be found on YouTube.

Mom loved to have friendship with all.  She made no difference whether a person is rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim. She kept up the friendship by meeting them or inquiring about them often.  The number of our neighbors or acquaintances of our family came to visit her in the last two months while she is bedridden is simply amazing.  Practically everyday we had visitors to her in spite of our house being far away from the town. 

Mom was a learner, in fact an active learner.  In 1979, we got our first 5 HP Cooper diesel motor pump to irrigate our land and with that dad established a small rice mill.  She learnt the skill of turning on the wheels of this heavy machine in starting it and then working on the “Huller” (rice mill).  In one hour, the Huller would prepare 120 kilos of rice. The speed at which the things had to be worked out during that process is simply treacherous and would put the person’s stamina, energy and patience into check.  Mom would do this work singlehandedly as all of us her six children were in the school and our senior grand parents at home.  Mom had the amazing capacity and curiosity to learn.  Even though, she had finished only the 5th grade schooling in her village school in 1956, she  learnt quickly to manage the digital mobile system which is purely in English. 

Mom & dad on their golden marriage day in 2013

Mom was a generous person. Just like the saying in the Bible that it is in giving that one finds more joy and not in receiving, so too, Mom, experienced true joy in giving.  Dad being a bit disciplinarian, for anything and everything all of us went to mom for permissions or things that we wanted from dad.  Whoever came to our home seeking some material assistance or saw someone needed her help, she was always ready to listen and help.

I always learnt something new from my mom as well as my other four brothers and one sister.  We felt always happy to say something about her.  We enjoyed her good company as she got older and sicknesses made their home in her.  Whenever, we three religious, (Fr Jerome, Sr Irene and I) came home on home visit we had our dinners together in our ancestral home, then we would sit in our front portico of our home and enjoy the fun.  Henceforth, we will be missing this very greatly. 

Mom was a charming lady.  When I got terribly sick and had to receive treatment in almost solitary confinement so that I don’t get infection, mom stayed with me for 7 months.  These were the months I came to know really who the mom was, what a mother can do to a half alive son to rejuvenate.  Even though, mom knew nothing of Malayalam she would converse in Kannada with the neighbors of our apartment where we were staying. They understood her Kannada and my mom neighbour’s Malayalam.  Many said to me that even though they were staying there for quite many years, they did not know each other but mom within a short span of time had won their hearts with her enthusiasm and simplicity.  Within no time they had become her friends.  This is what baffled me so much. 

One of the most enticing thing that I saw in mom and admired for, is her ability and patience to suffer.  She suffered greatly as her health deteriorated over the years and the symptoms kept on increasing and multiplying. She bore everything in patience and forbearance.  She offered everything to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Surely, mother was a humble, distinct and unique person and now I’ll have to relive those wonderful moments that I spent with her. 

Dear  mai, goodbye for the moment,  but you will be always my mai and forever! (Mai=Mother in Konkani)

- Fr Olvin Veigas, SJ

08 February 2019

Feast of Saint Josephine Bakhita 

Education During the Middle Ages and iGen of Today

What we are today is because of yesterday. Even though it is a bold statement, yet, the fact is that the very way of acting, behaving and thinking is based on a system of pedagogy - paideia, (παιδεία) education, which is nurtured firstly, by the Greeks and secondly, by the Latins.  Experiments on education continue even today.  Once again interest in classical education is beginning to generate at the wake of internet culture and the ills its brings along quite forcefully.  The classical education forms the whole person, leading students to truth thus building them in faith, character and intellect.

Unlike standard academic programs of today, a “classical” school focuses on memorization, close study of primary-source “great books” and the liberal arts, rather than using conventional text books. The aim is that of Biblical narrative: The truth will set you free. The teacher’s goal is to prepare its pupils to receive that truth faithfully.

Psychologist Jean Twenge has coined the today’s generation of students as “iGen”, which is overpowered or engulfed with a ubiquitous access to smartphones with internet access causing harm to their emotional health and well-being of teens.

“The members of the iGen, born between 1995 and 2012, are far less religious, more morally neutral, more likely to question marriage, and less likely to get married than previous generations, according to Twenge’s data.  They are also likely to remain at home, living with their parents, longer than previous generations.”

This iGen needs an education with the coherence and logic offered by the classical curriculum.  Moreover, the iGen “needs a new set of stories” to help form them as adults capable of engaging in “functional and fruitful relationships.”

Fascinatingly, reading a book on St Peter Faber (1506-1546), a Savoyan Jesuit, I came across how the classical education was imparted in the Middle and later Middle Ages.  A short abstract is here and we can imagine the great catholic theologians, philosophers and saints were nurtured in such an environment! 

Here it goes the description:

"Daily life in all the colleges followed this pattern. Roused at 4 AM the students, carrying ink pots, candles, and notebooks, stumbled bleary-eyed to the first class at 5 AM, followed by Mass at 6 AM, after which the shivering youths broke their fast with a pieces of dry bread and some water.  The second class lasted from 8 AM until 10 AM followed by dialectical exercise for an hour.  Next there was a frugal dinner with a Latin text being read in the background, after which students were questioned about the matter dealt with in the morning.  Then, by way of relaxation, came the reading of Latin authors until the third class, which lasted from 3 PM until 5 PM; next came another disputation, followed by a wretched supper at 6 PM;  at 7 PM the students were again questioned, this time on the day’s studies, and at 8 PM in winter and 9 PM in summer, after a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, they were sent hungry to bed.

There were some compensations for the rigours of life and the unremitting study: pageants, masquerades, fairs, dances at the crossroads, sports on the Ile aux Vaches, and numerous fights in which students vented their pent-up frustrations and resentments." 

One of the famous colleges of the University of Sorbonne (Paris) is College de Montaigne founded in 1314, where the well known humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (1466-1536) studied.  "He suffered so much there that by way of revenge he gave details of the trials he and others had to endure within its walls: scurvy, fleas, hard beds, and harder blows (all the masters carried canes and used them frequently and mercilessly), putrid herrings, rotten eggs and wine so sour that it tasted like vinegar.  There was still worse: some first-year students died of hardship and hunger, went blind or mad, or became infected with leprosy. Erasmus may well have exaggerated; but the evidence indicates that the students, many of them mere children, were underfed, overworked, and mercilessly bullied." (From the book, The Spiritual Writings of Pierre Favre, Pages 12-13)

Fascinatingly, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Peter Favre and St Francis Xavier and other first Jesuits studied in Sainte-Barbe college founded in 1450. The saints were students from 1525-1536 in Sorbonne University, Paris, France, the second university founded after the university of Padua, Italy.

Olvin Veigas
03 Oct 2018

Openness to See the Goodness in Others: My Saintly Aunt Karmin

Often relatives do make a great impact on our lives. When our close relatives who have made a difference in our lives, leave this world we notice the difference. Karmin - Konkani version of Carmel - (Veigas) Mascarenhas (1927-2018) is one of them. She lived her life to the full. She lived good 91 years; a year more than her dad Kaitan Veigas. In Konkani dad’s/father’s sisters are called “Akai”. As a thumb rule in our Konkani culture we never address our elders or seniors with their names, so Karmin Akai was always called or referred Odli Akai or permudachi Akai!

Among all of my relatives I found in Karmin Akai something different and unique. She was a woman of great faith and patience, a lady with kind words, affectionate and impeccable in diligence, in other words, a lady with a good nurtured holy soul. A woman who loved her relatives, neighbours and strangers alike. She bore 10 children and of whom three consecrated themselves to the religious life - two Nuns and a Carmelite priest. 

As growing up in our home in Kallyaradda in Badyar, I would see Karmin Akai at least once a month who would come down to meet her ageing parents - my grand parents - who also were blessed with a long and healthy life.  (Being our home an ancestral house, grand parents lived in the same house.) She also brought along with her Estel Akai, her younger sister who lived in close proximity to her home in Permuda, under the Venur Catholic parish with her husband and children. Karmin Akai‘s arrival brought to us a lot of joy, not only her graciousness which filled our home and surrounding, but also made our teeth happy with cookies and sweets she carried along for us. My grand parents too would be extremely happy, as their eldest daughter whom they loved so much would bring them also two bottles of distilled water, while my dad now and then would bring prohibition or he himself would make a vow to stop his childhood hobby but allowed the generousity of his eldest sister without any restrictions as he too respected and loved his Odle Bai. 

Karmin Akai, also, was very dear to us because she was a matchmaker of my parents. Thus, she introduced my mom to my dad, which she often would tell us proudly. In fact, my mom came from her place, two kilometers from her residence . In fact, Karmin Akai liked the perfectionism and hard working nature of my mom and Akai  noticed this when my mom worked in her rice field . In other words, Akai felt an extra responsibility towards my parents in encouraging them in their life together as couples. 

Karmin Akai was also a woman of great faith. She had an immense fervour for spiritual things and would recite prayers with great diligence and rhythm. A few years ago, I did a recording of her description about our ancestral history and how she along with her siblings migrated to our present location Kallyar in Badyar from Madanthyar in 1950. She was 23 years old then. 

Whenever Karmin Akai came down to see her parents she also made a point to visit her 7 brothers with a brisk visit. She would encourage many of them to stop getting into alcoholism because of their over enthusiasm in brass band which her brothers owned and made them popular from Bantwal to Chickmagalur and nevertheless, brought in a lot financial credit.

I wish and pray that this saintly lady who touched me in so many ways by her gentle and affectionate nature may enjoy the heavenly bliss with that compassionate Lord and Master of us all.

Mortality is ever present before us

Existential questions leave us perplexed. Human mortality is one of them. Anxiety is part and condition of our existence. The question of mortality makes aware that we are just visitors or pilgrims in this world. Our life is short and uncertain. The time that we have passed is perhaps longer than what we have for the future. Strangely we do not know what comes next and when would be our last moment, last word, last meal or last conversation with our beloved. But one thing is certain that end comes and unfortunately none of us may delay or prevent it. When a person suffers for a long time with a disease which is chronic, and curable medicine is still far from being invented the thought of mortality becomes ever more active and forefront in front of the suffering. In such desperate situations one has to learn to live ones life to the fullest. If there is moment to laugh one has to laugh, if there is moment to weep at the pain or suffer you someone, one has to be ready to shed ones tears of comfort and suffocate. Nothing that should allow us to lose the moment of our life. Every moment becomes precious in such situations of our volatile life.

In pursuit of happiness

The question of what is the pursuit of happiness is an old age question.  Happiness is what every human being craves for.  Happiness is what is here and what is not here, it is already and not yet, a kind of eschatological question.  We might think that our happiness lies here and now.  But actually we might not have been in that situation at that time at all.  Therefore the pursuit of happiness comes to torment us.  The pursuit of happiness perhaps may be our craving, our interest, our goal of life. This does not take place until and unless we are in it.  Immersing oneself info the pursuit of happiness is an herculean task.  A person's happiness cannot be borrowed or bought from someone else. Happiness is felt within the heart and soul of the person.  Others might be of some help in the pursuit of happiness.  Ultimately the person him/herself has to seek it, try to get it.  Because each moment or day is free to determine his or her freedom in pursuit of happiness.  There are no boundaries or parameters in the pursuit of happiness.  A person with chronic IBD will have to pursue his or her happiness within one’s stark reality of pain, distress and depression.  But there are all the possibilities of realising one's dream of being happy.  In pursuing one's desire to happiness within those life conditions will lead to happiness in some sense or the other.  No one can deny or measure one's happiness.  Ultimately there is a beginning for every effort.  The first step begins with one's readiness to embark on a long and challenging journey.