Carlo Torriani

SWARGA DWAR

The conversion of a catholic missionary

presented by

Card. Simon Pimenta

PIME Publications, PIME Regional House, Eluru - 534 0-07, A.P., India

DHARMA

Letter No. 44, February 1994

Dear Friends,

    Yesterday the gate of heaven was opened for Dharma, the old man over eighties always with the broom in his hand. He had been one of the firsts to find shelter in Swarga Dwar when we opened it ten years ago. He was brought here by the St. Vincent de Paul society of our parish in Irla. He had suffered from leprosy but the diseased left very few scars on his limbs. He could use very well his hands and feet. In fact, every morning he was out before the sun sweeping the place around the hospice with brooms that himself was putting together using lease of coconut. At meals he was helping Manikyam who was blind and without fingers. He was spoon-feeding him and helping taking bath. Since he came to Swraga Dwar we did not need to buy brooms.

    Three months ago he fell in the bathroom and broke his femur. At the hospital they operated him and put plaster but he could never walk again. He passed away in the night, after a long agony.

    Swraga Dwar means gate of heaven. For us death is the gate of heaven and the funeral is a celebration of the end of suffering of the final total freedom. That is why we sing the psalm 118.

    Let us give thanks to the Lord because he is good.

    No, I shall not die, I shall live

    To recite the deeds of the Lord.

An always in the same psalm we find for the first time in the Bible that sentence so basic in the economy of salvation:

    It was the stone rejected by the builders

    That prove to be the key stone; 

Our inmates can read this sentence every day because it is written on the wall of our dining hall.

This is the base of their hope, the hope of every man. We sing this sentence every time we celebrate Mass and particularly when we celebrate death.  Because it is in the death and resurrection of Jesus that this has become true. Because we understood that by the death of Jesus: Death has become the universal sacrament of salvation.

    This is the work of the Lord  

    And it is wonderful to see.

    This is the day that the Lord has made,

    Let us be glad and rejoice.

When we accompany out the dead body we sing in Hindi  

 Walking from far away I came to your door              

  Who hear my voice let him open the door

  I will make him sit near me, out of love

     Today you and I will become one thing

 We will eat together, only out of love

We often sing this bhajan during the evening prayer, but at the moment of death it gets its full meaning.

We were just moving out of the hospice when the son of Dharma appeared.

Dharma, as every good Hindu, desired so much to have his son for the last rites.