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

PROPHETS LIKE JEREMIAH

Letter No. 48. September 1996

Dear Friends,

                Reading and teaching Liberation Theology I discovered that the Gospel is better understood when you read it with the poor.

                Yesterday, Saturday evening, I celebrated my Sunday Mass with the Catholic community of Everard Nagar, middle class people, where is located the office of Lik Seva Sangam. The Gospel of the Mass was one of the usual Sunday Gospels: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him renounce himself, take up his cross and follow me.” I did my sermon: nothing special, nothing inspiring.

                But this morning when I celebrated the same Mass with my community of leprosy patients, I was compelled to say: “Your cross is your disease, the cross is your mission”. I understood that there are crosses that come and that go, as any Christian, any man can get; but for some people the cross become a mission for all their life. Like this was for Jesus. Like this was for Jeremiah, the prophet that we read today in the first reading of the Mass. (Jer. 20:7-9)

                You have seduced me, Yahweh, and I have let myself be seduced;

                You have overpowered me: you were the stronger.

                I am a daily laughing-stock,

                Everybody’s butt.

                Each time I speak the word, I have to howl

                And proclaim: “Violence and ruin!”

                The word of Yahweh has meant for me

                Insult, derision, all day long.

                Jeremiah had been living at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of the people into exile. He had foreseen these calamities and he had to announce them to the people. Ungrateful mission for Jeremiah! His mission was his cross.

                Many times speaking about leprosy patients in my lectures I said that they are like the prophets of old because they are the image of death and they remind us about our end. But I never had the chance or the courage to tell them. Today I got both: the occasion and the inspiration. “You too are like Jeremiah, I told them, Your cross is your mission, your disease and deformities make you prophets.

Why have you been compelled to come to Swarga Dwar? You too had become ‘everybody’s butt’. If you accept your cross you will become God’s prophets. If you accept your mission to be image of death with a smile and serenity, you could help men to understand that death is the gate of heaven, Swarga Dwar.

                I could se them listening with attention, particularly Iqbal, with his eyes widely open and the mouth ready. To prepare my sermon in Hindi I have to make use of the dictionary to look up the meaning of atmatiag (give up yourself). Literally the meaning is: give up the soul. So I started a dialogue with my listeners to find out what did they understand. After the Mass Iqbal came to me and said: “You did atmatiag when you left your country and your family to come here with us in this place”.

“Yes, I answered him, but your cross is bigger than mine, so you can become a follower of Jesus more than me”.

“Now I understand, he said, that also without fingers and without feet I can be useful to God and to men.”