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

PART TWO

     W E L C O M E     T O    S W A R G A   D W A R

Living as Christian and as Missionary, for so many years, in a community of leprosy patients made me thinking and reflecting. Reading the Bible together with them made me discovering new meaning and perspective.

I wrote on the walls the quotations of the Bible more meaningful for me and for them

I said to myself: If I cannot preach let the walls preach.

To the friends who come to visit or to stay in the ashram I present to them a small print-out in which I take up and develop the sentences painted on the walls.

Here below is the full text.

Many ideas had already appeared in the letters. Here they are developed more systematically.

 Congratulations to you for the courage you have shown in coming to Swarga Dwar.

We want to express to you our joy that you are here with us.

 Swarga Dwar (SD) is an ashram, but it is somehow an unusual ashram.  Ashrams are places of prayer and reflection.

 In the ashram, there is always a Guru.  In SD the guru is REALITY, that means, whatever you see around you.

 You see leprosy patients who live a serene life, not begging but working to produce their food.  They are here because they have been rejected by society.  So, what kind of society is out their where we come from?  Jesus too had been rejected by society.  A society that rejects is not surely the Kingdom of God.

 We pray every day: "May your kingdom come on earth ". But we still keep rejecting people created by God. 

 THIS IS THE MESSAGE AND CHALLENGE OF THIS ASHRAM.

 Did we never ask ourselves why people reject leprosy patients?

 I think that is because they are the image of death. More than any other disease, leprosy that disfigures the body, recalls to us death.  And we are all afraid of death.  That is the reason why we do not want to see the image of death: THE LEPROSY PATIENT.

 But look at the people around here, look at their faces: they are serene, they live in peace....  They tell us that death is simply Swarga Dwar, the gate of heaven, the beginning of happiness, and the complete liberation.

 Once again, congratulations to you for the courage you have shown in coming to this place.

If we get accustomed to look every day in the face of death, to look at leprosy patients, we will no more fear it.

 In whichever way we define or describe "heaven", it is our future.

Death is the door to our future.  Death is the most sure and real thing of our life on earth. 

It is for all, not even Jesus escaped from it. But with his death and resurrection he transformed death in Universal Sacrament of Salvation.

If we live in this consciousness, we live in Reality. 

 Only by building up on reality, we do build for the future.

 In this way, we come to know that leprosy patients are like prophets, because they speak to us about Reality, about our future, that is about the plan of God.

 Prophets are not only those who speak by words but also by their deeds.

 So it was with the prophets of the Old Testament. 

 Isaiah (20,2) was asked to go naked.

 "Three years earlier the Lord had told Isaiah, son of Amos to take off his sandals and the sackcloth he was wearing.  He obeyed and went about naked and barefoot.  When Ashdod was captured, the Lord said, " My servant Isaiah has been going about naked and barefoot for three years.  This is a sign of what will happen to Egypt and Sudan.  The emperor of Assyria will lead away naked the prisoners he captures from those two countries."

 Jeremiah (27), had to carry a yoke and Hosea (1:2) had to marry a prostitute in order to give a message in the name of God.

 Leprosy patients with their deformities and with their serene acceptance, tell us that death is the Gate of Heaven.

This is the main message of this ashram.

But there are other messages; some of them had been written on the walls.

 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS FOUNDED ON A STONE REJECTED BY THE BUILDERS

 Let us look at the Reality around us.

The discarded ones (the leprosy patients) remind us of The Discarded One:

JESUS CHRIST

The Gospel tells of Him: "The stone, which the builders rejected as worthless, turned out to be the most important of all.  The Lord did this: What a wonderful sight it is! " (Mark 12:11)

This sentence is a great consolation for leprosy patients. If the Kingdom of God is founded stone, there is hope also for us always discarded by everyone. It can be a consolation also for us, if we feel or ever felt discarded and useless.

But it is also a warning for all, particularly for those who are in authority, to be careful never to discard anyone but to make place for all in society and in this world, “as it is in heaven”.

 Living for so many years together with leprosy patients, I rediscovered the profound meaning of this quotation and, for me, it has become the key for reading all Scripture.

 Six times it appears in the Bible.

At first we find it in Psalm 118; all the three Synoptic Gospels quote it; Peter quotes it in the Acts and in his first letter.

The theme of a "foundation stone" can be traced in the prophets of the Old Testament.

 Isaiah 28:16

“I am placing in Zion, a foundation that is firm and strong.  In it I am putting a solid cornerstone.”

Zechariah 4:7

" You will rebuild the Temple and as you put the last stone in place, the people will shout, "Beautiful, beautiful! ".

Daniel tells of "a stone which broke loose from a cliff and it struck the statue made of iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold."

Psalm 118 is a celebration of victory.

"Give thanks to the Lord, because He is good and His love is eternal."

 In verses 22 ¬ 23:

"The stone, which the builders rejected as worthless,

turned out to be the most important of all.

This was done by the Lord;

what a wonderful sight it is !

This is the day of the Lord's victory;

let us be happy, let us celebrate !"

 It is Jesus Himself who applies this sentence to Him after narrating the parable of the tenants in the vineyard who beat the messengers of the landowner and kill his son.(Mathew 21:42; Mark 12:11; Luke 20:17) He tells the chief priests and the Pharisees: "Haven't you read what the Scriptures say? 'The stone which the builders rejected.....'" 

They knew that He was talking about them, so they tried to arrest Him.

 But the most interesting quotation is from Acts 4:11.

 After Peter healed a lame man, he gives a message in the temple.  He and John are arrested.  Before the council of the leaders and elders he defends himself. He says: "Jesus Christ of Nazareth - whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, is the one of whom the scripture says: "The stone that you the builders despised, turned out to be the most important one."

From this action of God, making the last becoming the first, Peter draws a principle for the salvation of all: "For all the names in the world given to men, this is the only way by which all can be saved."

This principle is a consequence and must be interpreted in the light of the previous sentence. Usually in the past this sentence was interpreted as “Only those who believe in Jesus can be saved”. But read in the contest, it does not have an exclusive meaning but an inclusive and universal meaning. Since God starts saving from the last, everybody will be saved.

 HOW WILL ALL BE SAVED?

 Will all reach their fulfilment?

 There is no other way but the way of God, who starts from the last ones.  It is a system of universal salvaging, a rescue of all humans, all living beings, all things, starting from the discarded ones, from the last ones.

 The message is that everybody and everything will be saved and if we want to make this world the kingdom of God, we must give place to everybody.  Peter understood that this would be a scandalous message for those who believe themselves to be the chosen ones, the only ones to be saved.  In fact, in his First Letter (2:4-10) he comes back to this contrast between "chosen race" and "universal salvation" and says:  “This is the stone (the truth) that will make people stumble"

 The entire world is based on selection: the stronger, the most efficient, the cleverer succeeds. Since the beginning of the world, evolution in nature has come out of selection.  The principle of selection is: ”the stronger and the fittest survives, the weaker is eliminated.” Society also is based on selection: school, industry, economics, political history... The church also is sometimes a selective institution: seminaries, convents, canonisations, they are based on selection.

 The Kingdom of God is not based on selection but on election.

With the appearance of man on this earth, things have started changing:  the family protects the weak. 

With Jesus we have the turning-point of history: God does not select but elects, he starts from the last, the least, the lost, the discarded... "The last will be the first." (Luke 13:30)  Jesus said: “The will of him who sent me, is that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me.” (John 6:39) and we know that “all things came to be through him” (John 1:3).

In the plan of God there is place for all. We must try to build a world in which there is place for all.

 HOW CAN WE PRAY TOGETHER ?

 In our ashram there are people of different religions.

Those who come to our ashram do not come for the search of a particular spirituality but simply out of need for a place to stay and  for a piece of bread. Since they belong to different religions, it became necessary for us to find a way of praying together and a place where everyone should feel at home.

  My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people

 This sentence of Isaiah, quoted by Jesus in the gospels (Mark 11: 17; Matthew 21:13; Luke 19:46) gave us the idea for an ecumenical (universal) chapel.  The religious man must know to respect all religions.

Our intention in SD is to pray together with all the people of the world. 

When we say the Lord's Prayer, the "Our Father", we'd like to expand that "OUR to the largest possible range, to include, if possible, all humans, not only the pious and religious one, but all.

 That is why we have put the symbols of the most known religions of the world on a pillar that is at the centre of our prayer room. On the side which is facing the entrance we have put the symbols of the religions born in India, so that those who enter may feel immediately at home.

For Hinduism we chose the monogram SHRI, the Lord;

for Jainism the imprint of the FEET of the twenty four founders;

for Buddhism the WHEEL of  destiny.

 On the left side of the pillar we have put the symbols of the children of Abraham:

for  the Jews the STAR of David;

for the Christians the CROSS of Jesus;

for the Muslims the CRESCENT.

On the right side of the pillar there are the symbols

of Animism  a MASK of Africa;

of Taoism the CIRCLE with the opposite principles;

of Shintoism the TORII, the arch at the entrance of the temples.

On the back side we put the symbols of the other two Indian religions:

the KHANDA for the Sikhs;

the FIRE for the Parsis or Zoroastrians;

the twelfth symbol is not a religion but just the contrary, it is the symbol of those who deny religion:

the atheists, the humanists for them we chose SICKLE & HAMMER.

Our purpose is to pray with all men without exclusion. We know that there are religious-believers and non-religious-believers. The religious-believer base his faith on a personal Supreme Being: God. But in our time more and more people believe only in human values like honesty, integrity, truth, love, justice, solidarity…To give a symbol to these people who mainly believe in Man we chose sickle & hammer. For us it is not a symbol of a particular political system but one of human hope. We cannot deny that for more then a century it has been the symbol of hope for million of people, and so it can legitimately stay together with all the other symbols of human hope.

 In the Indian tradition there are three ways of salvation: jnana yoga (the way of knowledge), bhakti yoga (the way of devotion), karma yoga (the way of duty). We, in Swarga Dwar, follow mainly the way of duty, of the manual work, hammer and sickle are the instruments of our daily work and so of our salvation. Not, of course, without the grace of God.

 At the top of the four sides of the column there is the symbol of OM, which in India is the sign of the Absolute, to signify that the same God is above and beyond all different religions.

 Christian people may be surprised that the cross and also the Christian religion has been put in line with the other religions and not at the apex. We should note that the cross we have chosen as the symbol of Christian religion is the lobed cross (Syrian Cross) which represents a particular inculturation of Christianity.   The Christian message could inculturate in India with aspects different from those that have occurred in the West.  The central place of Christ is represented by the Greek monogram of Christ’s name, which is at the top of every column between the religions and OM as the Universal Mediator. 

It is also to be noted that at the base of the pillar there are the more ancient religions; at the top there are the most challenging ones at present.

 Everyday we pray with the believers of certain religions and we use some of their prayers, on Sunday we pray with all the Christians, celebrating the Holy Mass in the Catholic chapel

which formulas can we use?

 It seems easy and desirable to pray together, but which words, which formulas can we use?

For us Christians, to call God as Our Father, is daily and common place. Not so for the Muslims: for them it is sheer arrogance and blasphemy to associate ourselves with God who is the Complete Other.

And how to pray with the Buddhists who do not think and speak about God.

How to pray with the atheists?

The Pope, in Assisi, avoided all these difficulties, leaving free, every participant to pray in his own way in different places.

But, we cannot do like this. We live together, we do the same work, we eat the same food, we must also take the risk of compromise, in order to find a common prayer. We must pray together.

We decided to sing bhajans, the most accepted and common way of praying together in India. Bhajan is a litany song, a simple sentence repeated for half an hour in different tunes and variations.

We know that every people has given a different name to God.

In India there is a litany of the thousand names of God.

The Muslims also have put together a hundred titles of God.

We also have a bhajan, in which, we sing praise to the twelve names of God, according to the twelve religions.

 We start with the name of Jesus, the image of God, he was a Jew, so we take second the name of Yahweh. Going around our pillar, from the bottom, where there are the oldest religions, to the top, where there are the most challenging ones, at present, we sing the names of God: Aura Mazda for Parsis, Surya (the sun) for Animists, Brahma for Hinduism, Christ for Christians, Guru for the Sikhs, Tao for Taoism, Mahavir for Jainism, Allah for Islam, the name of Truth or Justice for Atheism, Amaterazu for Shintoism and Buddha for Buddhism.

We know that Buddha and Mahavir are not names of God for their followers...but that is the risk of the compromise of praying together.They are, any way, the names of the most perfect state that man can reach.

 At the bottom of the pillar, on wooden stands, we keep the Scriptures:

the Bible, the Gita, the Koran, the Dhammapada. the Granth Sahib, and every evening, we read a passage from one of them. After reading the Scriptures, we always ask ourselves: “What shall we do Lord in your memory?” All together we answer singing:” We will share our bread, our time, our life, till you come to share your glory”. We do the same in the celebration of the Mass since the consecration finishes with the word of Jesus: “Do this in memory of me”. After we read a prayer taken from the scripture together with the believers of that religion, and we finish with the triple invocation of Aum Shanti.

WHICH PRAYERS DO WE USE ?

 We report here the different prayers that we use in the different days of two weeks.

 MONDAY

LET US PRAY WITH THE HINDUS AND ANIMISTS

Arjuna  said:

  31 Reveal thyself to me!

  Who are thou in this form of terror?

  I adore thee, O God supreme: be gracious unto me.

  I yearn to know thee, who art from the beginning:

  For I understand not thy mysterious works.

44 I bow before thee, I prostrate in adoration;

and I beg thy grace, O glorious Lord !

As a father to his son, as a friend to his friend,

As a lover to his beloved, be gracious unto me, O God

                                                                        Bhagavad Gita, 11:31,44

 LET US PRAY WITH THE HINDUS AND ANIMISTS

 When  we see the Sun rising in the East

We praise God for the gift of light, of new life, of a new day,

Of youth and all beginnings.

At midday, looking at the South,

We thank God for those persons, events and things

Which worm our lives

And help us to grow and develop.

When the Sun sets in the West

We praise God for giving us rest.

In the night facing North

We ask help to face the challenges

And the difficulties in life.

 Prayer of the Ohlone (Native Americans)

Michael Galvin, The Tablet, 15 May 1999,p.688,The Living Spirit.

TUESDAY

LET US PRAY WITH THE BUDDHISTS AND THE ATHEISTS

 I offer my body that it may be destroyed

I give my flesh to those who are hungry

And my blood to those who are thirsty.

I give my skin to cover the naked

And my bones as fuel to those who shiver.

I offer my happiness for the unhappy ones

And my breath for those who are dying.

                                                      Tibetan Prayer

Giovanni Vannucci, Il Libro Della Preghiera Universale,

Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1978; pag.274.

LET US PRAY WITH THE BUDDHISTS AND ATHEISTS

 Prayer of the Humanist

 What is in heaven? Who is in heaven?

I do not know.

I believe in humankind, in the future, in a better world.

I believe in truth, in peaceful coexistence, in non-violence.

I wish understanding and trust among peoples and nations.

I dream a world without frontiers.

I wish freedom for all and everyone.

I commit myself to work for all the above ideals

And to share my values and my riches.

If god exists we will find it in human form.

WEDNESDAY

LET US PRAY WITH THE SIKHS AND JAINS

 Hear, Lord-Spouse, my supplication!

Thou art in Thy own abode;

In separation am I consumed to a heap of ashes.
None except one’s own gives love…

Helpless is my state.

I yearn to sip the amrita of Thy Name;

With Thy Word, to make my palate sweet!

Besides Thee no friend have I

Among numerous beings of the word.

Nanak, I long to return to the Abode,

With the profit of  Truth made with wisdom

Given by Thee.

                           (Raga Tukhari, Guru Nanak)

Selections from the Holy Granth,

Gurbanchan Singh Talib, Vikas Pub.House, p.174.

LET US PRAY WITH THE SIKHS AND JAINS

 I ask pardon from all living beings of this world.

All the living beings of the universe may forgive me.

All the life of this world, small and big,

Creeping, waking and flying and human beings

Are all my friends.

I have friendship with all of them;

Nobody is my enemy

I do not keep hostility with anybody.

All living beings have the right to live.

Nobody wants to die. So I will not kill anybody.

I will not make anybody suffer.

I will always practice non-violence.

I will not do violence to anybody.

I will always speak the truth. I will never tell lies.

I will not steal. I will not think evil of anybody.

I will always be satisfied.

I pray the Almighty to give me strength

To practice these five principles.                         Jain prayer

THURSDAY 

LET US PRAY WITH THE PARSIS  AND SHINTOISTS

 O Ahura Mazda, this is my request;

Answer it in truthfulness:

Who had been, at the beginning,

The first father of Justice?

Who has established the sunny days,

The shining stars in the sky and the Milky Way?

Who, except you, has invented the moon

Which appears and disappears?

These and many other things

I want to know from you, O Wisdom.

Glory to the fire of the wise Lord,

The most honourable of all creatures

Gatha

Giovanni Vannucci, Il Libro della Preghiera Universale

Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, l978, p.181.

LET US PRAY WITH  THE PARSIS AND SHINTOISTS

 O infinite Light,

Incomprehensible Light,

Pure, calm, sweet and consoling,

We desire to remain with you.

O sweet light, at last look upon us

So that we will never lose the wisdom of heart!

Let no obstacle stop the rebirth of any being near you, in peace.

We worship you with all our heart

In perfect trust.

Giovanni Vannucci, Il Libro della Preghiera Universale,

Libreria Editrice Fiorentina, 1978, p.389

FRIDAY

 LET US PRAY WITH THE MUSLIMS AND CONFUCIANISTS

 Praise be to Allah, Lord of Creation,

The Compassionate, the Merciful,

King of Judgement-day !

You alone we worship and you alone we pray for help.

Guide us to the straight path,

The path of those whom you have favoured,

Not of those who have incurred Your wrath,

Nor of those who have gone astray.

                                                     (Koran, Surah I)

LET US PRAY WITH  THE MUSLIMS AND CONFUCIANISTS

O Great Heaven,

you illumine all things below and provide life to the earth.

From the beginning to endless time,

you send the propitious wind and rain

so that all things may grow and find nourishment.

May you accept my humble prostration

and may you grant me your protection.

                              From the Rites of Ta-Tai (X-IX cent. BCE)

SATURDAY  

LET US PRAY WITH THE EBREWS AND THE TAOISTS

 Listen, Israel, Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh.

You must love Yahweh your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your strength.

Let the words I enjoin on you today stay in your heart.

You should tell them to your children

And keep on telling them when you are sitting at home,

When you are out and about,

When you are lying down and when you are standing up;

You must fasten them on your hand as a sign

And on your forehead as a headband;

You must write them on the door-posts of your house

And on your gate

                                          Deuteronomy, 6:4-9

LET US PRAY WITH THE EBREWS AND THE TAOISTS

 Essence of the Supreme One,

Spirit of the obscure mystery,

You who produce all beings and can purify all,

Leave for a moment the golden palace,

come to this dusty world,

to deliver us from danger and evils,

to protect and prolong our life.

Extend to us your power,

extinguish what is bad and impure,

bless all those who live,

give repose to the dead...

                From Taoist Rituals (VII cent. CE):

 How do we avoid the danger of syncretism?

 Syncretism is the attempt to combine together different philosophical and religious doctrines. We do not intend to combine together the good things of every religion in a new religion. We respect every religion just as it is, it is up to the followers of that religion to take out what is good and purify their own tradition.

The important thing is that each one should know to go beyond one’s own religious tradition, rituals, laws and doctrines to find that mystical experience that is equal for all and beyond all religions as it is a gift of God.

The important thing is not what we think or believe but what we do.

If a Muslim or a Hindu is ready to bend and help me to serve a leprosy patient, I am ready to walk and pray with him.

Looking at the symbol of my own religion, I feel at home, but at the same time, realising, that, it is in the middle of many other symbols, known and unknown, it is necessary to relativize all my beliefs.

We can apply to the religions, what St.Bernard was saying about the many different congregations:

 "I admire them all. I belong to one of them by observance, but to all of them by charity. We all need one another: the spiritual good that I do not own and possess, that I receive from others...  In this exile, the Church is still on pilgrimage and is, in a certain sense, plural: she is a single plurality and a plural unity."

The true religious man knows to respect all religions.

The man of faith is happy when he meets another believer.

Peace in the world depends on the peace between religions.

If we want reverence we must give reverence.

DID YOU GO TO PREACH CHRIST OR OTHER RELIGIONS ?

Many times I have been questioned whether I am a missionary or only a social worker. People doubted that I have a missionary spirit. “What kind of missionary are you since you never baptised anyone? Why are you waiting time in Mumbai?

The  Christian and missionary meaning of what we do in Lok Seva Sangam and Swarga Dwar is expressed in what Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist, when they came questioning his mission. 

"GO BACK AND TELL WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD AND SEEN..... 'LEPERS' ARE CLEANED"

Luke 7:18 23

 To understand it we need to read it in the context.

 John the Baptist hears about the miracles of Jesus and what the people say:

 "Amongst us has appeared a great prophet "

He doesn't know what to think.  He'd like that Jesus personally should confirm his mission. Being in prison, he sends two of his disciples to question Jesus.

"Are you the one who is to come or must we wait for someone else?"

Jesus gives an answer not only with words, but also with facts.

"Go back and tell what you have seen and heard: the blind can see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed.........the Good News is preached to the poor."

 These are the signs of the mission of Jesus and of the Kingdom of God.

 Our mission is not only preaching the salvation of God by words but to continue to show its signs.  At present, in India, it is not the time of explicit preaching but of a silent and operant testimony.

And no one should be scandalised by this.

Jesus Himself says: " Happy is the man who does not loose faith in me."  He knew that putting Himself on the side of the poor and discarded would cause scandal.

 This is our way of being Christians and missionaries.

 DO WE STILL NEED MISSIONARIES ?

With the certitude that God saves all people starting from the last. Knowing the Second Vatican Council has proclaimed freedom of religion, we can ask: “why should we go out as missionaries?”

It is true that for many centuries missionaries went out “to save the souls”. Following the concept of salvation as understood in their time, they were going to save “those who were in darkness and in the shadow of death”.

But Saint Peter told us clearly and we wrote it on a wall:

 THEN PETER ADDRESSED THEM: " THE TRUTH I HAVE NOW COME TO REALISE IS THAT GOD DOES NOT HAVE FAVOURITES, BUT THAT ANYBODY OF ANY NATIONALITY WHO FEARS GOD AND DOES WHAT IS RIGHT IS ACCEPTABLE TO HIM "   (ACTS 10:34)

 This certitude and this belief should be at the beginning of every missionary activity, of every missionary document..  God loves everyone and grants to everyone His salvation.

St. Peter confirm his belief: “I realised then that God was giving them the identical thing he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ; and who was I to stand in God’s way? (Acts 11:17)

 We have to be convinced of two things:

1) We do not belong to a chosen people in the sense that we have something more than others.

2) God loves the others as much as we are and they have received, or can receive as much as we have.

It is not that we have the fullness and the others only a part. All that we have, even the others have or can have, because God loves them as He loves us.  

THEN WHY DO WE HAVE TO BE MISSIONARIES?

 We go because we know we are sent.  " You will be my witnesses till the end of the earth."  The chosen people ise the people sent out.  That means Christians have to live in the service of others and have to associate themselves with Jesus in His mission.

There is no need for me to change the religion, beliefs and rites of other people. If something has to be changed in their way of life, they will be the ones to realise it.

We Christians are making now the same mistake as the Hebrews: thinking that we are a privileged people and that all the others should become like us.   But God does not give preference to anyone.

God gives salvation to all, but if He wants to use me for His work, it is my honour and joy.

St. John in fact in his first letter (I:1:4) wrote "We write this in order that our joy may be complete."

Therefore, we go in mission not because the others need us nor because they have less than us (truth, faith and salvation), but to make our joy complete.

Here is the introduction to the first letter according to St. John:

"The Word of Life has existed from the very beginning.

We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes;

yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it.

When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it

and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father

and was made known to us.

What we have seen and heard we announce to you also,

so that you will join with us in the fellowship that we have

with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 

We write this in order that our joy may be complete."

BUT WHAT DOES A MISSIONARY DO?

 We may be convinced that, as Christians, we are sent out, we must go all over the world. We may find our inner motivation in what St. John says that we go out in order that our joy may be complete.

But still we may ask ourselves: We must go… to do what? What should our actions be aimed at?  Which is the plan of God that we have to fulfil? Shall we aim at converting al the world to Christianity? Shall we ask everybody to change religion?

 It is really impossible to say what a missionary has to do: It depends from the circumstances. All the professions or activities of this world can be assumed by the missionary. Missionary is not necessarily a priest, a nun or a monk. But he must be aware that whatever he does he is does it to witness the love of God and the message of Jesus Christ.

Two principles must be always kept in mind

1)       Proselytise is condemned by Jesus in the Gospel when he tells the Pharisees: “You hypocrites! You who travel over the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when you have him you make him twice as fit for hell as you are”. (Mt.23:15). What is the difference between to evangelise and to proselytise? It is difficult to distinguish in the practise. In theory we can say that proselytise is to make disciples for oneself, for his own party (church), for his own ideology (theology). Evangelise instead is to permeate society with gospel’s values and to make disciples of Jesus.

To this distinction somebody may object that Paul says: “Be my disciples as I am of Christ” It is true people can not see gospel’s values unless they are incarnated in one person who live them in the daily life. Then we need to keep in mind the second principle.

2)       The missionary has to work for unity, not to create divisions or steel souls.

This is shown clearly in the plan of God revealed in the letter to the Ephesians (1:10)

HE HAS LET US KNOW THE MYSTERY OF HIS PURPOSE,

THE HIDDEN PLAN HE SO KINDLY MADE IN CHRIST FROM THE BEGINNING

THAT HE WOULD BRING EVERYTHING TOGETHER UNDER CHRIST, AS HEAD,

EVERYTHING IN THE HEAVENS AND EVERYTHING ON EARTH.

.This is the final purpose of all missionary activity: to unite everything not to divide them. Putting together all diversities, without suppressing them, but harmonising them like complementary.

No one and nothing has to be discarded, everything and everyone has to find its place.

 In this age, when all over the world religions come in contact and appear as elements of contrast and division (or are exploited for division) like in Ayodhya(India), Ireland, Lebanon, Israel, Bosnia, Mindanao etc......it is extremely important that the men of God, the missionaries, present themselves as constructors of unity. 

The example of the Pope, who prayed at Assisi (1986) together with the representatives of other religions, even though separately and every one in his own manner, is a parable for the future of the missions: we must at the beginning and at the end of everything pray together, respecting the different ways.

 Proselytise that divides and steals the faithful does not help to bring all creation together.

Change of religion and within the religion may even be necessary, as conversion is a continuous process to bring everybody together with God.  This must be the final purpose of every missionary activity, as the final plan of God is to unite us not divide us.

Also the first chapter of the letter to the Colossians repeat the same concept: “All things to be reconciled through him and for him” (1:19). But verses 27 has something more. “It was God purpose to reveal it to them and to show all the rich glory of this mystery to the pagans. The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory.” That means that Christ is already present in the pagans through their hope. Every man has hope.

 But after all this speech about working for unity, we must acknowledge that Jesus also said: “I did not come to bring peace in this world but division”.  Surely confrontation, opposition, challenge, separation sometime may be inevitable and necessary. But according to my feeling and according to my interpretation of the present situation, this is the time for dialogue and for search of unity.

 Since I started reading the Gospel by myself I am always been puzzled by the contradictions, real or apparent, in the four Gospels. One of these contradictions apparent from the fact that Jesus is announced by the prophets as the “Prince

of Peace”, by the angels at his birth with the greetings: “peace on earth to men of good will”; he himself appears to the disciples saying: “peace be with you”…but one is taken aback when he reads Jesus saying:: “Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the world: it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword.” (Mt. 10:34). The parallel text of Luke (12:51) says: “I came to bring fire”.  Sword, fire, are signs of division, purification, suffering and development. It is commonly understood that people search personal peace in religion. Some oriental traditions put internal peace as the supreme achievement of religion. To become conscious, aware, enlighten are the steps to obtain peace and nirvana. But we know that peace remains always an eschatological gift, something that we will fully achieve only at the end of time.

Enlightenment, ecstasies, the Tabor, for Christians are something transient, an anticipation. It is always necessary to come down from Tabor and get involved in a world under the domain of sword, on the way to be purified by fire. Unfortunately it is easy to misunderstand peace with the desire not to be disturb, with disengagement, with isolation from the world, desert, hermitage, ashram. But Christian has always in front of him as ideal a man who struggles on the cross, not a squatting and smiling sannyasi. It is surely useful to have a foretaste of peace in meditation and retreat. It is necessary to have a corner in your own heart, a place where you can retire in the evening and taste at least a provisional peace. But is an illusion to think that you can have peace on this earth and in our life. Peace, for the Christian, remains essentially an eschatological gift at the end of times. Now there is commitment, fight in division, fire of purification.

    Our spirituality in Swarga Dwar is that of Karma yoga, spirituality of action, of daily work, of the ora et labora (pray and work) of Benedictine monks. Unfortunately in India manual work is confined to lower caste. But just for this reason I think that in India we need monks who practise ora et labora, we need a religious congregation dedicated to building houses for the poor, a religious congregation of sweepers dedicated to keep the city clean. We need a homo religiousus that prays while working and works while praying. We need person dedicated to the transformation of the world as to the transformation of the self, dedicated to building up a society, a world in which every man, every animal, every living being and also God, of course, should find his place. God did not finish his creation to give the joy to finish it with our hands.

 HOW SALVATION COMES ABOUT ?

 All the titles are question marks. But since centuries, in the Christian world, we say that “The missionary goes to bring the salvation of Jesus Christ”. How does it happen?

    God offers his salvation to every one, that means every one has the chance to reach the purpose for which he exists. The Christ-event, that is Jesus Christ in his life-death-resurrection shows and realises how this happen and gives us consciousness and certitude.

    Man has always tried to come closer to God, to reach his salvation by the way of ritual sacrifices, holocausts, and religious rules. The Christians, for example, celebrate Masses for the salvation of departed souls.

    But how Jesus obtained salvation for all?

    The Letter to the Hebrews tells us (10:5-9)

When Christ was about to come into the world, he said to God:

“YOU DO NOT WANT  SACRIFICES OR OBLATIONS

BUT YOU HAVE PREPARED A BODY FOR ME…

HERE I AM,  GOD, I AM COMING TO DO YOUR WILL.”

This sentence written on the wall over the beds where the deformed bodies of leprosy patients lay, acquires all its meaning and universality. Those mutilated bodies, like the one of Jesus on the cross, become the instruments of redemption. This revelation  -  that is enough to accept our bodies, source of suffering and subject to decay and death to “fulfil the passion of Jesus in us” – give the possibility of salvation to every man in every situation.

When the leprosy patients of Swarga Dwar wake in the morning and their limbs without fingers and toes they read make their own the prayer of Jesus: ”Here I am, God, I am coming to do your will”.

    And I, Christian missionary, who came up till here with the crucifix in hand, I have only to bow down and recognise Him in those suffering bodies.

 BUT WHO WILL COME IN AN ASHRAM WITH LEPROSY PATIENTS ?

     Those who had seen some ashrams will notice immediately that ours is different and not always for better. For example we rear animals for slaughter (unfortunately but out of necessity), we do not have long prayers, we do not keep discourses, and particularly the majority of the inmates had suffered from leprosy and still are deformed.  A Jesuit friend told me: “You are crazy to make an ashram with leprosy patients. We have retreat houses in beautiful places and we find difficult to fill them up, who will come in an ashram with leprosy patients?

    This is our challenge and this is our message: leprosy patients are prophets who speak to us in the name of God. Those who have ears to hear let them hear.

 About our payers: I say Mass in the morning for the Catholics. We thank God before meals. We start our work with a prayer, morning and afternoon. Before supper we half an hour of bhajan singing, and Scripture reading in Shanti Sangam as we said earlier. But at the entrance of Shanti Sangam we have written the warning of Jesus:

 IT IS NOT THOSE WHO SAY TO ME, “LORD, LORD”’

WHO WILL ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN,

BUT THE PERSON WHO DOES THE WILL OF MY FATHER IN HEAVEN.

     To do the will of God is not only to observe the Ten Commandments but also to do our daily work, to accept our limits and to recognise and to serve Jesus in the sufferer. We should not deceive ourselves thinking that more hours we pass in the church, more psalms we recite, more meditation we do and more near to God we are. We said already that for the people of our ashram karma yoga is the easiest way, or the only way to obtain salvation and enlightenment.

    Personally I think that prayer is not one particular activity but a dimension of every human activity. We surely need specific times to cultivate it, but it goes beyond it.

    A person who had been several times in India, who had done courses of transcendental meditation, vipassana and zen, came to our ashram. After a few days of observation, by chance he told me: ”See that person who is sweeping the leaves in the path, he does it in a way that he looks enlighten.” I agreed with the observation because sometime I had the same impression. That person was Sakaram. You can ask anyone in SD and nobody will tell you that he is a saint. On the contrary they will tell you all his defects. He is married and has two son, but they do not want him at home. But when he works he does it with care, joy and satisfaction. He does not need any supervisor because he enjoys his work. After sweeping a stretch of the path he looks back with satisfaction, and, if by chance I am passing by, he asks: “Is it done well?” This is the same joy of the Creator who, after working six days to make the universe, he sat down in contemplation and said: “Well done”.

“Not those who say…but those who do…will enter the Kingdom”.                                                                                             This sentence can save us from the risk of an alienating approach to religion and give space also to non-religious believers.   

WHAT TO DO ?

     This is the final question of every discourse.

They ask it also to St. John the Baptist after his preaching: “What must we do, then?” (Lk. 3:10) He gave the answer: “If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.”

    I remember that since I was working in Mani Tese for freedom for hunger campaign, for the development of the third word, the only logical and necessary solution was: “WE MUST SHARE”.

    I remember when I was living in Janata Colony, to give meaning to my living in a slum, to give me courage to continue, on the corrugated sheets of my hut I wrote in big letters: we must share. At that time, 1974, I wrote the following notes.

     We must share: this is the law of life, the central idea of Christianity, the hope for the future. This is the central law of the family where life is born. The children, at first they receive, but after they learn to share

Jesus Christ, with the incarnation, has come to share divine life with us and our joys and our pains. During his last supper he mad the act of sharing bread his last will. “Do this in memory of me”. We know that bread was his body, that wine was his blood; in fact he shared all his life with us. If we do not learn to do the same in our small way, with our life, our time, our science, our technology, etc. etc. not even the governments will do with the land, the water, the petrol, the jobs. If we do not learn to share there is no hope for the future. If we do not learn in a peaceful way we will be compelled to do by violence. If the Arabs  want to keep all the petrol the world will be a chaos. If Europe and America want to continue to use 80 per cent of the wealth of the world….

    It is useless to continue in this list. Either we learn to do or we will be compelled to do.

Naturally it is necessary to share also the responsibility.

More or less we all do it. But it is necessary to enlarge more and more our circle of sharing and of responsibility till, if possible to include all the world. If we understand this law of life, we will understand also that we should start from the last and the least, from the poorer and the less fortunate. A category of these are the leprosy patients. In the past months I have increased my work among them. I am not the perfect example of the above theory. I wrote this to give you a framework of my actions. The ideas are always big, but the actions, we know with regret, are always a compromise.

To teach a few English words in a night school, as I do, to dispense a few dozen of pills, to identify a pale patch on the skin… all these are small actions but small acts of sharing. For me a person is potentially Christian in the measure in which he is able to share. Unfortunately we see that those who follow the missionary very often are those who receive. When they will learn to share they will become followers of Christ. The shift from receiving to sharing is a shift of quality. May be they will learn in the second generation, like the disciples of Jesus they understood only after his death.

It is impossible to learn to share if you are not aware that first you have receive.

 Also Swarga Dwar is an experiment in sharing. Here we work together, we eat together, we pray together. We have only one kitchen and one dining hall, and also the guests eat the same food with the leprosy patients. The sharing of food is very crucial in the caste ridden Indian society. One of the strict rules of caste is the prohibition to the outcaste to draw water from the common well. The orthodox Brahmin will never accept food and not even a glass of water from an outcaste.  The leprosy patient is the outcaste of the outcaste.

    We must acknowledge that Swarga Dwar is, for me, an experiment at middle way. Since I have to admit, with regret, that for me it was not possible to live for ever in a slum like Janata Colony: after serving the leprosy patients in the dispensaries of Lok Seva Sangam, I dicided to try this kind of sharing in vitro, that means not where the leprosy patients live, but in a particular place prepared for them: Swarga Dwar.

     We expressed this ideal of sharing in a religious moment and context. During the celebration of the Mass, after the consecration the priest invite the faithful to express the Mystery of Faith. The liturgy gives a choice of four answers. We can legitimately add a fourth one. Since the words of consecration end saying: “Do this in memory of me”, the priest can logically ask: What shall we do, Lord, in your memory?

The people will answer: We will share our food, our time, our life, till you come to share your glory.

These words we wrote on the wall of the Catholic chapel and we use at the end of any reading of Scriptures.

 Moreover to give an idea of this sharing to the non-Christian we have introduced in the Mass the offering and breaking  of a coconut (as we explained in letter 26).Also in the Bhagavadgita the duty of sharing is expressed: “The one who does not share what he has received is a thief.” (III,12) 

HOW MANY WILL BE SAVED ?

     All my generation of seminarians missionaries had been trained with this pressing question in mind: “How many people will reach salvation?” I remember reading with suspense the book of Fr. Paolo Manna: “Operarii Autem Pauci”    

(The Workers – missionaries – are few). All the argumentation was based on numbers. How many were the Catholics at the beginning of the century, how many are now (in the fifties), with this increment rate, how many years are necessary to convert all people to Catholicism.

    In the first edition, 1909, the habitants of the world were 1,700,000,000 and the Catholics 300.000.000.

In the second edition, that I was reading, the habitants         2,718,000,000 and the Catholics 486,000,000.

Fr. Manna was writing sorrowfully: “After two thousand years from the beginning of redemption on this earth which are more, the children of God or the children of the devil?  There are still one billion and seven hundred seventy six millions souls to whom the merits of redemption are not applied by the ministry of the Church; how many souls are still lying in the shadow of death? (VI edition, 1959, page 17)

    Although we were in the period of major missionary expansion, the statistical projections were not much encouraging, particularly after the first signs of demographic explosion in the Third World. There was urgent need to expand the missionary effort, missionaries were always too few.

    The most common and dramatic image of the situation at that time was the bark of Peter in stormy sea while millions of men were struggling and sinking in the sea. The missionary was like the cord thrown to them to save them. At that time the statistics of Propaganda Fide were all about how many baptisms during the year, how many catechumens under instruction, how many communions, etc.

    I remember I was sincerely fascinated and worried about these numbers and projections.

How many will be saved? How many will go to hell?

It took many years for me to discover that this same question is also in the Gospel and there is the answer too. Only when the circumstances of my live made me sharing the rejection of the leprosy patients, of the last and the least, then I understood the meaning of the answer of the Gospel.

    The answer is in the parable of the labourers in the vineyard. ( Mt. 20: 1-16) The Kingdom of God is like a landowner who goes out several times in search of labourers, he takes inside all those he find at different hour of the day and give them the same reward: eternal life. But he starts from the last.

To understand the parable we must read it in the context. The parable is the answer to two questions put in succession by the young rich man and by the apostles scandalised by the answer to the first question.

The rich man asks: “Master, what good d