xmas letter moc 2004.htm

Christmas Letter 2004. Missionaries of Charity

7, Mansatala Row,Kidderpore, Kolkata 700 023

8^th December 2004.

Dear Friends,

Christmas celebration is around and I doubt whether this letter will reach you before Christmas. I was busy with our General Chapter, and it is over now. Br. Geoff Brown MC is our new General Servant and his experience will give us needed leadership for our further journey as MC Brothers. I hope to be around Kolkata for some time.

In preparation for the Chapter we have taken a saying of Blessed Mother Teresa: "/ am not called to be successful but faithful" to help us to evaluate our last six year's life and work as MC Brothers. As Christmas is around, all of us aim at a successful celebration of Christmas. In today's world success has become a mainstream of everything we do. The two ingredients that come with success are fame and fortune. In the business world around us they look for fame and fortune during the Christmas season*. We have made in some way the Christmas celebration one of money, popularity and success. Yet, there seems to be a darker world hiding behind success. A world of loneliness, betrayal, depression, drug abuse and alcoholism that usually stays hidden beneath success.

Christmas is not about success, but it is about faithfulness. It is about a silent love that stays with the people and channels them to be a loving presence for others.

During our General Chapter I had a beautiful experience. We went out for a day to Noorpur, a place where we have a big garden and a home for mentally and physically handicapped children and adults. As I entered into the garden full of coconut trees, I was at home with the silence of those trees in the garden. I have seen them for the last 32 years. They have grown tall and stayed there bearing fruit in silence. As I walked further I saw many boys whom I knew from 1974 grown older, but their warmth of love and affection was one of relationship. They continue to stay there all those years with that warmt& love and affection for all those who come there. The flow of silence I experienced by watching the trees and coming from the warmth and affection led me to the chapel.

In the silence of the chapel I thought of you and prayed for you all. And I thought of the shepherds visiting, the Magi bringing gifts, and Mary and Joseph staying with Jesus in a silent love.

1 also thought a great deal about our brothers' work all over the world. Our life and work seems to be one of that first Christmas experiences of suffering, peace, joy and love. I have seen many men and women of generous heart bringing gifts for the poor. They are like the Magi bringing gifts to Jesus incarnated today. I have also noticed many volunteers from different parts of the world coming to see and experience our life and work with the poor. These volunteers are men and women of good will in search of their Saviour. I always find such a beauty and goodness in all of them. They are all as simple as the shepherds of that first Christmas night, returning to their own home with joy, peace and deeply moved.

I am deeply touched and moved by our brothers who are daily there with the poor. We have opened three more houses: in Cambodia, Romania and Mozambique. The attitude of brothers

are more spontaneous in the perception of the social situation and the needs of the poorest of the poor. Signs of this are seen in the crowds of poojipeople who flock to the brothers' centers.

Staying with the poorest fills the brothers with their pain and suffering and also their joy. In early April, I was with the brothers in our home for AIDS patients in Kolkata. It was painful to see 27 year old Dol Govindo Majhi looking at my face with hope. His face was poised between sorrow and silence. Sorrow because he was rejected by his family and he had heard that same morning his father saying to the brother who cared for him, that he does not even want his son's dead body for Hindu ritual cremation. His silence was a sign that he was reconciled with himself and God. He was at peace. He told me about the brother who cared for him: "I am only a few days here but I feel I am loved as the one who belongs to him". The same evening he asked brothers to pray that he may leave this world in peace. Brothers had one hour of prayer together in the home with all the patients. And at the end of that hour of prayer Dol Govindo Majhi went home to his God. There was an incredible certainty that he died in peace, surrounded by brothers' prayers and attention. Love required of the brothers to stay with the poor they loved.

Our staying with the poor is at times very painful. In September, in the southern part of India our Brothers and Sisters were falsely accused of converting the poor. A group of about 30 people armed with iron bars and fingerings with sharp-edged teeth of iron attacked the brothers and sisters. They smashed the windows of the vehicle, snatched away the key from the driver and brutally attacked him. When I met the brothers in the hospital, they spoke of the incident with joy and laughter. In them there was no attitude of revenge, but an attitude of acceptance that this event was the will of God, and God will work some good out of it. A staying love is able to keep internally joyful, to be serene, to work and see its way forward. And it is the mystery of Christmas: Christmas is a positive presence of a staying love.

As we look at the first Christmas, Mary and Joseph did not leave the place of the event, as the shepherds and the Magi did after seeing the Child. Mary and Joseph stayed there. They could not go away where Jesus becomes incarnate; their presence because indispensable. They did not yet understand the full significance of all that had happened, nor could they yet foresee all the energy that would flow from the Incarnation.

As we celebrate this year's Christmas and New Year, it is good to ask, who do we resemble? Shepherds who came to the stable noting what has happened and then going back to tell others about it? Or Magi who offered their gifts and went back another way? Or like Mary and Joseph who stayed there, especially Mary who gathers all the truth of Christ, keeps it in her heart and meditates on it continually? And in the meantime she does not leave Christ; she tells his story, bears witness to Him and sees her way forward.

Make your Christmas celebration one of staying. Staying with your family, community. And make your journey forward to the New Year in silent love.

I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a grace-filled love for the New Year. With love,

Your brother Yesudas M.C.