Breakfast with the Archbishop

              On Tuesday I had the opportunity to have Mass and breakfast with the Archbishop of Kolkata, His Excellency Thomas D’Sousza. After having mass with the Archbishop, our group drove over to the Archbishop’s residence. The residence is a magnificent old house that speaks to the former days of prosperity in Kolkata. Archbishop D’Sousza had an American style breakfast prepared with a Bengali twist. We had fried eggs, sandwiches, stir fry, tea and  coffee. He ate with us and answered questions about his life and ministry. All of this he did with great intentionality and care. After this we had an opportunity to pray in his private chapel and take some time to rest in silence with the Lord.

Later on we gathered together to talk with the Archbishop one last time. Many of us asked questions about his early life and his call to the priesthood. It was inspiring to hear his great willingness to follow the Lord with such amazing trust. In early high school, a bishop from another diocese visited his school and told the young men there of the need for priests in his home diocese. The young Archbishop D’Sousza and three other young men decided then to leave all behind and follow the bishop to the diocese located on the other side of India and join the seminary there. Later on in life he ended up replacing that very bishop who He followed to his new home upon his death. From there he was moved to be archbishop in Kolkata. He is a down to earth man who is easy to talk to and happy to share about the faith of the people and the strengths of his diocese. He is realistic about the struggles that his people face, but has great faith in the Lord and hope that God’s providence will prevail.

As we were about to leave his home, I approached him to ask his blessing on some rosaries I had recently purchased. He was more than happy to oblige and after the blessing encourage me with great excitement to pray the rosary, reminding of its great power and importance. It was edifying to encounter a man with such great trust in the Lord and love for our Blessed Mother. I can confidently say that the Archdiocese of Kolkata has been entrusted to a worthy man. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Leper Colony

Image
Some Patients at the Colony               These first few days in Kolkata have been going well. I don’t think that I have waved so much in my entire life! Here it’s as if we are celebrities. People will come up to us and want to take pictures with us. There will be many times where we are in the bus and it will come to a stop. The people in the bus across from us will make eye contact and you can tell that they are intrigued to see you. Some of them will wave and if they don’t then when you wave to them you are met with a prompt wave and smile. There was one instance, we were coming back from our boat trip on the Ganges River. While we were waiting for the bus there was a truck with probably fifty people in the back. They were all very excited to see us and they were waving and smiling. Then as the bus drove away they continued to wave and I wanted to see how far they would go until they stopped waving. As long as I kept waving they waved back an...
Read more

Meeting the Superior General of the MC's

Image
The last part of our mission trip across the world was a very special meeting. Our group had the honor of having a private encounter with Sr. Mary Prema, who is the current superior general of the Missionaries of Charity, which means that she is in charge of all Missionaries of Charity (over 5,000!) in the entire world. I can’t imagine that it is easy being a successor of a saint! She surely has very big (or should I say very little?) shoes to fill. We had the meeting in the mother house of the order in a humble room next to the tomb of Mother Teresa. Even though she recently arrived from a very long trip, she had a very humble, yet motherly patience, gentleness, and subtle joy – true marks of a Missionary of Charity. She was very happy to learn that we were well on our way to the priesthood, and we had the opportunity to absorb some of her words of wisdom and encouragement. She started off by reminding us that none of our experiences in Kolkata are supposed to end. Rather, w...
Read more

Jan Seva ("Serving the People") School Visit

Image
               Thursday we went to a school for under privileged children.  Most of the children live in shack homes in the slums of the city.  The kids' school day began with an assembly where all the kids sing the their national anthem.  It was an appropriate introduction to the kids to hear them all sing-screaming at the top of their lungs.               After the assembly we got to play with the kids at recess and the two best words to describe what recess is like with these kids are adorable and chaotic.  Just picture about 60 little Indian kids running around, screaming, in a playground that is only about 50 square feet, add a few teeter-totters and slides and sprinkle in a couple of giant yoga balls and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what we were getting into.  Needless to say it was a blast.        ...
Read more