A Colourful Update from Mission India

We have been rather silent about ourselves since a long time, but that does not mean we have ceased to exist.  No! We are still alive and kicking.  Great events – or is it emotions? - they say, strike one dumb!  It is certainly the over-excitement caused by several events that deterred us from writing.  The last day of the school was really a festival for our kids.  Piercing cries from the crowds of urchins beat against our vexed eardrums for more than an hour.  These little ones are giving vert to their pent-up feelings of excitement about the upcoming holidays.  Yes, they can shout.  But it is not the same for us.  No school – means more time with the children.  We used this occasion also to preach several retreats. 

The sisters organized a ‘girls camp’ for the children from our mission chapel.  Everything dictated a festive mood.  The children enjoyed it very much.  Later on, I took the boys on a trip to Kerala. It was fascinating.  Its surf-beaten shore, greenery with coconut trees, clustered mangrove forests, all bespeak a beautiful country.  On the top of it, they enjoyed swimming in a cooler water as the temperature back home refused to go down below 105 F the whole month. 

Towards end of the month Fr. Coenraad Daniels of Iloilo came to preach a retreat for the Reparation Sisters.  He also visited the Southern tip, Manapad, Goa and Chennai. It was his first trip to India, and he saw for himself what he must have heard about us from others.  Did he say like the queen of Sheeba: “The description is true which I heard in my own country… I have found that the half has not been told to me …” The other half is, of course, the better half.

I would, also, like to narrate an edifying story of God’s special grace for the mission.  Sr. Maria Michaela (Miss. Geeta Maniraj) is our new novice at the Reparation Sisters of the Immaculate Heart.  Her brief story of finding tradition and her vocation is truly inspiring.

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