2020 November.P65

IN VINCULO CHRISTI OCTOBER 2020 IN VINCULO CHRISTI OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL REFLECTIONS ON DEATH Dear Brothers and Sisters, says that it’s a healthy thing to pray for the dead and the church tells us that, In this month of November, Holy Mother every so often, it’s healthy too to think Church invites its faithful to contemplate about death, both by remembering those on death and to create a more positive who have died and by contemplating the attitude towards it since it is an “embrace reality and certainty of our own deaths. of the Father”. What follows are some Death and taxes, Mark Twain assured reflections on death by eminent think- us, are a certainty for everyone. ers like Ron Rolheiser, C.S. Lewis and Karl Rahner. But how to think about death? Where is that thin line between contemplating the None of us likes to think about death, mystery of death and falling into mor- and that isn’t necessarily bad. Our ev- bidity, anxiety, and false guilt about be- ery heartbeat blocks out death, pushes ing alive and healthy? it away, and keeps us focused on living. That’s nature and God working. And this Honest prayer can help us walk that denial of death stems too from the fact tightrope and honest prayer is what we that, in the end, we don’t die, don’t be- do when we can bring ourselves naked come extinct, but move on to deeper life. before God, unprotected by what we do, At some level, we already know that, by what we own, by what we have sense it, feel it, and live life in the face achieved, and by anything else we have of it. To want to think about death can to fend off loneliness, fear, and death. be as much a sign of depression or ill- In honest prayer we can be deep with- ness as of depth. Pushing away out being morbid. thoughts of death is normally a sign of health. But we can also be helped in this by the giants of our faith who have stared death But there are times when faith asks to in the eye and have tried to share with look death in the eye. Classically, the us what that feels like. I recommend churches have asked us to do that dur- especially C.S. Lewis and Karl Rahner. ing the month of November when, at least in the Northern hemisphere, we For one perspective, I recommend see a lot of death going on in nature and Lewis’ book, The Great Divorce, which we see light itself diminishing as the is one of the finest and most readable days grow shorter and there is less and treatises ever written on Christian death less sunlight. The Book of Maccabees and the afterlife. He comes at it as an IN VINCULO CHRISTI 1 OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL Anglican, but is equally sympathetic to of our freedom that previously presented both the Protestant and the Roman itself to us stretched out in slow motion, Catholic traditions. He stresses the con- an explosion in which question has be- tinuity between this life and the next and come answer, possibility reality, time sets this into a wonderful theology of eternity, and freedom offered freedom God, grace, and the communion of accomplished; when then we are shown saints. in the monstrous shock of a joy beyond saying that this monstrous, silent void, From the Roman Catholic tradition, I which we experience as death, is in truth recommend Karl Rahner. Unlike C.S. filled with the originating mystery we call Lewis, Rahner stresses the discontinu- God, with God’s light and with God’s love ity between this life and the next, sug- that received all things and gives all gesting a much greater dissimilarity than things; and when then out of this path- is imagined by Lewis: “It seems to me less mystery the face of Jesus, the that the models and schemes people blessed one, appears to us and this spe- use to try and explain eternal life in gen- cific reality is the divine surpassing of eral don’t fit the radical rupture that nev- all that we truly assume regarding the ertheless comes with death.” We “dress past-all-graspness of the pathless God up” eternal life, he says, with images -then, then I don’t want actually to de- familiar to us, but “the ineffable outra- scribe anything like this, but neverthe- geousness of the absolute Godhead in less, I do want to stammer some hint of person falling stark naked into our nar- how a person can for the moment ex- row creaturehood is not being perceived pect what is to come: by experiencing authentically.” the very submergence that is death as already the rising of what is coming.” Then in one, vintage sentence (280 words long) he leaves us this image: Death is a journey into the unknown, the ineffable, the unimaginable, the un- “When the angels of death have swept speakable – unspeakable loneliness, all the worthless rubbish that we call our ineffable embrace, unimaginable joy. history out of the rooms of our con- sciousness (though of course the true Let’s pray for our departed, especially reality of our actions in freedom will re- the former Bishops, members of the main); when all the stars of our ideals, clergy, Religious and the catechists who with which we ourselves in our own pre- toiled in the vineyard of the Lord. sumption have draped the heaven of our own lived lives, have burned out and are Yours truly, now extinguished; when death has built a monstrous, silent void, and we have silently accepted this in faith and hope as our true identity; when then our life so far, however long it has been, ap- Thelagathoti J. Raja Rao, S.M.M. pears only as a single, short explosion Bishop of Vijayawada IN VINCULO CHRISTI 2 OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL WORDS OF GRATITUDE Since one year, Fr. Valle Vijaya Joji Babu, our Procurator and Chancellor has been asking me to grant him a sabbatical in connection with his sacerdotal silver jubilee. A Sabbatical is meant for spiritual renewal and physical rest. Knowing its importance, I have been trying to grant him this request already in March this year but alas, the Covid-19 lockdown has come in between and paralyzed the normal life. Only in October I could rethink of granting him this request and with the con- sent of the College of Consultors and that of the Diocesan Finance Committee. On the 12th of October 2020, in the Meeting of the College of Consultors as well as that of the Finance Committee, Fr. Joji Babu presented the report of the Diocesan Finances and clarifications were also given.In the same meeting Rev. Fr. Anand Babu who was already helping Fr. Joji Babu previously in the financial manage- ment of the Diocese, was approved by both the organs as the Procurator and Chancellor of the Diocese. On the 24th of October he had submitted the accounts to the Bishop in the presence of the Curia and members of the Finance Commit- tee and was handed over to the incoming procurator on the same occasion. I would like to express my immense gratitude to Fr. Joji Babu for his services in the past four years as the Procurator, Chancellor of the Diocese meeting the complex demands of the job with wisdom and fortitude. Through his foresight and dedication, and the collaboration of all the sectors we were able to reach a financial stability. This is an essential ingredient for an institute to function and progress. Honesty, accountability, transparency and dedication to Christ’s Mission were the ideals we followed and set up a model of inspiration to be followed by all in the Diocese, especially in financial matters. I would like to place on record the dedication, spirit of self-sacrifice, hard-work, justice with which Fr. Joji Babu served the Diocese, for four years, handling most delicate matters while being a good Samaritanwith immense tenderness especially in his passion to care for the sick and the elderly brethren. We cannot thank him enough but we wish him a fruitful sabbatical and good health to enjoy this year of rest and recuperation. We will accompany him with our prayers and good wishes. Thelagathoti J. Raja Rao, S.M.M. Bishop of Vijayawada IN VINCULO CHRISTI 3 OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL IN VINCULO CHRISTI 4 OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL IN VINCULO CHRISTI 5 OCTOBER 2020 OFFICIAL Appointment of New Procurator and Appointment of Religious: Rev. Fr. Chancellor of the Diocese: Rev. Fr. Putty Rajendra Prasad OCD, has been Boddu Anand Babu, has been appointed appointed as the parish priest of as the new Procurator and Chancellor Gamapalagudem (with effect from 20 the Diocese (with effect from 24 Octo- September 2020) in accordance with the ber 2020). We congratulate him and directives given by Rev. Fr. wish him all the best as he takes up the JayarajuBollikonda OCD, the provincial new office.Contact Details: 9491110671; of St. Francis Xavier Province, Email ID:[email protected], Kothagudem. [email protected] RETREAT FOR THE PASTORAL Appointment of New Secretary to the CLERGY:The Annual Retreat for the Bishop: Rev. Fr. Mathangi Mariakumar, pastoral clergy of the diocese will be held has been appointed as the new secre- ONLINE from the 16th November to 20th tary to the Bishop (with effect from 24 November, 2020. Rev. Fr. Stephen October 2020). We congratulate him Jayard, Professor at JDV, Pune is the and wish him all the best as he takes up preacher for the retreat.

Load more