PRESIDENT'S ACECI MESSAGE
Dear Sr Clare,
First of all, I wish you and your Team a Very Happy & Joyful Christmas and a Love-filled Peaceful New Year. May the Babe of Bethlehem bless you all abundantly on this Christmas season and throughout the New Year. I am happy to share with you my joys of 2014 and the hopes and aspirations of the coming 2015.
I joined the Society of Jesus in 1964. So my golden jubilee year 2014 began with my joyful home visit to be with my 97 year old mother. But it turned out to be more a holiday trip as I took home my friend and a famous Gujarati poet Mr Yoseph Macwan . My brother Vincent gave me a car and also a driver for long trips. So Yoseph and I could visit a few tourist-interest places and pilgrim centres in Kerala.
Yoseph could also get a taste of life in Kerala as our visit coincided with the Tourist Carnival Week celebrations of the Kerala Government. So we enjoyed the mini ‘puram’ celebrations on a beach and the backwater boat rides at Ernakulam. Then we also made a pilgrimage to the tomb of the first Indian woman saint, Sister Alphonsa at Bharangnam in Kottayam District.
Apart from visiting homes of relatives and friends Yoseph and I also enjoyed the festivities of a baptism, a birthday party and even two house-warming celebrations.
Perhaps the most memorable event of the home visit was an interview of Yoseph and of me by a reporter and a photographer from the popular Malayalam daily Deepika in my house. Deepika subsequently published on Feb 7, 2014 with our colour-photo a long five-column-spread report of the interview identifying us as two eminent literary figures from Gujarat.
An equally memorable event was the celebrations of my golden jubilee at Ahmadabad together with Gujarat Province Seminary. The presence of all my 4 sisters and two brothers, a nephew-priest and an aunty made the occasion very special.
In my endless joy of 2014 I enjoyed good health that I could do justice to my different responsibilities as Director of CISS, as a writer and as a member or an office-bearer of different regional and national organizations like ACECI, GLM, GCPC, ICPA, CRI, etc.
As Director of CISS my primary responsibility has been conducting correspondence courses on Jesus Christ and the Bible. During the year I have partly revised our Gujarati Meet Christ series of 10 booklets and reprinted them all in 5 small books. Then, I reprinted my small book entitled WHAT DOES JESUS MEAN TO YOU & ME both in Gujarati and in English. A special joy for me is that the same book has been translated into Malayalam and published by my friend, Fr Vincent Pereppadan, SJ of Sneha Sena fame. I am happy to note that the copies of the same small book in 3 languages have been freely distributed mainly to pilgrims of other faiths from the ACECI stall in the exhibition during the Exposition of the Relics of St. Francis Xavier at Goa.
Still a greater joy for me was the publication of my first short story book in Gujarati by Rannade Prakashan, Ahmadabad. The Preface to the story book is written by a very famous Gujarati writer Dr Keshubhai Desai. He has appreciated the 6 stories in the book as captivating both in content and style. I have also submitted two manuscripts of new books to the same Rannade Prakashan, Ahmadabad.
Another joy or one of my hobbies is travelling. During the year I did travel a lot both in Gujarat and in north and south India. In Gujarat I often combined my trips to South Gujarat to do my job and meet (my sister) Lissy at Unai. Similarly I went to North Gujarat combining my job and meeting (my sister) Celine at Modasa. In my trip to North India I combined meeting Chechi (my eldest sister, Sr Cicily) and participating in her Golden Jubilee celebrations at Jalandhar. I took the opportunity to visit and explore the possibility of reviving the correspondence course ministry at Jalandhar and Kashmir.
My first joyful trip to South India was to participate in the Governing Body Meeting of the Association of Catholic Enquiry Centres India (ACECI) as its President. The main agenda of the meeting was planning about a stall in the exhibition Hall on the occasion of the Exposition of St Francis Xavier’s Relics at the Cathedral Church Goa. My second trip to Goa in November was to launch the stall together with my staff Mr Sanket Macwan and two volunteers Mr Chandran and Mrs Veena Chandran sent by Sr Clare C L of CEC - Bangalore. The stall functioned well during the period of Exposition with volunteers from CEC - Belgaum, Arutchudar - Chennai, CEC - Goa, CEC - Mahim, etc. One or more volunteers have been attending to the stall through the exposition period.
My second trip to South India was to attend the Convention and annual meeting of the Indian Catholic Press Association (ICPA) at Kannyakumari, Tamil Nadu. I broke my journey at Ernakulam to meet my Jesuit friends and enquire about the translation and publication of my booklet on Jesus by Fr Vincent Pereppadan’s Yatra Publications at Kochi and also to visit St Joseph’s Apostolic Seminary at Aluva. I was happy to spend practically the whole day and meet the Director of IHS, Fr Jacob Anikuzhy and other professors of the Seminary and 6 brothers of IHS ministry. But there were no correspondence course booklets in Malayalam, which I wanted very much for our Goa programme.
My last joyful trip of 2014 is to Indore, MP to participate in a 3-day seminar and annual meeting of Gujarati Sahitya Parishad (literary council). The trip to Indore will also give me the opportunity to visit Masih Vidya Bhavan (CEC) and to meet Bishop Chacko who ordered 1000 copies of my book ‘What Does Jesus Mean to You & Me’ in Hindi.
My Christmas article in Gujarati is an invitation of the Babe of Bethlehem to ‘Come and See’. It will be published in Divya Bhaskar with 10 lakh circulation and also in Gujarat Times published from New York for USA and Canada. I hope to end the year by participating in the ordination of Fr Jibin, the son of my cousin brother on December 31.
With love & regards
Fr. Varghese Paul, SJ
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