➤ On 2nd July, 2018, the Society of the Missionaries of St. Francis Xavier, commonly known as the Society of Pilar, and its members known as Pilar Fathers, and those who belong to the Agnel Region, more commonly known as Ashram Fathers, celebrated the 79th year of establishment of the present Society. The establishment of this group of people who in a matter of three decades became a significant force in the country, has very interesting beginnings.
➤ Goa was reeling under the Portuguese domination and as it was not uncommon that the Church was completely aligned with the dominating power. The head of the Church even presided over the Government in the absence of the Governor. Unlike what we often hear today, being stated about Christians having to leave the shores of India, the Promoters of the Society were patriotic mavericks. Their faith in the teachings of Jesus and their loyalty to the Church, was unassailable, but far more impressive, was their passion for Mother India.
➤ To talk about India as a Motherland, during the Portuguese domination, was unheard of, and was even dangerous, as the military police were miffed even by the word Jai Hind. But Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues and Fr. Francisco Jasso Sequeira who had been inspired to launch a new Movement, had different ideas. They were able to beautifully blend their total loyalty to Jesus as their Lord and Master with an entirely focused view of India as their Motherland, who was waiting for her sons to bring to her the healing message of Love that Jesus brought to the world. This perception that combined the great commission of Jesus to go and preach, with the natural and emotional idea of India as Mother was a unique combination of a great apostolic zeal and a true patriotic spirit.
➤ In the past, this unambiguous stand by some of the convergence of the message of Jesus, of liberation from all forms of domination, including poverty, ignorance and oppression from within or from without, with the principal objectives of the Constitution of India, has been wrongly described as political adventurism. However, for a genuine believer as well as an authentic patriot, this combination truly is the driving force of a Christian who accepts Jesus as Lord and Master and understands that his first duty is towards his Motherland.
➤ Fr. C. Rodrigues rightly expressed that view, when he, under the pressure of the civil and religious authorities was forced into exile, stated, “MY LAND AND MY PEOPLE! IT IS ALL THAT MATTERS.” This statement is an important pivot in the public discourse in our days, when patriotism is often being defined as a jingoistic nationalism that swears only by the powers to be. Our constitutional structure and its objectives clearly define India or Bharat, as a country that has a diverse culture, based on the principles of modern understanding of equality of life and opportunity to all its diverse citizens.
➤ By doing this, the constituent Fathers, who truly represented the diversity of all of India’s hues and colours, social, cultural and religious came to this common understanding and once and for all, departed from the traditionally held stratified world view based on caste and other differences. Any way considered, this is one of the most erudite Constitutions, that incorporate in itself the core of the human spirit and its authentic unfolding, “Satyameva Jayate”, the good of all is our ideal.
➤ Our Founders saw this dream of an India that is waiting to freely and lovingly embrace a message, whose core was the experience the LOVE of God, that liberates man and woman of all that binds him or her down, and empowers him to be loved and love, regardless of colour, creed and class. There was no dilution of what the Gospel demanded, and the people of India aspired for. This unique combination, which is different from the fractious perception, that embracing Jesus and his Message implies the rejection of one’s own culture and sane customs, was a call much ahead of its time.
➤ Citizenship, therefore, is not being a nationalistic patriot, but one who truly professes and looks for the realisation of our dreams as enshrined in the Constitutions, of equality in social, cultural, economic life and no less in opportunity, unity and diversity (cultural, religious, language and ethnicity), respect and nurturing of the weak, that truly make an equitable society. The evolutionary idea that drove him to defy the religious and political forces against publishing an article in the newspaper, against the liberation movement of Goa, was the result of a clearer understanding that a follower of Jesus could not condone with the attempts of any power to continue to dominate part of his Mother India, that wanted to be free.
➤ Fr. C. Rodrigues’ vision of “My Land and my People! It is all that matters”, is a significant objective that makes sense; That the aspirations of the people of India, especially those of the marginalised and the neglected, are the primary objective of our Constitutions, and are also the Central core of the Gospel message. A disciple of Jesus responds to the call of the Gospel, which completely coincides with the objectives of our Constitution. “The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised to life and to the poor is good news is preached” (Lk, 7, 22), sound strangely familiar with the address of Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of Independence: “The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer.”
➤ It means the ending of poverty, ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye.