Jesus — The Pearl of Great Price

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth…Jn.16:13

I spent time at almost all the Divine retreat centers and God had a plan for me at each one.

In Tabor Ashram, the Lord brought me to understand how sinful living had deeply affects our relationship with him. It was in the silence one morning before the Blessed Sacrament that a memory was brought to my mind by the Holy Spirit where the person who abused me as a child had asked for my forgiveness, in that memory I remember that in anger I had just walked away never to forgive.

The Holy Spirit showed me that my lack of forgiveness was a sin and the key to my problems. Shock! It was from the preaching of the Word of God that this clear message could come to my consciousness!

The damage of resentment and anger was worse than any molestation. I began to forgive and love. I went to confession continually while at Tabor to empty out all the memories of sinful activities that I had never considered sin. In the USA people are very lax about morals, faith and spiritual practice; “sin” is not an important issue. The Truth was setting me free as all of the sinful areas of my life were exposed.

If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

I read the Bible continuously, eating it in hunger before the Blessed Sacrament at Tabor for hours, days, months. I was shocked; does anyone read this book at all? Fr. Mathew Elumvunkel’s preaching was like sharp daggers coming from the mouth of Jesus to cut away the darkness.

Does anyone care, or even know, what God thinks? The Bible, the Word of God, became my health, comfort, strength and guide. It was only with the help of the Holy Spirit that I was able to understand the messages given.

Jesus was making me new, a new creation, and now He is my everything, my all; to suffer for him, to be with him in heaven and serve him on this earth is what I live for now. Everything else is only rubbish to me now…all the traveling, pleasures, people, honors, money, jobs. I understand St. Paul when he says,”For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ” Phil. 3:8b

Like the Samaritan woman at the well, when Jesus came fully and personally into the wounds of my life I realized that, even in sin, I was only seeking Jesus Christ. He is the most beautiful man who has now saved me from death and darkness.

I have found my pearl of great price.

Proclaim His Deeds and Trust His Providence

“Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds!” (Ps. 96)

We must always keep praising the Lord for all he is doing in our lives and trust his providential care. When we look to the past, as did those in Old Testament scriptures, it is to remember all the marvels He has done for his people. When we look to the future, it is to trust that He is shaping and preparing the way for His will to be done in us and will provide all things. When we spend much time in prayer, service and worship before the Lord He does provide for all our needs. An incident in my life showed me that this continual thanks, praise and worship is justified even in our sickness and confusion.

Jesus is planning to heal and bless us all the time.

I had a very severe problem of not being able to sleep. For more than a month I would be up in the night almost every hour restless, unable to lie still until 3:00am. It was a case of restless leg syndrome. After getting only 4 hours of sleep it would be time to go to work. I was exhausted and depressed with this problem. I sought spiritual counsel and healing by prayer with many holy priests.

There was another problem in my life which irritated me. My employer had hired me for a position for which he did not need to provide any medical benefits. Without medical insurance in the US one visit to the doctor costs over $100.00. Further treatment and medicines will also be very costly. I resented this injustice and complained to my fellow employees about it all the time. Thus, I refused to go to the doctor with this cost and accompanying resentment. I resolved to solve my problems myself, with prayer or by practicing a healthy lifestyle. After getting prayers from several priests and examining my conscience still, the sleeplessness continued. One nun told me to go to the doctor…still, I delayed.

Then one day, out of the blue, I was given over $300.00 from a benefactor who stated that God told him to give me this money. I was helping out in the service of the Lord at the Divine Retreat Center in New Jersey. In prayer, I asked the Lord why this money was given to me when I had enough money already to pay for my expenses. Then the thought came that I should use it to go to the doctor. What was amazing was that this was just what my healing required; the doctor was very kind, she took a blood test and came up with the solution as due to thyroid and lack of iron. These two deficiencies were the cause of the sleep disorder. The medicine and vitamins were not costly at all. I am completely cured through God’s grace and the physician.

There was also a spiritual healing. No longer do I ever complain about lack of medical insurance since the Lord provided even money to force me to go to the doctor and provide for this need. He is my Provider, not my employer. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing.” (Ps. 23:1) My stubbornness and pride were also conquered; the doctor is provided by the Lord and is also to be seen when he so wills it. “My son, when you are sick do not neglect yourself: but pray to the Lord and he shall heal you.
Turn away from sin…and cleanse your heart from all offense….then give place to the physician. For the Lord created her and let her not depart from you, for the physician’s works are necessary…For there is a time when you must fall into their hands…” (Sirach 38:9-13) What a wonderful spiritual and physical healing the Lord has done in my life!

Thank you Jesus for your providential care.

Former Bangkok Prostitute testifies

This is the deliverance story of a slum dweller from Bangkok, who was delivered from abuse, polygamy, prostitution, guilt, abortion & suicidal thoughts. Compiled by Vachiravan Vanlaeiad. Her name is omitted here for the sake of privacy.

I was born in a Bangkok slum. As far as I can remember, my father had constantly abused my mother, both physically and verbally. My father was a low ranking military man and my mother a dressmaker and food vendor. We were very poor. To make matters worse, my father had a minor wife, depriving us of his financial support.

Since the very beginning, I had developed the feeling of extreme hatred towards my father. He had also disliked me, resulting in regularly kicking me in the face. My feeling of utter dislike had been increasing as time went by. I tried my very best to avoid him: hiding under the bed, etc., and was very glad every time he went to visit his minor wife. As a result, I was condemned by my mother that I was an ungrateful daughter, that I would never have a better life, and that hell was surely the most suitable place for me in the afterlife.

I had led a very hard life since childhood. My mother woke me up at 4 am. in the mornings to help her prepare and sell food to students at the slum school (Prateep Ungsongtham Hata’s Learning Center). Every time following my parents’ quarrel, my mother always expressed her anger, distress, and resentment by beating me up, sometimes to the point of drawing blood. This would make me hate my father more as well as feel very sorry for my mother.

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Brazilian Midfielder Kaká testifies

“When I was eight, I moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil (from Cuiaba, Brazil) where I began to play soccer (football). I have always loved to play soccer.

I played on the Junior Team for Sao Paulo in 2000. We were in the middle of the Paulista Junior Championships when I received a yellow card. I was suspended for the following game, so I took advantage of the free weekend to visit my grandparents, who lived in Caldas Novas at the time.

My brother, my parents, my grandparents and I went to a water park. As I was coming down one of the slides into the pool, I hit my head on the bottom of the pool and my neck snapped. I fractured the sixth vertebra in my neck. At the time, I had no idea what happened.

I returned to Sao Paulo to train on Monday, as well as on Tuesday, all the while with a broken neck. On Tuesday, I called the coach and the physical trainer and told them that I couldn’t bear the pain any longer. They sent me to see a doctor at the hospital where they took another x-ray. It was in this x-ray that the fracture in the sixth vertebra was shown.

Everyone, including the doctors, told me I was very lucky that nothing more serious happened. They told me that I could have become paralyzed and lost my ability to walk and to play soccer. I believe it was not luck. I believe God was protecting me during that time from anything more serious.

Many people think that I became a Christian after the accident, but that is not true. My parents are Christians and they raised me with biblical values. The accident happened in October of 2000 while I was playing in the “base” position on the Sao Paulo junior team. Throughout November and December, I had to wear a cervical collar and could not play.

I began to play again in January of 2001, and after about 10 or 15 days, I was called to play for the Sao Paulo professional team. Because of this, I believe God had a purpose in that accident. It is something that happened just before I had the great blessing of starring as a professional in Sao Paulo and initiating my career as a professional soccer player.

As I said before, my parents always taught me the Bible and its values, and also about Jesus Christ and faith. I did not have a specific conversion experience, but little by little, I stopped simply hearing people talk about the Jesus my parents taught me [about], and there came a time when I wanted to live my own experiences with God. One of these experiences with God was when I was baptized at the age of 12. This was a very important step in my walk with Jesus and soon after many things began to happen in my life where I could experience God in a real way.

I need Jesus every day of my life. Jesus tells me in the Bible that without Him I can’t do anything. I have the gift and capacity today to play soccer because God gave it to me. The day He wants me to do something else, I will do that something else and this is why I need Jesus in my life every day.

I am successful in my financial life and in my professional life, but all this has come from God and is a gift of grace from Him for my life. All that I have, I thank Him for.

The difference Jesus makes in my life is that I know I will always have victory, I will always have joy, and I will always have success. This is independent of the situations I face or will face. This brings me great peace.

I usually tell the people who ask, that the Bible is like the user’s manual that comes when you buy a product. It has everything we need in it. It makes me happy to read the Bible every day, to study it and to be in fellowship with God and learn more and more about Jesus.

I will win many matches and I will lose many matches, but I know that in all of them, God has a plan. This is why I try to understand the plan of God for me in each moment so that I can have peace during times of pressure.

Everyone wants to be a winner, but for me, the true meaning of winning is having Jesus in my life. It is a life of prayer, a life of intimacy and a lifelong friendship, knowing that God is our Father. I can say that I am a winner and I am victorious because Jesus lives in my life. No, I will never stop following Him”

~  Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite, commonly known as Kaká.

Gaurav Shroff testifies: Gregorian music led me to Christ

Written by Nirmala Carvalho for Mumbai (AsiaNews). Here is the story of conversion of a young Gujarati Hindu, who went from fascination with sacred music to discover the love of Christ on the Cross. Now he wants to become a priest and missionary.

Towering at 6 ft 3 in (191 cm), Gaurav literally looks down on people. This young Gujarati convert was captivated by Christian music of the Renaissance era, and choral music awakened in him a quest for beauty.

Gaurav Shroff was born on 30 December 1972 at Holy Family Hospital, New Delhi (“I joke with my parents that ‘Holy Family’ should have been a clue to my future!”). His early childhood was spent in Bethesda, MD (a suburb of Washington DC), when his father was working for the World Bank. The family returned to India when he was around 6 years old, and he attended St Xavier’s Loyola Hall, a school in Ahmedabad where he joined the school choir. His only knowledge of Christians was that they did not speak Gujarati or Hindi fluently and that they buried the dead, something that intrigued him.

Describing his own religious upbringing, Gaurav said, “My father worked at the World Bank and later was the editor of the Economic Times. My mother was the first woman district collector of Gujarat. While there was an emphasis was on traditional Indian values, they espoused secular humanist ideals and values. However, it was from my grandmother that I learned the ancient stories of the Hindu religion—the epics of the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Bhagavad Gita.”

“It was aesthetics,” Gaurav said. “The beauty of sacred music held me spellbound at my first ever experience of the Eucharist at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai on 15 August, Indian Independence Day and the Feast of the Assumption. The sublime music of the Mass undoubtedly assured me of God’s presence; the Gregorian chants elevated my spirits, creating in me a sense of awe for the Sacred. I was instinctively drawn by the aesthetic beauty of the Eucharist and this experience filled my heart with immense joy.”

This young man, an idealistic, Westernized 18-year-old upper caste Hindu, who was trained in Hindustani classical music, began studying Church history, in an attempt to understand “what could have inspired the genius of great musicians to compose some of the greatest classical works in honour of the Divine and place their art at the service of the liturgy.”

Gaurav spent hours poring over books at St Xavier’s Library, teaching himself Latin from the pre-Vatican II Missals to learn and understand the Latin Gregorian chants: the Credo, the Gloria, the other parts of the Mass.

So fascinated was he by the sacred music of the Eucharist, that he attended Midnight Mass the same year at Holy Name Cathedral, accompanied by his father. As he became increasingly interested in the solemn liturgies, his friends invited him to the Easter Triduum the following year, with the simple directive not to receive Holy Communion.

Therefore, in 1991, Gaurav went for the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Holy Name Cathedral. “Nothing had prepared me for the ‘Washing of the Feet’. I watched with amazement as Archbishop Simon Pimenta disrobed and knelt down, washing the feet of 12 men. I had never witnessed such humility in a spiritual leader.” He began reflecting on the nature of these priests, this servant leadership, which was an alien concept.

At the Good Friday service, since his friends had only barred him from communion, he went for the Veneration of the Cross. “As I knelt down and kissed the Cross, I vividly remember the clear voice in my heart saying to me: ‘I died for you,’ and I began to weep unashamedly, and though I did not understand what it meant, I was certain, that the Crucified Christ loved me. Then it wasn’t about music anymore, I wanted to learn more about this Jesus. Either Jesus was completely crazy or he was God.”

He began reading everything about the Catholic faith, the Bible and regularly went for Sunday Mass. In 1993, Gaurav went to a Jesuit retreat praying alone at night before the Blessed Sacrament. “I strongly felt the presence of the Divine, the deep love of God for me, and in the darkness, I was illuminated: My life belonged to Jesus, to know him, to love him and to serve him. This was my mission and vocation. I felt called to be a priest.”

“I also had a very serious talk with my family about my decision to become Catholic and be baptised. ‘As long as you do not sever family ties and do not go aggressively proselytizing, you have our Blessings!’ was my father’s response.”

On August 15 1994, the Feast of the Assumption, Gaurav was baptised at St Peter’s Church, Bandra, surrounded by 20 friends, Hindus, Catholics, and Muslims.

Two weeks after his baptism, Gaurav arrived in the United States into an intellectual climate that bred suspicion of the Catholic Church. “God was always faithful, and under the protection of His Blessed Mother, I persevered in the Faith.”

“The next four years of my life were the time that God allowed me to see my reality; but even in crises, the calling to the priesthood hauntingly persisted. So, in order to attempt to discern God’s plan in my life, in 1998, I started a second Masters in Religious Studies, also at the University of South Carolina, and received an MA in Religious Studies, with a concentration in New Testament, in 2001.”

That same year, he started work full time at the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Center at the University of South Carolina as the Associate Campus Minister, where he was responsible for the faith formation of the small University parish. His zeal for evangelisation led him in 2006 to the novitiate of the Paulist Fathers (an American religious order), which took him to Washington, DC.

“In 2006, my father was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. I always had a close relationship with him, and this was devastating. This was just before I entered the novitiate, and I got to spend a few months with him before I left for Washington. God’s generosity knows no bounds and I was able to be in India for the last two weeks of his life.”

In 2007, he discerned that God was calling him to the diocesan priesthood and so he moved back to the South, and applied to the Archdiocese of Atlanta. After some pastoral work in the diocese, he was sent to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 2008.

Currently, he is finishing the first of four years of Theological Studies at the seminary, and “God willing, I will be ordained to the diaconate in 2012 and the priesthood in 2013, for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.”

“The intervention of God at the foot of the cross in 1991 changed the course of my life forever. Evangelisation and the vocation of the laity will be the central passion of my ministry as a diocesan priest. I see my future role as someone who leads, sanctifies, teaches the laity, not as passive recipients”, I shall be “someone who calls out their gifts, talents, charisms, so that the Christ’s lay faithful can be equipped to bring the Gospel to the world, and share in the Church’s mission.”

“I hope, through my calling, to proclaim the Love of Christ Crucified to the people and to bring our people to connect with Jesus Christ, to get to know Him in a deep, intimate relationship,” for “he is the source of all love and happiness.”

A Physical & a Spiritual Healing!

“Tell his glory among the nations; among all peoples, his wondrous deeds!” (Ps. 96)

We must always keep praising the Lord for all he is doing in our lives and trust his providential care. When we look to the past, as did those in Old Testament scriptures, it is to remember all the marvels He has done for his people. When we look to the future, it is to trust that He is shaping and preparing the way for His will to be done in us and will provide all things. When we spend much time in prayer, service and worship before the Lord He does provide for all our needs.

An incident in my life showed me that this continual thanks, praise and worship is justified even in our sickness and confusion. Jesus is planning to heal and bless us all the time.

I had a very severe problem of not being able to sleep. For more than a month I would be up in the night almost every hour restless, unable to lie still until 3:00am. It was a case of restless leg syndrome. After getting only 4 hours of sleep it would be time to go to work. I was exhausted and depressed with this problem. I sought spiritual counsel and healing by prayer with many holy priests.

There was another problem in my life which irritated me. My employer had hired me for a position for which he did not need to provide any medical benefits. Without medical insurance in the US one visit to the doctor costs over $100.00.

Further treatment and medicines will also be very costly. I resented this injustice and complained to my fellow employees about it all the time. Thus, I refused to go to the doctor with this cost and accompanying resentment. I resolved to solve my problems myself, with prayer or by practicing a healthy lifestyle. After getting prayers from several priests and examining my conscience still, the sleeplessness continued. One nun told me to go to the doctor…still, I delayed.

Then one day, out of the blue, I was given over $300.00 from a benefactor who stated that God told him to give me this money. I was helping out in the service of the Lord at the Divine Retreat Center in New Jersey. In prayer, I asked the Lord why this money was given to me when I had enough money already to pay for my expenses.

Then the thought came that I should use it to go to the doctor. What was amazing was that this was just what my healing required; the doctor was very kind, she took a blood test and came up with the solution as due to thyroid and lack of iron. These two deficiencies were the cause of the sleep disorder. The medicine and vitamins were not costly at all. I am completely cured through God’s grace and the physician.

There was also a spiritual healing. No longer do I ever complain about lack of medical insurance since the Lord provided even money to force me to go to the doctor and provide for this need. He is my Provider, not my employer. “The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack nothing.” (Ps. 23:1) My stubbornness and pride were also conquered; the doctor is provided by the Lord and is also to be seen when he so wills it.

“My son, when you are sick do not neglect yourself: but pray to the Lord and he shall heal you. Turn away from sin…and cleanse your heart from all offense….then give place to the physician. For the Lord created her and let her not depart from you, for the physician’s works are necessary…For there is a time when you must fall into their hands…” (Sirach 38:9-13)

What a wonderful spiritual and physical healing the Lord has done in my life! Thank you Jesus for your providential care.

My Story ~ Ramchandran Vydianathan

Praise the Lord, Praise you Jesus, and Praise you Abba. Dear Friends, I would like to share my encounter with our Lord Jesus in my Life My name is Ramchandran Vydianathan. I was born in a Hindu/Brahmin family in Kerala. After my graduation, I was sent to Bombay to take up a job. This is where I met my wife Bernadette.

For a period of four years, i.e., from December 1983 to December 1987, I worked in Saudi Arabia. In the year 1987 I returned back to Bombay. We got married in the church in 1990. Initially, my family did not approve of this marriage, however since I was most loved by my mother she finally agreed. I was blessed with a good job in Dubai in September that year and my wife joined me six months later. We used to attend mass once a week either on a Friday or Sunday. But I still remained a Hindu.

Detention

In the month of February 1995 at 11 p.m., while we were returning from our vacation, I was stopped at Dubai Airport by an immigration official. On asking the officer what it was all about, I was told that there was a case against me and they could not give me any further details. My wife quickly put a Rosary and a novena book of our Lady in my pocket. I was put into a vehicle at the airport and taken to the Immigration Lock-up at Bur Dubai Police Station. I was able to meet her only the next morning after she obtained information about my whereabouts. Through her I informed my company about my detention. This happened during the Ramadan season.

After a couple of days, I was shifted to a police lock-up at Al Mulla Plaza. I was detained in an underground cell. My wife managed to contact me there too and told me not to be afraid and to pray to Lord Jesus. I began to recite the Rosary and say the novena prayers in the prison. It was a prayer said in desperation; and Jesus as usual was faithful and responded to my prayer. Immediately help started pouring in. My wife used to come to meet me daily and she somehow managed to give me a small Bible.

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Testimony of Stephen James Taluja - Young Sikh to Catholic Missionary

Son of a family of devout Sikhs, Stephen James Taluja is now a member of the U.S Maryknoll missionary institute. He tells AsiaNews about his childhood, his encounter with Christ, the Mighty God in the weakness of the cross, his “days of torment” for misunderstandings with his father following his conversion. Until the day of his ordination in which he saw with his own eyes what it “God is faithful” means.

From devout Sikh to Catholic priest. This is the story of Jaideep Singh, who recently became a Maryknoll missionary, a societies of apostolic life founded in the United States in the early 1900s. Today he is Fr. Stephen James Taluja.

Born in 1981, the youngest child of an important Indian Sikh family, the only male eagerly awaited by his parents after three daughters. Fr. Stephen talks to AsiaNews about his unique and personal story that revolves around his discovery that Christ is the Mighty God “in weakness” and the certainty that “God is faithful.”

“My mother was a very devout woman who introduced me to the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib educated us at home in the prayer and recitation of the hymns of the sacred scriptures. My father accompanied me to the Gurdwara, the Sikh temple, and he raised me in the faith of the almighty. My parents instilled in us children love for God and a sense of service to the community”.

The young Jaideep studied at St Stephen’s School in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab. Harold Carver, dean and founder of the institute remembers the young Sikh who “excelled in sports and played in the under 19 national soccer team of the state, loved music and sang in the school choir”.

Because of the quality of his singing the little Jaideep was invited to sing at midnight Mass on Easter Eve in the local church of St. Sebastian. He was 13 years old and attending the 7th class. It was the first time he had set foot in a Catholic church making the unusual occasion even more special for the young Sikh. Today, he says: “In that night I have vivid memories of the crucifix hanging on the wall and all the people on their knees praying. I did not understand how people could pray to a weak and dying God. For me, God had to emanate strength and power. And that God was just the opposite. ” Fr. Stephen remembers “the charm of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, common prayer and the unveiling of a totally new way for me.” He left the Mass with the image of “the cross and crucified Lord” in his head as well as “emerging questions about the meaning of life.”

After that night Jadeep began a long journey. “My mother had noticed that there was something new in me and caught my initial interest in Christianity, but did not say anything.” Jaideep turned to the rector Carver, putting his questions to him. Which become more insistent, even after the events in the family life of the boy.

The sudden death of his mother made even more urgent the need to understand the meaning of life and death. Fr. Stephen speaks today of the “darkness of soul” recalling that time. “I wondered where God was in all that was happening to me, what was the meaning of life.” The patient company of Harold Carver marks the “days of torment” of the young Sikh who recalls: “At some point I began to see the connection between life and death, realizing that Jesus died and rose was the model for us.”

The memory of that period, in which anguish was followed by the emergence of faith, is for Fr Stephen motive for “pride and gratitude”. “My family had planted in my soul the seed of religion, dean Carver the seed of Catholicism and of a life spent in witness of the Gospel.”

Jaideep decides to speak with his father about becoming a Christian. “All hell broke loose. He was annoyed, angry and offended. He called my sisters to ask them for information about my new faith”. The young priest now says: “They were really heavy and unsettling days for the whole family … thus began my personal participation in the passion and crucifixion of Christ.”

On March 1, 1999 Jaideep was baptized and chose the name of his school Stephen James. “I became a Catholic in secret and for 3-4 years my family knew nothing. I did not want to hurt them even more, because my father loved me so much and yet did not understand my choices”.

The year after Stephen leaves for the United States to study computer science. He lives in New York. To earn some money he works at night at a gas station. Every morning he goes to Mass in the parish named after St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Shrub Oak. Even there, he sings in the choir and one day the director Patti Copeland introduced Stephen to the Maryknoll missionaries. The young man remembers: “Their stories of aid to the poor around the world were impressed on my young 20 year old mind”.

“For some time I felt emerge in me the innate desire to communicate with God, to devote all of myself to contemplation.” Stephen believes the roots of this impulse lie in the education he received in his home: “Being Indian, and having received from my mother and
our culture a deep sense of divinity I was fascinated by the mystical life in the early days of New York and I had thought of becoming a Trappist monk”.

In 2001, the young Indian was invited to an Easter spiritual retreat and he realises he is being called to consecrated life. Stephen enters the seminary, but does not say nothing yet to his father and sisters, “worried about the pain and stress that the decision might cause to my family.”

“It was a period of anxiety in my life,” says the boy. “I knew that my father and members of my family were mocked, scorned and humiliated for my decision to become Catholic.” Sikh culture attaches great importance to the one male in the family circle. “You have the responsibility to carry on the name of your race, to take care of parents when they grow old - said Stephen - all this and I could no longer do so because of the decision I had taken.”

The days of priestly formation pass accompanied by the torture of hurting his loved ones and especially his father. “But God is faithful,” says the young man. “I suffered, but I knew that God would give my father a reward far greater than I could hope for.” Stephen studied at St. Xavier University in Chicago, attended the Maryknoll’s Language Institute in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and for two years lived and worked in the mission of Aymara, on the Peruvian High Planes.

On 30 May 2009 he was ordained to the priesthood. Stephen’s three sisters arrive in New York: Anu, Manpreet and Jaipreet, who live in Europe and America. U.S. authorities will not grant a visa to the father. “But it was one of the happiest days of my life,” says the young priest. “My dad wanted to be with me and through my sisters gave me his blessing and the sign of his support for my choice. He wanted me to know that he was proud of me and he had reconciled with my vocation. “

On becoming a priest of the Maryknoll missionaries, the young priest began a new life and on the day of his ordination, officiated by sgr. Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, he received messages of congratulations from hitherto unknown people who had learned of his story through friends or other missionaries. “They wrote that they prayed for me, as I became a priest during this Year for Priests - says Fr Stephen - and I felt honoured and privileged to be a Catholic priest, blessed by the prayers of so many people around the world. All this has made all the stronger in my desire to be a holy priest and a missionary who serves God by serving his people”

–
Written by Nirmala Carvalho for AsiaNews, used with permission.

Fred Beretta, passenger of Flight 1549, testifies

US Airways Flight 1549 was a commercial passenger flight from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina. After striking a flock of Canada Geese, the plane faced an immediate loss of thrust from both engines and subsequently ended up landing in the Hudson River adjacent to Manhattan on January 15, 2009.

Miraculously, all 155 people on board the flight survived.

The time the plane landed in the Hudson was during the 3 o’clock hour (at about 3:31 pm), which Christ told St. Faustina is “the hour of great mercy.” It was during this hour that His heart was pierced by a lance, and blood and water gushed forth as a fountain of mercy for the world. “In this hour,” He told her, “I will refuse nothing to the soul that makes a request of Me in virtue of My Passion.” (Diary of Saint Faustina, #1182, 1320.)

(Fred on Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor” shortly after the Miraculous Crash Landing)

Fred Beretta, was aboard Flight 1549 and following the miraculous landing, he sent the following email to Vinny Flynn who is the author of “Seven Secrets of the Eucharist”.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Subject: Passenger of Flight 1549

Vinny,

I sincerely hope this email finds its way to you. I was a passenger on flight 1549 and my name is Fred Berretta. You might have caught a glimpse of me or heard me on CNN or Fox the night of the crash. I interviewed with Lou Dobbs, Wolf Blitzer and Bill O’Reilly and discussed the crash that night.

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Tags: Answered prayers, Divine Mercy chaplet, Flight 1549, Fred Beretta, God's protection, Miracle, Seven Secrets of the Eucharist, US Airways Flight 1549, Vinny Flynn

An Interview with Anand Mahadevan

September 27, 2008 by Melody Laila  
Filed under Interviews, People of God

8 Comments

India is presently facing great communal disharmony, especially (though not only in) Orissa. During this volatile time, Anand Mahadevan, the editor of Outlook Business, wrote with great boldness and honesty about his conversion to Christianity (Click here to read it).

Greatly edified by his story & his convictions especially given the scenario, I asked Mr. Mahadevan to share some more details with our readers:

During this time of great communal disharmony, fueled by Hindu extremists claiming forced conversions to Christianity, what made you speak out about your own conversion from Hinduism to Christianity?

First, I would chose not to use the words `Hindu Extremists.’ I would prefer to refer to them as my Hindu friends, no matter how they act. I hope they see that violence and unlawfulness finds no place in the Hindu dharma. Two things made me speak up. First, there was a wrong perception that the poor, illiterate and backward caste people were being tricked or financially induced into converting. By speaking out, I wanted to break this myth and show that the rich, educated and the upper caste also chose to follow and worship Jesus. It is a personal choice. And both rich and poor, educated and uneducated, upper caste and lower caste and all mankind has a moral, and constitutional right to chose their faith. Jesus came to take away the sin of all mankind. Second, I was moved by passages from the Bible about Nicodemus. He first came to meet with Jesus in secret; in the dark of the night. But later, he stood up and acknowledged Jesus, first amidst the pharisees and he also came with Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. I was inspired by Nicodemus and his decision to go public with his faith.

Many of the comments on your article at Outlook are anti what you wrote. Has writing the article changed you in anyway?

One of the joys of knowing Jesus is that it becomes easier to love. I have seen the many comments that have criticized me, my faith, my conversion and my decision to speak out. I respect all the people who have criticized me. I respect their right to hold their point of view. I respect their right to criticize me. Writing the article has not changed anything. What I wrote was heart felt. I wrote it in faith. And I will stand by what I wrote in faith.

(protests against anti-Christian violence in Orissa)

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Tags: Anand Mahadevan, Christianity, Convert, Hinduism, India, Interview

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