AfricaIt is a long time since I have spent so much time making visits in India. These last few years, we have devoted a lot of time to preparing the meeting at Kolkata, amongst other things. There was also the concern to give a deeper experience of prayer, especially through small retreats.
At the same time, it was important to continue to nourish communion, by making free visits, by meeting the new youth chaplains and bishops of the various Churches, so as to understand better the reality in which these young people live.
The society is changing so fast: arriving in Chennai, I was almost suffocated by the intensity of life, the density of traffic, the growth of buildings and shops with their consumer products, the advertising… Although I had last been there a little less than a year ago, I had the impression that everything had changed a lot. Almost everywhere I went I had more-or-less the same experience. One of the most striking examples of the new work possibilities is the phenomenon of the call centres, in which many young people, men and women, find work with monthly salaries often greater than those their parents could earn in a year. But the work hours have to be adapted to the countries they are working with, which makes it very difficult to have a family life or a commitment to the Church: it is sometimes even difficult merely to attend Sunday worship.
Although society is changing so fast, there are values that remain, even if those who are analysing this situation fear that they are disappearing. For me, one of these remaining values is a deep sense of the sacred. This was confirmed by each of the prayers, open to all, so much at Luz Church in Mylapore, at Vellacherry, at St Thomas Orthodox and St Joseph’s Boy School at Bangalore, at Delhi. Hospitality remains firmly anchored as a priority, as much with the adults as with the young.
What amazed me was to meet young families from Kerala, for whom the sense of sharing is essential, whilst the individualism of a technically developed society could remove this. At Chennai, in a very poor neighbourhood, one family is still at the heart of a small evangelical church with its school and an orphanage of over a hundred children.
Besides the common prayer, my visit also found all its meaning thanks to the “Letter from Taizé 2008”, written in three sections by Brother Alois, which I carried to each of my stops. One of the three letters was always appropriate at the time. At Trichy, the “Letter to those who want to follow Christ” was given to each of the hundred young people training in the various religious congregations; at Nagpur this same letter was read to the seminarians of the Orthodox seminary, as at Kolkata for the Protestant students of Bishop’s College. “Don’t stop at the crossroads”, develop the capacity of listening: so many expressions from this letter were mentioned during the sharing time that followed.
As for the “Call for the reconciliation of Christians”, this was taken to the leaders of several denominations of the Church, the Church of South India CSI at Chennai, that of North India CNI at Nagpur, as well as to the National Council of Churches and to the Catholic bishops of Kerala as they began their annual retreat.
Finally, the “Letter from Cochabamba” tackles a very important theme for India today, that of reconciliation, starting from the experience of young Bolivians. This call to reconciliation is very relevant in the dramatic situation of the State of Orissa with large scale attacks against Christians. Whilst fear, sadness, and a sense of powerlessness could take it away, I was able to witness the deep desire of Church leaders to look for practical ways to reconciliation and peace.