By Verghese V Joseph –
Today, the Divine Retreat Centre – Muringoor, Kerala is the largest Catholic retreat centre in the world. Since 1990, over 10 million pilgrims from all over the world have attended retreats there. Weekly retreats in seven languages are held non-stop week after week throughout the year. The DRC ministry is part of the renewal movement of the Vincentian Congregation of India, based on the spiritual traditions bequeathed by St. Vincent de Paul. ICM had a great opportunity to interview Fr. Augustine Vallooran, V.C., Director, DRC; and gather his insights into the renewal movement — its impact on India, the way forward for the movement and also on the role of social media, among other things. ICM met Fr Vallooran on the sidelines of the Divine Mercy Convention organised by the Archdiocese of Bangalore in collaboration with the Bangalore Catholic Charismatic Renewal Services (BCCRS) last week Excerpts:
This year marks the 50th jubilee of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. What do you see are the impact and influence of Renewal movement in India?
The Catholic charismatic renewal in India, and I believe all over the world, has had the same impact the Pentecost had in the early church. When the disciples and other followers of Jesus were waiting and praying for the Holy Spirit, they knew they were committed to Jesus and wanted to live their faith out. However, they lacked the power, the joy, the peace of the Holy Spirit; and they were promised that the Holy Spirit will come and they waited.
On the day of Pentecost, everything changed. There was a renewal. They felt the power of the Holy Spirit filling their hearts. They felt God was so real in their lives and they knew the power of God has taken charge of their lives and they continued preaching, bearing witness to Jesus. And that presence of God in their lives was so powerful they could forget themselves. They could share everything they had with their brothers and sisters and they could be united as a community. I believe this exactly what happened and has been happening through Catholic charismatic renewals.
All of us are Catholics. We are committed to the Lord in Baptism, but perhaps we lacked the power and that power comes through charismatic renewal retreats. People felt closer to God. People felt God’s own joy and peace among them and they were filled with a new joy and that enabled them to bear witness to the Lord. And among practical things, the Word of God became very real and, therefore people began to buy Bibles and read them and Biblical apostolate of the church began to thrive.
Another important thing is that personal prayer increased in strength. People began to spend time in personal prayers. And third thing is that the family prayer. Family relationship were renewed in the Holy Spirit and families began to be united in prayer. Fourth thing, churches became very active, liturgical celebrations became more and more powerful because of the active participation. Another important aspect, like the early church, people began to share their wealth with others.
In the Catholic Church tithing was heard of, but not practiced. But tithing became a way of life for the Catholics, to the charismatic renewal and the love that united the parishes and families became powerful in their midst. These are some of the effects of the charismatic renewal.
As a result of all these, retreat centres began to come up. Earlier too we had retreat centres, but people felt the need, urgent need to spend time in prayer, to listen to the word of God, to take part in the sacramental life of the church. Retreat centres began to come up in all parts of the world. Now it has become a sort of a necessity for people to go for a retreat. Once in six months, at least once in a year, they come together as families, live together as families. They listen to God’s word, they wait to be renewed in the Holy Spirit. These are some of the impacts of charismatic renewal.
In India, Divine Retreat Centre, Muringoor has seen the most charismatic presence and healing has been an integral part in the rise of this centre. How did this come about?
Muringoor Retreat Centre is also a part of this impact that the charismatic renewal has brought about. It is run by Vincentian fathers in Kerala and they are primarily retreat preachers. The Vincentian congregation was started more than a century ago in Kerala and the priests went about preaching retreats in parishes.
A special type of retreat called Popular Mission Retreat, called Popular because the retreat became popular and people were able to participate in the retreats because retreats took place early morning and late in the evening. So day time the people could go for work, their daily life. But early morning and late in the evening, they would come together to church and the parish was divided into small sectors or groups. And the retreat preaching and holy mass, the confessions, all took place in these small groups.
Finally, at the end of the retreat, the whole parish was united in prayer with rallies coming from different parts of the parish and getting united in the central parish. And this was a week long retreat and the attendance of the retreat was about 95% or more in all parishes.
The bishops and the parish priests found this form of retreat very effective. They began to encourage and it was at this time that charismatic renewal came to Kerala, say in 1975-76. And the Vincentian fathers also took part in the charismatic retreats and they sat together and began to pray together. And the Vincentian retreats took a different, a newer form. That’s how the Potta Divine Retreat Centre sprouted.
We started as intercessory prayer center and later people began to come in big numbers. We started retreats in Malayalam, local language, and slowly people began to come from all parts of the country, and even from overseas. Now there are retreats in about seven different languages and this has going on for the last 26 years, week-long retreats every week.
Over the years, the Divine Retreat Center began to evolve as a home of love. People began to come, the sick, the abandoned, the alcoholics, drug addicts, and they had nowhere to go. And we prayed over this phenomenon and that’s when we got the message from God and approved by the authorities to have homes around the retreat center for these abandoned people. At the moment, there are 3,000 people staying. Such people — 500 mentally chronic, mentally sick people staying in the Divine Care Center, 100 HIV+ affected brothers and sisters staying at the St. Vincent’s Home, more than 50 terminally ill cancer patients. Number varies because people die and new people come. Orphan children in the Divine Girls Home, Divine Boys home and there are homes for those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and a de-addiction center. There’s also a home for the elderly and women abandoned by the society and families. There are about 3,000 people staying with us.
On an average, about 5,000 people come every week and this number can go up to 10,000 or 15,000, during high season weeks like vacations. We also have retreats for priests and sisters and retreats for the youth. Every year, we have three retreats for the youth and children. And one specific thing that has happened was Kerala Bishops Conference asked us to distribute Bibles. So we started a printing press. Today the press is full time printing bibles in 10 languages. We print only Bibles there in languages and sell in a subsidised rate. These are some of the tales about Divine Retreat Center.
You are in Bangalore for the Divine Mercy Convention. Can you please share with us the vision of your collaboration with Archdiocese of Bangalore?
In collaborating with the Archdiocese of Bangalore, our motto is to be in the service of the church. Wherever we are called by the bishops and parish priests, prayer groups we make it a point to make ourselves available as far as we can and we conduct weekend conventions. And in Bangalore we have also a youth programme every month called Magnificat, where an average of 2,000 youth and adults gather at St. Joseph’s Boys School ground or at school auditorium.
This kind programme also happens at Chennai and we also go for outreach programmes when we are invited by the bishops. The bishops also bring priests for retreat. It has happened often in the past and it is happening even now, that bishops and priests comes together, the whole diocese comes together and even congregations come together, all the priests together for retreats. And we make it a point to be at the service of the priests because St. Vincent De Paul, our heavenly patron, had three main charisms:
1. To help the clergy in their spiritual intellectual formation
2. To preach retreats to the poor
3. To be at the service of the poor, to help the poor.
And we try to follow the footsteps of St. Vincent De Paul in our retreat ministry.
Can you explain to us the importance of attending a retreat as well as the desired frequency from the perspective of an Indian catholic? Also, what should one do to keep up the change in one’s life, after attending a retreat?
After attending a retreat what happens is faith comes alive and faith becomes a joyous celebration. Normally we speak of faith: we should do obligations and commandments and prohibitions. Therefore, often Christianity is looked at as a moralistic religion. There are commandments, there are prohibitions, you do this, you avoid it, then you are a good catholic. Of course, there are commandments and prohibitions, but then what did God said to the prophets ‘I will write my law on the walls of the heart of my people’. When that happens faith raises above the commandments and the prohibitions, it becomes joyous celebration. E.g. going to the Sunday liturgy becomes not so much of an obligation, but a celebration, a joyous moving together of the whole parish to God. So the one big thing that Bishops agree that Divine Retreat Center has brought about is that people are reading the word of God, with renewed interest and a sacramental life of the parishes has become considerably improved. People are witnessing a new interest in the sacramental life.
Your understanding on using Social Media responsibly can shepherd our faithful who some sometimes get impacted negatively.
I think social media is a wonderful gift of God but as Pope John Paul II has said, electronic revolution gives a great ample opportunity to spread God’s word.
We should use social media in such a way that the word of God spreads through the social media and when that happens, the cheap and unholy way of using social media will end and I think social media is doing a lot of damage to the youth and our youth much to be told that they need to be selective in the use of social media.
At the same time the church and the leaders of the church and those who are responsible in the church should come up with new ways of using social media for evangelisation.
ICM is deeply grateful to Brother Cherian Ramapuram, Chairman BCCRS for facilitating this interview. In addition to interview, Fr. Vallooran also said a special prayer for ICM founders and their mission. We are strengthened by this and are thankful to him. Fr Vallooran has also extended collaboration with ICM by sharing articles from Divine Voice which we will be bringing you regularly on ICM and also runs DRC Twitter feed (@drcmorg) on its website.