By Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
Orphans stink of poverty and misfortune. The ambitious who intern at orphanages move on to greener pastures. Those who run orphanages often make children feel small; the administrators let them know at every moment of their cursed lives that they are unwanted kids being brought up through charity. The Christian Brothers of Blessed Edmund Rice tried and are trying to change the lives of these unfortunate boys.
This is the story of an Australian Brother who made India his home and taught by his life the need to serve orphaned boys throughout India. This Brother was/is a sign from YHWH that agápē is all that endures in a consumerist world where orphaned children have no transactional value since they are free flowing capital, ready for slave labour. An orphaned child has none but YHWH to look out for him; because as YHWH says in the Old Testament; He sees in secret and never forgets wrongs done against the orphan. Brother Robert Cataldus Whiting, known as Cal to his confrères, was sent by YHWH to be His sign to abandoned Indian children that God so loves the world in the here and the now that one of His most perfect and, as it were, Vitruvian men sacrificed himself, sarx and pneuma to the service of abandoned Indian boys in the last century.
Brother Whiting was a Brother who made certain that the world took no notice of him while throughout India he reformed school-education; advised women to not abort and to give him their unwanted children. Sometimes one is an orphan even when one’s parents are alive. Brother Whiting literally build from scratch school buildings from Chandigarh to Asansol to Bassein/Vasai.
Brother was a large man, even for an Aussie and spoke in an accent which was initially incomprehensible to me. One day during school where I was a day-scholar, I bumped into him. Not figuratively, but while running at a high speed playing hide and seek, I bumped into his large tummy. And I was only nine or ten; he was an old man walking with the help of a walking stick. He asked me something I cannot remember but through my Bengali and his weird English, we became Guru and chela. Till I met him I was addicted to television and was not interested in studies or anything of any importance. Somewhere down the line he took me under his wings and after school got over at 1.20 pm; I was with him from then till say 6 pm in the evenings till he died of a massive cardiac arrest in 1994.
One day I asked him to give me a Holy Bible which I planned to read since he was reading it daily. I wanted to be like him. He told me politely to get a letter from my parents that they were willing to expose their son to another religion. I never broached the topic again and he never gave me a Bible. I bought one through saved pocket money and we discussed everything under the sun except the Bible. Yet people think that Catholic missionaries in India are trying to convert Hindus. Brother Whiting or his community including the late Aussie Bro. Harrison, the late Irishman Bro Jerome Kelley (who went gradually blind) and the lively, Brother Maurice Baptist Finn taught me secular subjects off school hours and never tried to convert me to their religion. There was frankly no need to do so, for their lives being perfect spoke to me of their commitment to their religion more than did Catholic tomes which I later read. In fact I read these tomes because of their lived faith: what was it that made these sensitive and macho-men lead such non-capitalist lives hidden from public acclaim? Unlike in Ireland or Australia the Christian Brothers in India were not celebrities.
I saw them so closely that I can now bear witness to the fact that the evangelical vows of the Catholic Religious are possible to live out fully if one cooperates with the Grace of God. One day I said to Brother Whiting that I was guilty of this and this and this wrong(s). He heard me and said: Son who amongst us is perfect? Who is free of sin? I must not brood on my wrongs but keep trying to be a good student and a reasonably good human being. Lesser men would have scolded me and may have caned me too.When I was a child, school teachers throughout India regularly caned boys. But Brother Whiting was proof that God is Mercy and encouraged me to move on.
Another example of Brother Whiting’s sanctity: he suffered excruciating pain from rheumatoid arthritis but never whined about it. And contrary to what I find online about Christian Brothers abroad, I observed myself then, that these three Brothers (two deceased now) never caned a boy. Yesterday night I was Googling the Christian Brothers and I found that I could recognise two or three other holy men amongst them now leading their battered Congregation in India: Brothers Leonard Lobo (he taught me to think of God qua Brahman before sleeping every night, a sort of examen of conscience and he carried a small Jerusalem Bible with him always), Ralph and Joel. I think this is the same Brother Joel who went to Africa to serve God there. Bro. Lenny Lobo it was whose devotion to the Jerusalem version of the Holy Bible has made me an avid reader of the mammoth version of that Bible.
To return to Brother Whiting; another example of his sanctity needs to be mentioned, daily over the years, while passing the school- Chapel, Brother Whiting would stand still in front of the Cross and close his eyes and then walk on. Brother would then make certain that he genuflected to the Brothers’ iconic Mary, Perpetual Help of Christians. Only then would he proceed to do other things.
Through him I gained access to the Christian Brothers’ library in their residence. There were Catholic Digests and bestsellers including novels by Graham Greene. Till then I had never seen so many books and I was free to take as many and read them. The community then at Dumdum used to worship in the evenings with songs and guitar playing, recreating the joy of the Psalmist(s). I can hear Brother Whiting’s high manly tone praising His Lord. He had only one weakness; he loved watching cricket and the days the Aussies won he’d go all bonkers with happiness. Brothers Harrison, Kelley, Whiting and Finn introduced me to the world of Australian and Irish folk songs, from The Seekers to The Dubliners.
I come from a family and socio-economic milieu where there is a natural distrust of firangs or whites. After all, they were the ultimate Other; sort of the last bastions of the Raj who lingered on with some unknown agenda to take us on a platter to the detested British. So as my friendship grew with this giant of a man, I was torn asunder with the fear of being converted on the one hand and a deep respect for Brother’s learning.
My parents had appointed many private tutors for me but none of them could match Brother’s charisma and bird’s eye-view of everything that he talked of. Remember, I was an adolescent then and sex, naturally, was foremost on my mind. Also, this was the time that the Christian Brothers in the US, Canada, Australia and of course Ireland were being torn to shreds on charges of pedophilia. So again, I was suspicious: was this man a predatorial practising homosexual in the guise of a sadhu or was he the genuine thing?
So at one point in our bonding, when I was spending well-nigh five hours daily with him in his room, I had long conversations with him on these topics too. He had gently explained that he had never violated his vow of celibacy ever and when the pages of a book got raunchy, he kept the book away for some time and then often willy-nilly he skipped a few pages and went on reading. It was from him I learnt of Thomas Kempis’s beautiful book and I felt special knowing that I mattered in the here and the now: that I was unique, and God loves and knows me by name. I also learnt through his example what in Hinduism is known as deha-ninda: our bodies are gifts from YHWH and are to be treated as such. Neither with disdain, nor with too much love.
Brother suffered acutely from rheumatoid arthritis, as mentioned above, and had to ‘take’ traction daily for over an hour. I personally bear witness to the fact that suffering makes holy men holier. He never blamed God for his continuous pain. All his joints were slowly replaced with steel joints and, yet he continued to teach the boarders, take classes for day-scholars and to pray the Liturgy of the Hours without ever missing even one Hour. One day when I asked him of his pain: he just pointed to the Nazarene and said to me: see Subhasis the pain of that Man; He was bled slowly to death for no fault of His own. And I am just a sinful Brother. I witness to the world that here is (sic) a man whose sins could only have been venial, and yet he thought he was unworthy of being a Brother or even the lowest in God’s Kingdom when in truth he was of the mettle of the Carmelite Brother Lawrence (1614-1691) of The Practice of the Presence of God fame. Cal Whiting’s spirituality to me appears now to be of the sort of the Little Flower’s spirituality: he was self-abnegating and he suffered in silence. Brother was turned inward to lectio Divina and Opus Dei in their strictest classical interpretations. I see him now in hindsight to be mystically united in pain and intellectual humility with the Crucified One. And he was assailed like St. Padre Pio by demonic attacks. These supernatural attacks will go with me to the grave.
He taught me by example how to turn pain into an oblation for God: he introduced me to the Holy Rosary, to the reading of the Divine Office. Not as a Catholic, mind you, but to incorporate Lectio Divina or holy reading as a daily practice of any lived Faith. I understood the meaning of Dharma seeing him. I understand now what is meant in Catholic circles, to be a Living Rule. There are wo/men among us who are so perfected that even if the Rule of a Congregation were to be destroyed, then too it can be written down observing these wo/men. Brother was a Living Rule.There was a three-part series which I can no longer locate, written by St. Alphonsus Rodriguez SJ on the ‘Perfection and the Practice of the Christian Life’. Brother Robert Cataldus Whiting lived (sic) those three series and I can vouch that he lived the life of a Paramhamsa. The Vedas and the Upanishads found their fit residence in Cal Whiting cfc. The Sannyasa Upanishads testify to such a human being as was Brother Cal Whiting.
The Christian Brothers’ necrology has his academic training detailed by Brother Maurice Baptist Finn, but as a kid I did not understand that Cal studied theology at Rome; was a Superior of many communities of Brothers and a great architect and he had multiple degrees in all of which he excelled. From a Masters in Literature in English to an MA in Indian History from Benares Hindu University; he earned Gold Medals in them all. Not for nothing I had called him Vitruvian at the beginning of this essay. A man who loved Luciano Pavarotti and yet scorned this passing world so much that the world has forgotten of him.
He had joined the Christian Brothers at fifteen. And persevered in his vocation till his death without harming one child. Had he wanted he could have taught college and university. He certainly had the qualifications. But he chose to follow the way of ‘littleness’ by never wanting to be a priest; by not seeking public acclaim and except for an evening stroll Brother was in his monastery through all his days and years. I have seen with my own eyes he was constantly praying the Divine Office and the Little Office of the Virgin Mary. The vocation of the Brother in the world and the Church is sometimes more important than any other Religious Vocation because it frees up a man by removing the distractions which come from ratiocination of the Mysteries of the Catholic Faith. Being with Brother was satsang, it cleared the mind of worldly muck. Samsara could not ensnare Brother Cal Whiting.
Oh, I must add, seeing all the false accusations levelled against Christians today that in spite of knowing this humble Australian missionary for many years; I remain a staunch Hindu Brahmin. My faith in my own religion has been strengthened because God deigned me to live with Brothers Whiting, Harrison and Kelly. Bro. Whiting’s sanctity now is evident to me though at that time, around 1990-4, he was just that friend I never had. Those men lived with God.
I will end by telling an anecdote another Brother who knew him told me much later after his death. Once Brother Whiting was invited to a Five Stars’ hotel by some rich ex-student. Brother landed up and tried many times to enter that place of over-consumption. But each time he tried entering that place, he was held back as if by the cries of poor children who go hungry day after empty day. He returned hungry without being able to enter that hotel. Only later this came to light through the ex-student’s sorrow that the saintly man could not be given a king’s meal. Four days before he died, he told me that the time for him to go to YHWH was at hand. I thought he was joking. But this Brother who taught basic English once a week at Morning Star Major Seminary to would be priests died in an alien land without receiving the degree of medical help he could have received had he opted to stay back in Australia. Every time his Superiors wanted him to return to Australia, he just said that Jesus wanted him in India.
The vocation of the Brother is not very well understood in India. Let Brother Whiting’s Congregation study this man’s life in some more detail. Then the vocation of being Brother (not a Brother!) will be understood in its full glory as desired by God when he raised up Edmund Rice to protect the vulnerable Irish child. Sin is a reality. Sin entered the Christian Brothers but most Brothers resisted the form that sin took in their monasteries and I here let the world know for certain that an Australian Brother in India heroically resisted Satan dying in unimaginable physical pain for the sake of the Man from Galilee.
Subhasis Chattopadhyay is a blogger and an Assistant Professor in English (UG & PG Departments of English) at Narasinha Dutt College affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He has additional qualifications in Biblical Studies and separately, Spiritual Psychology. He also studied the Minor Upanishads separately. He remains a staunch Hindu. He had written extensively for the Catholic Herald published from Calcutta. From 2010 he reviews books for the Ramakrishna Mission and his reviews have been showcased in Ivy League Press-websites.