Fr Arockia Rayappan –
While I was still the vice-rector and formator at Vinay Gurukul (Delhi Archdiocesan Minor Seminary) from 2006-2008, I regularly concelebrated the mass at Saint Michael’s Church in Gurugram (earlier known as Gurgaon). The Church is adjacent to Vinay Gurukul.
I had met a family after the Sunday Mass at the Church Campus and had some casual conversations. The dad was enrolled as a catechumen at that time. He received his Catechetical instructions after the Sunday Eucharist. His wife and daughter took care of his faith formation throughout the week. In one of the meetings, the dad himself took the initiative to share about his faith journey. He decided to become a Christian because of his daughter. Further, he narrated: It was during a family conversation at home that he was startled by his child’s bold statement that her Jesus was a living God. Her daughter, still a teenager, might have uttered the words innocently. But those words got imprinted deep within his heart and brought in him a total transformation.
He said that he often used to reflect on her sentence while he travelled to the office and on his way back home. The challenge before him was: how to become humble before her daughter and to accept Jesus as the Living God in his life?
After days of reflection, he approached his wife and expressed his desire if he would become a follower of Christ like her and their daughter. His wife shared with him that she too had prayed for the grace that they all would be Catholics someday. She surely wished that he accepts Christian faith. But she urged him not to hurry. She requested him to be patient. She encouraged him to analyse deeply the reason for which he wished to become a Christian. She gently made him understand that it was fine that he practised the religion he belonged to. With that, neither she nor her daughter had any issues. She asked him if he needed to be sure why he wanted to become a Christian. She discouraged him from becoming a Christian for her and their daughter’s sake. She bluntly asked him if he really believed in Jesus.
Thereafter began his faith-journey. She advised him that if he was so serious, then he had to find his own ways and means to approach the priest and to start his own faith formation. That made the whole responsibility on him. He added that his wife’s approach made his own decision and his wish to be a believer of the Living God. Later he revealed to me, his wife had been leading an exemplary life. She prayed daily in the evening. She made a room in her apartment as a chapel. That was the only request she made to him when they moved to Gurugram. Never once, did she force her husband to become a Christian. That was their agreement since the initial years of dating. They maintained their promise throughout their family life though they moved to different cities. They respected each other’s choice of religion and religious practices. But they were supportive of their partner’s religious practice. Later on, I used to meet them in my new parish.
After I moved on from the parish – happened to visit my former parish since my friend my friend was appointed there as the parish priest. He introduced to me his parish council’s vice-president. The vice-president was the same dad who had met me after the Sunday Eucharist at Gurugram. Later, I met the family, his wife and daughter after the parish council meeting. While he participated in the parish council meeting, his wife prayed the rosary in the Church. The three of them had become active members in the Church. They looked very happy. His wife was a member of the Legion of Mary, and the daughter was an altar server and choir member in the parish. She even took care of distributing Christmas gifts to the homeless. We did not talk about the faith journey when we met but exchanged our smiles.
The daughter giggled, and enquired of me, “Do you still remember the conversation about my ‘Living God’?” I was all smiles all over my face. Yes, there I met Jesus our Living God in their family, the domestic Church. There I met a family being nurtured through a genuine, authentic and responsible faith. May God bless each of them. Exemplary faith life and faith-filled conversation brought Christ to someone in the family – abundant service and blessings to the family. God be praised!
The author is a priest of Delhi Archdiocese, and Ph.D. student at Concordia University, Canada. Please visit the weblink of Concordia Library Spectrum Research Repository for more details. His Orchid ID: His most cherished quotations are: “Inspiring and effective leaders are made not born – and it can take a lot of hard work to develop the skills and know-how to do this.” “Our life’s trials often reveal our capacity for empathy and kindness.” “A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it. It just blooms.”