“ Before Philip called you…I saw you” Jn. 1:48

These words of the Gospel have a special significance for me personally. Let me explain how. This year I am celebrating the 50^th  Anniversary of my First Profession. Every celebration of Jubilee is an occasion to trace back the roads we have traveled, the persons we have met, and the experiences that have changed us.  Golden Jubilee of Profession, no doubt, is an occasion for me to go back in memory to that day when I knelt in front of the altar and made my commitment to the Lord.

My Vocation Story starts on a hot summer afternoon in the month of May. I was in class VI, in St George’s School Vazhakulam. It was the last period. Our Catechism teacher, Mathai Sir, came to the classroom with a list of names in his hand. He read out about fifteen names and asked them to come out and meet a Priest who was waiting in another classroom. It was obvious that the names he read out were  the better students in the class. My name too came in the list of ‘better students’ because I had failed the previous year! Even after a lifetime, I am slow to learn that failure can be a blessing. We were only too happy to come out of the classroom, not so much to meet the Priest but more to escape the heat and the humidity of the stuffy, crowded classroom.

We took our bags and went to the particular classroom as instructed. There was a priest sitting on the teacher’s chair. He made us welcome and told us to sit down. He introduced himself as Fr Philip Thayil. Then he went on to say a story about a Saint called Don Bosco. It was the first time I was hearing that name. At the end of the story, he asked how many of us would like to become Priests. All of us without hesitation put up our hands. We wanted to be like Don Bosco, the hero of his story.

I am talking about fifty-seven years ago. Families were closely knit. Parents had greater control over their children. Children attended catechism classes and retreats. There was an atmosphere of prayer in the families. My family I know was very faithful to the evening Rosary and the Litany of Saints. It was considered a privilege to be chosen to serve at Mass. We used to read about the heroism of Missionaries in the ‘Kunju Missionary magazine. To be a Priest was considered a great noble Vocation and as children, we even imitated and pretended to celebrate Mass with sackcloth on our backs for vestment and a broken cup for a chalice. So it was not surprising that most of us put up our hands wanting to be Priests.

For the next question of Fr Philip only half the number of hands went up. He asked how many of us have permission from our parents to become Priests. Mine too was among the raised hands. He told those who had not put up their hands that he would come again around the same time in the following year and that they could obtain permission from their parents and be ready. Those of us who put up our hands were instructed  to meet him with our parents in our parish Church on a specified date. Thus began the long journey. How our vocation hung on the raising of a hand!

I came back home and shared with my parents the meeting I had with the Priest.  On the specified day my father and I went to meet the Priest in the Parish Church. Fr Philip asked my father if he would be happy to send me to an apostolic school to study and to become a Priest, if God so wills.  He enquired from my father about the number of children in the family, about my health, our economic status and our ability to support my education. He then gave my father the address of Don Bosco Pachalam and asked him to bring me there in the first week of June. He also gave a long list of items to be bought and brought with me. Seeing the long list, I wondered if my father had sufficient finance to buy so many things. I remember, soon after, going around Muvattupuzha market with my father buying these items, at least two items I remember well – an umbrella, and a steel box.

On the appointed day my father took me to Don Bosco Pachalam. It was the first time I had seen the name Don Bosco written on a building and it was the first Don Bosco house I entered. Fr Philip was there to receive us. We were not the only ones, there were more parents coming with children of my age group. Another younger Priest opened my box and went through the things we had brought. They were all very friendly and assured my father that I was safe there and would be looked after well. Soon it was time for my father to return. There were a few drops of tears in my eyes as he took leave.

In a strange place among people not known, I looked for some of my friends who had put up their hands with me in the school but to my surprise, I was the only one from that group of fifteen to reach Don Bosco Pachalam, a story that would be repeated so many times at various stages in my long journey. Like the servant of Job, each time I would complain and say, ‘I alone am left to tell the story ’. 

It would be a long, adventurous journey from that first day in Don Bosco Pachalam. My journey would take me to Bandel, Calcutta, Shillong, Siliguri, Sonada, Sikkim, Nepal and many more places.  All through the journey, in difficult as well as in peaceful times, I was sustained by that one phrase from the Gospel, “Before Philip called you…I saw you”. Long before Fr Philip saw me and called me, someone had seen me and chosen me.    

Thank you, Lord, it all started with you. Even in my mother’s womb you saw me and  knew me. You had a reason why I came into this world. You had a reason for the place and for the parents to whom I was born. You had a reason for sending  Fr Philip Thayil. You had a reason for my failure. You had a reason for that humid hot summer afternoon. You had a reason why you made me raise my hand! 

Let my Jubilee celebration be a hymn of Praise and Thanks for your fidelity and everlasting love.  You are the beginning of my story and it is you where I would like to end it.

-        Fr T.V.George sdb