Self-Sufficiency Guarantee

The Supreme Court of India has struck down the Electoral Bonds as anti-Constitutional. After six years of debate, the court has made its decision. The electoral bonds were a kind of guarantee for the various parties of the country to get and spend money for the party. It was introduced to remove or at least to lessen corruption. It was a sort of ‘honest’ corruption.

It is election time. Anywhere we look we find guarantee slogans. Every political party is guaranteeing the public, a better day if their party is elected. It is time that we too begin a debate about the ‘self-sufficiency guarantee’ schemes and projects that many Institutes are putting in place to make sure that they and their works survive. The focus of these projects is more on the survival of their Institutes than on the Mission for which an Institute was founded. Many schemes and works are being initiated to guarantee self-sufficiency. Will there be another body, may be a General Assembly or a Chapter, that will strike down these measures as anti-Constitutional? Are these measures a kind of ‘ honest’ adjustment of the Mission to the signs of the times?

Basically, the self-sufficiency mantra says that we need to initiate and put in place works that guarantee a regular return so that the Apostolate survive uninterrupted in the future. It looks apparently a very noble goal. After all, it is for the survival and prosperity of our works we undertake these guarantees. Foreign flow of funds can lead to greater corruption and may also be stopped by the government. So initiating self-sufficiency projects and initiatives seems a very wise and prudent step. 

But for Institutes who have professed to depend on God and work for the poorest, moving towards such self-sufficiency raises many questions. It will necessarily result in the movement of the Institute towards a class of people who can guarantee self-sufficiency. Like any business establishment, profitability and a greater return will ultimately become the criteria. Gradually we will move away from those whom we have pledged to serve and the poor will be replaced by those who can provide us with self-sufficiency. With the passage of time, articles of the Constitution of Institutes will have to be amended to reflect the changed reality. Rather than fidelity to a Mission, survival of the Institute seems to be the priority. Is not such a movement against the fundamental rights of those to whom we were sent to serve?  Which is more important, the survival of an institute or fidelity to a Mission? Is it necessary that an Institute should survive if its Mission changes? Certainly, if this topic is open to debate there is sufficient matter for the motion as well as for the opposition.   

I, for one, would love to argue for the motion that these sufficiency measures are anti-constitutional. My experience in the last few years will make my argument stronger.  I am working in a mission station in a remote corner, far away from the ‘center’ of my Province, in the sense that it is away from where the administrative office is situated. Another topic for a good debate would be which is the ‘center’ for an Institute committed to working for the poor.  This mission was started a few years ago as a response to the call of  Major Superiors to move to the peripheries. This area is one of the poorest regions of the Country as well as of my Province. There is plenty of scope to work among the poor, and abundant opportunity for mission work. Yet, huge projects, started much later than this mission, as a ‘guarantee for self-sufficiency’,  have been completed and blessed and have begun to bring in ‘returns’ while for this mission in the periphery, not a brick has been laid on another. Being geographically far from the ‘center’, hardly anyone responsible visits the place nor initiates works for the development of this mission.   Obviously being a poor area, it cannot guarantee a regular return. The poor and the needy, whom we have vowed to serve, do they not have a fundamental right to our service? Which should be our priority, work closer to the ‘center’, which is often situated in a large town and can guarantee self-sufficiency, or the one on the periphery for the poor and the needy?  While the documents and authorities speak about options for those on the periphery, the reality seems the opposite. A debate on the topic would establish the veracity or the falsehood of this assumption.

Some of the reports from those who are in a better position to know the facts seem to suggest that there is a shift taking place. This is what one Major Superior of an Institute wrote, “There is a slow distancing of our institutions from the very poor for whom we had started the institution. Slowly we realize that the really poor people are still in government schools while we move to the middle class who can pay the fees in our institutions.”

 While debating this topic in a meeting, a learned professor who argued for  ‘self-sufficiency’  quoted a popular proverb. He said, “God helps those who help themselves”. Strange God did not help himself with a better place to be born. He did not help himself when he was hungry. He did not turn the stone into bread.  He did not worship the devil at the prospect of lands, glittering cities, or high-rise towers. He did not jump down from top of the temple to display his power nor come down from the cross to save himself.  He stood faithful to the mission he had set out for himself. And he died for that mission. He did not adjust his mission for his survival.  

I remember reading a newspaper report sometime back of how one day a billionaire approached Mother Teresa and offered her a large amount of money to be put in a fixed deposit so that she could continue her work with its interest. Mother Teresa is reported to have refused the money. She did not want such a full-proof guarantee, rather she opted to depend on Providence.  I am sure some of those who profess the self-sufficiency mantra would be eager to get the address of that billionaire!

If God is helping only those who help themselves, then Jesus should have congratulated the man who had a good harvest and provided security for himself by building large storerooms. He should have been called a wise, prudent, clever man who provided for self-sufficiency. After all he had worked hard, he furrowed deep, he sowed the best seeds, he put up fences, he made plans for bigger storerooms. He took steps to guarantee he was provided for his future.  But Jesus called him a ‘fool’. ( Lk.12.20) 

Jesus called him a fool because he thought it was his skill, his cleverness, his effort alone that produced the good crop. No doubt he contributed much towards a good crop.  But there was another stake holder whom he forgot at the time of prosperity. Instead of looking at himself, he should have looked up and looked around. The good crop was very much due to the soil, the sunshine, the rain. Someone else had contributed for these. Instead of being grateful to this contributor, he could only see, ‘my crop’, ‘my grain’ ‘my barn’ ’my goods’ and he repeats that ‘I’ and ‘my’ ten times in just two verses.  The ‘I’ sickness increases tenfold with the increase in wealth. This is the danger when we work for  self-sufficiency guarantee. We see only ourselves. We see only ‘my work’ ‘my money’ my wealth’ ‘my mission’.  We attribute success to our skills and tactics and forget there is another stakeholder.

Providence does not mean, one can be lax and lethargic, instead trust in Providence drives one to work hard and make every effort as if everything depended on them.  Jesus taught us to ask and to work hard,   very hard for our daily bread but before we ask or work he taught us there is a caring providing Father whose kingdom and whose will we must seek. Only those who are centered on God, and recognize a provident Father, are genuinely able to give themselves to total love and service. Daily bread, our survival is important, but the mission we are sent to carry out and the one who sent us, have priority. We cannot adjust the latter to serve the interest of the former.

However clever one may be, whatever tactics one may employ, and however high one may build, success does not depend on one’s effort alone. Don’t be fooled by self-sufficiency mantras. Those who help themselves should know, that they are helpless if rain does not fall if the sun does not shine, if seeds do not grow. These depend on someone else. If there is any lesson we have learned from the recent Covid-19, it should have been that there is a limit to which we can help ourselves. 

Success does not guarantee fidelity. Fidelity guarantees success. Mother Teresa would say, “ I am called to be faithful, not successful”.  We can climb fast the ladder of success, but if the ladder is leaning on the wrong wall we reach our destruction faster.

                                                                           -Fr T.V. George sdb,