Message Board

Dear Friends,

The month of August marks two significant celebrations: the Assumption of our Blessed Mother and the 79^th Independence Day of our Nation. Both the celebrations speak of liberation: one, spiritual, and the other, sociopolitical.

The Assumption of Mary reminds us of the destiny that awaits those who live in holiness and fidelity. In Mary, we see the fullness of human dignity and the promise of the resurrection. Pope Pius XII highlighted that the Assumption of Mary is a reward for a life lived in perfect communion with God. As members of Christ’s body, we are called to the same sanctity - pure in body, mind, and soul.

This feast also calls us to inner freedom. As St. Paul affirms, Christ has set us free (Gal 5:1), and, hence, we must not return to the slavery of sin. Let us strive for personal as well as collective liberation. In Mary, our Mother, we find the strength in our moments of struggle and hope in our life journey.

The grand celebration of our nation’s Independence Day brings with it a nagging question: Are we really free today? Our nation flourished as a beautiful country with a rich blend of religions, languages, ethnic cultures and a glorious history. On the contrary, the recent decades have witnessed never-before-seen polarization as pointed out by Moisés Naím in his book ‘The Revenge of Power: How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century’. Exacerbating existing societal divisions to create an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, making it harder for people to find common ground and weakening the social unity is a political agenda. Our nation is polarized by caste, religion, and narrow political and religious ideologies. The unique ideal ‘unity in diversity’, which once defined our national spirit, is under siege. Fanaticism and intolerance are gradually eroding the legacy of our nation’s longstanding values and, sadly, injustice is often justified in the name of religion by the fundamentalists. Yet, even amidst these conflicts, the National Flag must fly high, not merely as a symbol of the freedom won with great struggle from the colonial rule, but as a clarion call for the freedom from narrow and discordant ideologies. As Jesuits, we are called to be prophets who fight for reconciliation and justice. We need to commit ourselves to the mission of promoting the Constitutional values in order to eradicate fundamentalism from this land.

It is quite significant that the Prayer Intention of the Pope for this month also addresses a similar concern. The Pope invites all of us to join him to pray for mutual coexistence: Let us pray that societies where coexistence seems more difficult might not succumb to the temptation of confrontation for ethnic, political, religious or ideological reasons. These twin feasts call us to become instruments of transformation growing in interior freedom like Mary and striving for justice and unity in our nation. May we actively promote peace, dialogue, and constitutional values in our communities and in the nation. Let’s awaken ourselves from indifference and apathy to stand for truth, justice and reconciliation.

Fr. Thomas Amirtham, S.J.,

Provincial, The Jesuit Madurai Province