POWER OF THE PRAYER - II.

Death is always terrible especially when it comes when you are active and able bodied when you are of much use not only to your nearest and dearest but to your community and the society as well. Worst of the deaths that one cannot absorb is the death on the Gallows.  Great Sociologists, Social Scientists and Anthropologists oppose the death on the Gallows with the logic and reasoning that State has no right to take your life from you, not even an individual can take away your life. Only God can take away your life and being the almighty God who is the creator of our life he alone can touch our life.   The rest none can touch your life. Yet  we see the State and governments take away our life when the State’s or Government’s branch known as Judiciary passes its verdict on a criminal who commits a crime by taking away life of somebody.  This is called a capital punishment, this type of punishment normally reserved and passed against those who murder or kill other human beings for any relevant or irrelevant reason.

 This type of punishment it looks is based on the law of Hamurabi the ancient king of ancient Mesopotamia that currently falls around Basrah and Baghdad in Iraq. It was this King who introduced the first Code of this planet known as “Eye for an eye and Tooth for tooth”.  When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait he was during those few turbulent months taking pride in front of the World leaders who came to meet him, by saying “Iraq is such a civilized land that we had the unique distinction of giving to this World the first known Code” and on the other side to humiliate Kuwait, Kuwaitis and the Kuwaiti Sheikhs, he used to say this with  lot of anger: “these Kuwaitis and especially the Sheikhs they know only one thing that is to collect money and girls, besides that they cannot do anything   They are a disgrace on Arabs and Islam.  It is they who lower the image of Arabs and Islam”.

When death sentence was passed in Kuwait against Francis Araujo  in late eighties for murdering two persons as I indicated last week in this forum, we tried all the avenues to commute it, I myself personally tried so much but nothing could be done, even our Indian Embassy refused to involve citing that “we don’t support murderers”. Even the lawyer whom we hired to defend Araujo by paying so much of money remained absent  by going to Cairo on the day the final judgment was passed. Only the Maltese Bishop of Kuwait sided with us and made a Mercy Petition on behalf of the Church which the Kuwait government rejected.

When we realized that everything is lost for us, we all joined together and started to pray continuously to give courage to Araujo to face this death boldly and gracefully without making any scene of refusal and disturbance while going to the gallows.  Normally these persons refuse to move and shout loudly even giving bad words vomiting all the secrets they know.  Araujo told once to his Sister when she went to visit him in his prison cell that he will vomit all the secrets of Kuwait government what they do for them in the prison but last minute he remained silent and carried those secrets to his grave along with his dead body.

When on the day of the hanging of Francis Araujo, Fr. Pinto a Mangalorean priest attached to the Kuwait Church went to him early in the morning with the Holy Communion, he wished Fr. Pinto saying:  "Hi Father!! Good Morning.  You are come? Welcome. Fr., I am strong and well composed because Jesus is with me". Even at the time of going to the gallows we were in deep prayer and with Jesus with him accompanying him, he climbed the Gallows and faced the death very boldly as none faced before so calmly, as per the jail authorities, even they were surprised.

This same method we all people of God will apply in our life while facing the danger of Corona Virus and this danger will surely disappear.  I am positive about it since I have tasted the power of Prayer even at the last minute God accepted my prayer. I will pray on my part and you should pray on your side. And the victory will be ours.

A.Veronica Fernandes.

THE POWER OF PRAYER.

In today’s  Herald dated  31.03.20, I read on page No. 4 a nice article on “The Power of Prayer” under people’s edit by Ibonio D’Souza where he describes how great is the power of prayer and some of the quotes he indicated are worthy of admiring. 

Going a step further, let me supplement it with something of what I know of the power of prayer. In the Biblical book of Prophet Joshua, it is written like this:  While fighting his war against his enemies, He felt the need of Sun Light which was coming to an end and if the Sun goes down with the advent of the night the  darkness will surely envelope the  world including the battlefield where the Prophet Joshua and his army fighting the battle against his enemies (Philistines?) and because of this darkness there was every possibility for Prophet Joshua to lose war.  At that moment Joshua till that moment heavily relying on his troop led by Him to defeat his enemies, realized that depending upon himself and his troop is going to be useless and with all his mind and heart asked Heavenly God something impossible, to come to his rescue by creating a miracle of keeping the Sun intact to help him to indlict defeat on his enemies.  The power of this prayer was so great, that God had no other choice but to accede to Prophet Joshua’s prayer and keep not only the Sun but also the entire Stellar system intact for 24 hours till Prophet Joshua won the battle. 

This incident was finally scientifically proved as genuine during the second Moon landing expedition. One of the Astronauts was entrusted with the task of checking the rotations of the Sun round the Earth and after double checking and convinced his finding is correct he sent the message to the ground saying that he found on one day Son did not go down.  Though the ground scientists were not very much convinced thinking there must have been a human error occurred while collecting the data by the top  Astronaut, at that moment only it was dawned on the mind of the top Astronaut that this was exactly scripted in the Biblicsal Book of Joshua which was finally confirmed even by all.  The Astronaut who did this finding as a young student was very good in Biblical studies where he read this incident.  Inspite of this, he was not ready to accept the Biblical facts turning himself an atheist.  However, miraculously, while going to the Moon he was an atheist but while returning he was a convert and as a mark of respect for the Bible and God, he left his job after landing on to the surface of the Earth, he left everything and turned into  a gospel preacher.  This is the power of prayer if we apply properly in our prayer, I am sure the power of Corona Virus will disappear like an ether.  What a tiny invissible particle known as Corona Virus is shaking the whole world inflicting total fear in us who  produced mighty and deadly weapons such as Atomic and Hydrogen to eradicate human beings from this planet, finally we are become impotent to face these invisible particles!! Where is our power gone now?  Yes, we have our power not in mighty weapons but in our prayers of the type Prophet Joshua prayed.     

A.Veronica Fernandes.

IN GOA, FUNERAL SERVICE IS STRIPPED OF ITS RITES.

In today’s Times of India, Goa edition, on page No.2 under the heading “Grave matter of funeral skip solemnity”, there appeared a very interesting news item by Lisa Monteiro where it is said how due to the current situation the final rites alone are directly performed in the Cemetery  by bypassing even the Mass in the Church.

  

It looks very serious matter of denying the dead  person even the blessing of the Mass.  I don’t think it was made mandatory by the government but it looks to me that the Church leadership to indicate its over enthusiasm of obedience, it  went one step ahead and decided thus: “if we are expected only to bend down, we will go beyond that and to please the authorities concerned we will not only bend down but we will stoop down too”.

  

This stripping of the funeral rites these days in the name of Corona Virus could have been easily settled nicely by performing the rites at home as usual with the family members only and the Mass in the Church also with the family members and  very close relatives.  All these people could be accommodated in the Church by spreading them on the benches far from one another in keeping with the instruction of keeping a safe distance between the two persons.  As an added support to this system, the Priest while offering the Mass can also say a few words in explaining why this method has to be followed by asking the co-operation of everyone  and thereby allowing only the close blood relatives of the dead person in the Cemetery.

          If this procedure is followed, I don’t think it would be an infringement of  professional foul needing the Red Card.  As it is, we are seeing so many people for a short time  gathering near the Grocery Shops in the purchasing spree and yet things are going well. In the name of implementing law and order there should not be any inconvenience to the public however even if by not implementing the law and order situation everything goes normal then those who are responsible for implementing the law and order they should just ignore and look the other side to allow the situation to move on its own. If the Church authorities feel that my suggestion as indicated above is workable then I feel it should be implemented.

In the same news item the writer writes saying how difficult it is now to get the services of regular Grave Diggers and in the absence of them this job is gone into the hands of migrant workers who are also charging heavily.

  

While on this subject let me say something more, traditionally this job of the Grave Diggers was performed by a certain Caste people from Roman Catholic community and traditionally every village of Goa was inhabited by their tribe in one Vaddo, this particular Vaddo was even named after their Caste. During Portuguese rule in Goa with the backing and the silent nod of the Bamon Bhattkarshahi that was very close to the Portuguese Royalty and also to the Church, this particular Caste of Grave Diggers was purposely kept at the lowest ebb without affording them any opportunity to  develop and move beyond their own area of Caste and they were given most menial work that was rejected by the others.  However, when the last Portugues Governador came to Goa somewhere in 1958, he opened their File and silently studied their problems and thru his own officials started helping them first by encouraging their children to go to schools and one from their Caste got qualified the Governador himself made his efforts and got him the job of a Postmaster – Chef of Post Office – in one particular village in Bardez.

 

Our Caste system was based on the profession that we performed and also to keep the availability of their work unhindered for the requirement of the high grade, high caste and for the society as a whole like that of the grave diggers, caste system was supported by our Church too.  Precisely, because of this I feel, I Goa Church failed to oppose the practice of Caste system even in our Church premises, on the contrary our Goa Church supported and promoted the existence of Caste system in our Churches.  Even the great Padris and Saint of Goa namely Pe. Jose Vaz and Pe. Agnelo remained as silent spectators in front of the Church supported and Church promoted Caste System.  Because of this Caste System so many of our young Seminarians had not suffered the persecution and even dismissal from the Seminaries?

 When Martin Luther the Civil Rightist and the Baptist denomination Christian in America, one day preaching in his Church at Montgomery, he preached thus pointing his finger to the Whites who by being  White Skinners, by tradition and system of the Church had to occupy  the Benches in the Church to the Right Side and the Blacks to the Left.  Seeing this discriminatory system in the house of God, Martin Luther preached thus pointing out to the White Skinners: "My dear brothers and sisters, if you cannot integrate with the masses - pointing out to the Blacks - you will never integrate with Christ because Christ Himself come from the masses". This one sentence was enough to produce the required effect to create revolutionary effect against apartheid in USA.  Did any Padri of ours in Goa during about 500 years of our Roman Catholicism said anything like what Martin Luther said from the Pulpit? Our Church was full of Casteism and most of our Brahmins promoted it in their daily routine, even the great Ghaum Bhau of mine Abade Faria (l'Abbe Faria) firmly believed in his Brahmin Caste and after his death when one of his books was published the author's name was indicated as " l'Abbe Faria, Brahmin, Doctor in Theology".

A.Veronica Fernandes.