Letters and Chronicles from a Missionary Life, From April 1967 to the Present, With Updated Annotations
This book was published at Maryknoll New York on October 5, 2o15
You may contact me to receive a copy of the book or of individual chapters.
The introduction is as follows for those interested in its contents
INTRODUCTION
I began to annotate this document on September 25, 2014, so that the footnotes contain my reflections or additions or comments from that time onward.
Being an exile from my own family at the early age of fifteen, in the Maryknoll minor seminary called the Venard, in the town of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, I eagerly recognized letter writing as the only link I would have with my family. It was no bother to me that we were required to write a letter home every Sunday anyway. Mom had always been the letter writer at home, doing the needed not only for her mother, brother and sisters back home in Galway, Ireland, but also for Dad’s family as well, in Cork, Ireland. So I emulated Mom. She became my constant letter writing companion over the decades that I was away: eleven in the seminary in various parts of this country, twenty-five altogether in Mexico in several clusters of years and ten in Bangladesh and India, also in two clusters of years.
While I have preserved many letters that I have received over the decades because of the importance that I gave to those relationships, how I lament that Mom never kept any of my letters!
Letter writing became my only link with many friends, mostly in the United States, but increasingly scattered in their various homelands, and then too with my extended Irish family in Ireland and England.
I have always maintained that a letter from anyone is a sacred trust between us that I make sure to answer in an appropriate manner, whether by a visit or a phone call or a letter. Sooner or later! Implicitly I have seen my habit of writing an annual general letter as an intentional bonding with the many hundreds of relatives and friends and benefactors that I have accumulated over the decades. It is my way of saying that I am still here for you and for our friendship.
At times when I have gotten to visit or call by phone or otherwise be in touch with some of this horde of dear ones, I have discovered the importance that they have given to these letters, even though they have not written or called me recently, or ever! This has always been a truly heartening encounter for me. It also serves as a continued motivation for me to send out these annual letters since the good that is done in people’s lives I cannot measure by the number of responses that I get.
Those mass mailings have served to remind me that some people move away or out of my life, when their letters get returned to me.
This collection contains the letters that I have been able to gather, scan, transcribe and load up here in this document. I have also included several chronicles of significant trips that I have made to India, Peru, Palestine/Israel, United States, Ireland, and Bolivia, since they contain so much of the joy and challenges of my life as a pilgrim missionary.
If anyone has a copy of a letter that is not in this collection, I ask you to please send it to me to be included. While most of them are general, that is, directed to “family and friends” which includes just about everyone, some were directed only to my benefactors who have supported my mission work with their generous gifts.
At the same time that I am involved in this project, I have done the same for my collection of annual letters in Spanish, directed mostly to the many friends that I have made over the years within Mexico. Cumulatively I have lived in Mexico for 25 years, mostly in Yucatan but also in Mexico City. Nowadays there is a large portion of the recipients of my Spanish letters living in these United States, as well as a few other countries where they have scattered themselves.
I have left the texts true to their originals, while at the same time doing some minor editing of them where I thought it necessary. I use italics to indicate the original text of the letters. The number after a word or phrase will have an explanation in its footnote at the end of that particular letter.
It took me a long time to tell this story and to put it together for you. I hope that you will enjoy the trip. Take your time.
July 26, 2015
John P. Martin
INTRODUCTION
I began to annotate this document on September 25, 2014, so that the footnotes contain my reflections or additions or comments from that time onward.
Being an exile from my own family at the early age of fifteen, in the Maryknoll minor seminary called the Venard, in the town of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, I eagerly recognized letter writing as the only link I would have with my family. It was no bother to me that we were required to write a letter home every Sunday anyway. Mom had always been the letter writer at home, doing the needed not only for her mother, brother and sisters back home in Galway, Ireland, but also for Dad’s family as well, in Cork, Ireland. So I emulated Mom. She became my constant letter writing companion over the decades that I was away: eleven in the seminary in various parts of this country, twenty-five altogether in Mexico in several clusters of years and ten in Bangladesh and India, also in two clusters of years.
While I have preserved many letters that I have received over the decades because of the importance that I gave to those relationships, how I lament that Mom never kept any of my letters!
Letter writing became my only link with many friends, mostly in the United States, but increasingly scattered in their various homelands, and then too with my extended Irish family in Ireland and England.
I have always maintained that a letter from anyone is a sacred trust between us that I make sure to answer in an appropriate manner, whether by a visit or a phone call or a letter. Sooner or later! Implicitly I have seen my habit of writing an annual general letter as an intentional bonding with the many hundreds of relatives and friends and benefactors that I have accumulated over the decades. It is my way of saying that I am still here for you and for our friendship.
At times when I have gotten to visit or call by phone or otherwise be in touch with some of this horde of dear ones, I have discovered the importance that they have given to these letters, even though they have not written or called me recently, or ever! This has always been a truly heartening encounter for me. It also serves as a continued motivation for me to send out these annual letters since the good that is done in people’s lives I cannot measure by the number of responses that I get.
Those mass mailings have served to remind me that some people move away or out of my life, when their letters get returned to me.
This collection contains the letters that I have been able to gather, scan, transcribe and load up here in this document. I have also included several chronicles of significant trips that I have made to India, Peru, Palestine/Israel, United States, Ireland, and Bolivia, since they contain so much of the joy and challenges of my life as a pilgrim missionary.
If anyone has a copy of a letter that is not in this collection, I ask you to please send it to me to be included. While most of them are general, that is, directed to “family and friends” which includes just about everyone, some were directed only to my benefactors who have supported my mission work with their generous gifts.
At the same time that I am involved in this project, I have done the same for my collection of annual letters in Spanish, directed mostly to the many friends that I have made over the years within Mexico. Cumulatively I have lived in Mexico for 25 years, mostly in Yucatan but also in Mexico City. Nowadays there is a large portion of the recipients of my Spanish letters living in these United States, as well as a few other countries where they have scattered themselves.
I have left the texts true to their originals, while at the same time doing some minor editing of them where I thought it necessary. I use italics to indicate the original text of the letters. The number after a word or phrase will have an explanation in its footnote at the end of that particular letter.
It took me a long time to tell this story and to put it together for you. I hope that you will enjoy the trip. Take your time.
July 26, 2015
John P. Martin
This section will contain the contents of the index of the above book:
INDEX
Introduction, p. 9.
1. Casa Cural, Colonia Yucatan, via Tizimin, Yucatan, Mexico, April 1967, p. 11.
2. Mexico City, July 6, 1975, p. 14.
3. Barisal, Bangladesh, Christmas season 1975, p. 16.
4. Barisal, Bangladesh, October 1976, p. 18.
5. Tangail, Bangladesh, Christmas Day 1977, p. 20.
6. Christmas Day 1979, Loreto Mission, Pakistan, My 40th Birthday, Dec. 28, 1979, Multan, Pakistan, Thanksgiving Month, November 1980, Tangail, Bangladesh, p. 22.
7. Until Mid-November: P. O. Box 2399, Dacca, Bangladesh, October 1, 1981, p. 26.
8. Los Angeles, California, Christmas 1984, p. 28.
9. 745 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90007, January, 1985, p. 30.
10. 745 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90007, November 1986, p. 33.
11. 745 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90007, First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 1987, p. 36.
12. Los Angeles CA, November 1987, p. 39.
13. 105 Maple Street, Belmont, MA 02178, November 1989, p. 41.
14. 50 Dunster Road, Chestnut Hill MA 02167, Christmas 1990, p. 44.
15. 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx NY 10463, April 1991, p. 46.
16. 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx NY 10463, April 1991, p. 48.
17. News and Views from India, No. 1, Calcutta, Oct. 21, 1991, p. 50.
18. Calcutta, Nov. 1, 1991, Greetings to all you saints! , p. 55.
19. NEWS AND VIEWS FROM INDIA #2, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, January 10, 1992, p. 57.
20. NEWS AND VIEWS FROM INDIA #3, Calcutta, July 1992, p. 63.
21. Calcutta, West Bengal, October 1992, (Mailing address: 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx New York 10463) , p. 69.
22. News and Views from India, No. 4; Bangkok, Thailand; Feb. 1993, p. 74.
23. News and Views From India - No. 5, Shantiniketan, West Bengal, July 1993, p. 79.
24. Calcutta, West Bengal, India, January 1994, p. 84.
25. 2243 Saragossa Ave., Jacksonville Florida 33217-2685, March 1, 1996, p. 87.
26. March 1, 1996, (Jacksonville Florida), p. 92.
27. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, January 1, 1997, p. 93.
28. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, May 22, 1997, p. 94.
29. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, November 1998, p. 98.
30. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, November 13, 1998, p. 103 and 104.
31. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. Garcia Gineres, 97070 Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, April 22, 1999, p. 106.
32. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, May 2000, p. 110.
33. Diary from Peru, October 2000, p. 114.
34. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, January 2001, p. 126.
35. October 2001, Bethlehem, p. 129.
36. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. Garcia Gineres, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Easter Time, April 2003, p. 133.
37. San Jose Obrero, Colonia Sambula, Merida, Yucatan, México, December 12, 2004, p. 137.
38. A WALKING SABBATICAL, John P. Martin, May 31, 2005, p. 141.
Evaluation and reflection on my visits and interviews with Maryknoll Affiliates, January through May 2005.
39. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia Garcia Gineres, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2005, p. 150.
40. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2006, p. 154.
41. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, June 3, 2007, p. 156.
42. Calle 21 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Christmas 2007 and New Year´s 2008, p. 158.
43. REFLECTION PAPER ON MY TRIP TO IRELAND, first edition, JULY 2-28, 2008, p. 161.
44. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2008, p. 179.
45. Visitation Parish, Bronx NY, Homily for Mom’s funeral Mass, June 11, 2009, p. 182.
46. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Christmas 2009, p. 185.
47. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, January 11, 2010, p. 188.
48. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, April 2010, p. 190.
49. My first trip (Back) to Bolivia, by John P. Martin, April 2010, p. 192.
50. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia Garcia Gineres, 97070 Merida, Yucatan, México, July 16, 2010, p. 197.
51. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Merida, Yucatán, México, November 2010, p. 199.
52. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, August 2011, p. 202.
53. ASCENSION CHURCH, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, HOMILY FOR MASS AT ASCENSION CHURCH, REUNION CELEBRATION, OCTOBER 22, 2011, p. 204.
54. NEW ADDRESS AS OF JANUARY 2012: Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545 December 13, 2011, p. 207.
55. WALKING INTO GRAND CANYON AND AWAY FROM THE GANGES, September 1, 2012 version, p. 210.
56. BOX 305, MARYKNOLL NY 10545, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012, p. 212.
57. Rejection, Merida, Yucatan, July 6, 2012, p. 214.
58. Holy Saturday of Holy Week, 2012, East Islip, N.Y., p. 215.
59. On “A Common Word” and its meaning, October 15, 2012, p. 217.
60. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, December 2012, p. 219.
61. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, p. 221.
62. IT WAS MY TRIP UNTIL I GOT TAKEN FOR A RIDE, Two weeks for two trips to Ireland in 2013, p. 224.
63. Maryknoll, NY, December 2013, (cover letter), p. 232.
64. Maryknoll, NY, December 2013, p. 233.
65. Maryknoll, NY, September 14, 2014, p. 235.
66. Maryknoll, NY, March 30, 2015, p. 237.
67. A Word After, p. 239.
INDEX
Introduction, p. 9.
1. Casa Cural, Colonia Yucatan, via Tizimin, Yucatan, Mexico, April 1967, p. 11.
2. Mexico City, July 6, 1975, p. 14.
3. Barisal, Bangladesh, Christmas season 1975, p. 16.
4. Barisal, Bangladesh, October 1976, p. 18.
5. Tangail, Bangladesh, Christmas Day 1977, p. 20.
6. Christmas Day 1979, Loreto Mission, Pakistan, My 40th Birthday, Dec. 28, 1979, Multan, Pakistan, Thanksgiving Month, November 1980, Tangail, Bangladesh, p. 22.
7. Until Mid-November: P. O. Box 2399, Dacca, Bangladesh, October 1, 1981, p. 26.
8. Los Angeles, California, Christmas 1984, p. 28.
9. 745 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90007, January, 1985, p. 30.
10. 745 West Adams Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90007, November 1986, p. 33.
11. 745 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90007, First Sunday of Advent, November 29, 1987, p. 36.
12. Los Angeles CA, November 1987, p. 39.
13. 105 Maple Street, Belmont, MA 02178, November 1989, p. 41.
14. 50 Dunster Road, Chestnut Hill MA 02167, Christmas 1990, p. 44.
15. 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx NY 10463, April 1991, p. 46.
16. 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx NY 10463, April 1991, p. 48.
17. News and Views from India, No. 1, Calcutta, Oct. 21, 1991, p. 50.
18. Calcutta, Nov. 1, 1991, Greetings to all you saints! , p. 55.
19. NEWS AND VIEWS FROM INDIA #2, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, January 10, 1992, p. 57.
20. NEWS AND VIEWS FROM INDIA #3, Calcutta, July 1992, p. 63.
21. Calcutta, West Bengal, October 1992, (Mailing address: 140 Van Cortlandt Ave. West, Bronx New York 10463) , p. 69.
22. News and Views from India, No. 4; Bangkok, Thailand; Feb. 1993, p. 74.
23. News and Views From India - No. 5, Shantiniketan, West Bengal, July 1993, p. 79.
24. Calcutta, West Bengal, India, January 1994, p. 84.
25. 2243 Saragossa Ave., Jacksonville Florida 33217-2685, March 1, 1996, p. 87.
26. March 1, 1996, (Jacksonville Florida), p. 92.
27. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, January 1, 1997, p. 93.
28. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, May 22, 1997, p. 94.
29. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, November 1998, p. 98.
30. Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, November 13, 1998, p. 103 and 104.
31. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. Garcia Gineres, 97070 Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, April 22, 1999, p. 106.
32. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, May 2000, p. 110.
33. Diary from Peru, October 2000, p. 114.
34. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, January 2001, p. 126.
35. October 2001, Bethlehem, p. 129.
36. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. Garcia Gineres, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Easter Time, April 2003, p. 133.
37. San Jose Obrero, Colonia Sambula, Merida, Yucatan, México, December 12, 2004, p. 137.
38. A WALKING SABBATICAL, John P. Martin, May 31, 2005, p. 141.
Evaluation and reflection on my visits and interviews with Maryknoll Affiliates, January through May 2005.
39. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia Garcia Gineres, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2005, p. 150.
40. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2006, p. 154.
41. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, June 3, 2007, p. 156.
42. Calle 21 #221 (con 28), Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Christmas 2007 and New Year´s 2008, p. 158.
43. REFLECTION PAPER ON MY TRIP TO IRELAND, first edition, JULY 2-28, 2008, p. 161.
44. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, December 2008, p. 179.
45. Visitation Parish, Bronx NY, Homily for Mom’s funeral Mass, June 11, 2009, p. 182.
46. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, Christmas 2009, p. 185.
47. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, January 11, 2010, p. 188.
48. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, México, April 2010, p. 190.
49. My first trip (Back) to Bolivia, by John P. Martin, April 2010, p. 192.
50. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia Garcia Gineres, 97070 Merida, Yucatan, México, July 16, 2010, p. 197.
51. Calle 27 #221 con 28, Colonia García Ginerés, 97070 Merida, Yucatán, México, November 2010, p. 199.
52. Calle 27 #221 (con 28), Col. García Ginerés, 97070 Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico, August 2011, p. 202.
53. ASCENSION CHURCH, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, HOMILY FOR MASS AT ASCENSION CHURCH, REUNION CELEBRATION, OCTOBER 22, 2011, p. 204.
54. NEW ADDRESS AS OF JANUARY 2012: Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545 December 13, 2011, p. 207.
55. WALKING INTO GRAND CANYON AND AWAY FROM THE GANGES, September 1, 2012 version, p. 210.
56. BOX 305, MARYKNOLL NY 10545, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012, p. 212.
57. Rejection, Merida, Yucatan, July 6, 2012, p. 214.
58. Holy Saturday of Holy Week, 2012, East Islip, N.Y., p. 215.
59. On “A Common Word” and its meaning, October 15, 2012, p. 217.
60. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, December 2012, p. 219.
61. Box 305, Maryknoll NY 10545, Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013, p. 221.
62. IT WAS MY TRIP UNTIL I GOT TAKEN FOR A RIDE, Two weeks for two trips to Ireland in 2013, p. 224.
63. Maryknoll, NY, December 2013, (cover letter), p. 232.
64. Maryknoll, NY, December 2013, p. 233.
65. Maryknoll, NY, September 14, 2014, p. 235.
66. Maryknoll, NY, March 30, 2015, p. 237.
67. A Word After, p. 239.
Writings from a Missionary Life in India, 1991-1994, A Compilation, with updated explanatory notes and reflections
This book contains the pieces that I composed during the three years that I lived in and around Calcutta, West Bengal, India It was published at Maryknoll New York on March 30, 2017
You may contact me to receive a copy of the book or of individual chapters.
The Introduction of this book is as follows:
INTRODUCTION
This book represents another volume in the series that I have been publishing with the title “[writings] from a Missionary Life.” The first volume was entitled: “Letters and Chronicles from a Missionary Life, from 1967 to the present”, which contains updated reflections and commentaries on the texts of the annual letters and occasional chronicles that I sent to family and friends. My upcoming memoir may have the title or subtitle: “Memoir from a Missionary Life”. Another projected volume will be entitled: “Stories from a Missionary Life”, also with updated reflections and commentaries.
In this way I am called to garner the rich fruits of my long missionary life into readable formats for family members and friends and interested folks to read. It is a special joy for me to be able to find these outlets for my writings over the decades, as this has been a calling of mine for many more years than I recall. I constantly get surprised when I read some of my old stuff only to find that I continue to speak and to write in pretty much the same way now as then, and that my contemporary concerns and interests have deep roots in my past.
Some background on this time period is necessary. I had volunteered to leave my priestly ministry in Mexico after nine years since my ordination in 1966 in order to become a member of the Bangladesh Unit of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in 1975. I welcomed this new option for my missionary zeal since it would provide me with the challenge to live out my missionary calling among a people who were not Christian but Muslim. I had experienced frustration at the exclusive preference of my Maryknoll companions in Mexico for exercising our priestly ministry for those who were already Catholic. My initial calling to be a missionary, yes at 12 years of age, was asking for an opportunity to play itself out among a people and culture and religious tradition that were not Catholic or Christian. And so I spontaneously requested to be considered for this new Unit.
Five of us volunteers were accepted for this new Bangladesh Unit, Robert McCahill and Doug Venne from the Philippines, Jacob Esselborn and John Logan Moran from Bolivia and myself from Mexico. John Moran and I were classmates. Despite a bloody military coup in Bangladesh in August 1975 that wiped out the family of the country’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, we nonetheless took an orientation program organized for us at our Maryknoll Center in New York in September of 1975. Our visas came through toward the end of November, that quickly, much to our surprise so that we murmured our praise for one special gift of the English to India: her bureaucracy that continued to function even after the tumultuous coup. We five met in Bangkok from our several departure points in order to fly into Dacca (now Dhaka), the capital of Bangladesh on December 2, 1975.
We eschewed two traditional forms of missionary work and presence: living in a Catholic parish or mission to do pastoral ministry for the members of the Church or direct involvement in programs of a social or developmental nature for the benefit of the general population. Instead we were hearing of a “third way”, from some missiologists and theologians, ably represented by the Irish Dominican Father Bede MacGreggor who spent many years in India as a theology teacher and consultant. He gave us a series of lectures that focused precisely on this emerging third way of evangelization, as he called it. The vibrations of our own hearts were coinciding with this new way as well, which we described thus in our mission vision: to opt for an “apostolate of presence” as “brothers and friends” for the majority Muslim population.
Looking back on those days, we were highly motivated and foolhardy missionaries who had no previous experience in implementing this so-called “third way”, since all of our previous years of missionary work had been done on behalf of Catholic populations in a variety of priestly ministries, and some social development work. Yes, with a decided emphasis on doing work! More foolhardy were we in pretending to have something unique or special to offer to our Muslim sisters and brothers with whom only our two companions from the Philippines had had some contact, but no direct involvement. Fools for Christ we were, if you will.
By the end of our first week in the country, in the southern town of Barisal where we went to the language school conducted by the Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers, I underwent the most severe culture shock of my life. I found my life as I had known myself as a priestly minister in Mexico to be fundamentally disrupted on many levels: I was sick physically more often than ever, more introverted, more depressed, less capable of learning the language, less willing to interact with the Bengali people, more dependent on my affective relationships with folks back in Mexico, etc. And I lived with these disruptions stalwartly bearing all the pain for several years.
Then serendipitously I found myself making a trip to South India to the Shantivanam (Forest of Peace) Ashram of Benedictine Father Bede Griffiths in December 1979, four years later. Through his kind and subtly insightful conversations, I discovered that the culture shock had thrown me from the masculine to the feminine side of my personality, without affecting my sexual orientation. Such a profound and instantaneous shift had to have left me with severe emotional and physical disruptions, it now seemed obvious.
During my several weeks at the ashram, I began to get glimpses of a modification to my missionary vision: since 1975, this had been focused on developing my peculiar relationships with the Muslim people of Bangladesh. I had added a third way of being present to them by seeing myself as “neighbor” to those who lived nearby, besides brother and friend. Father Bede and the Spirit of his Ashram life seepingly led me to see myself to be and to become a brother, friend and neighbor to all peoples. Now this was a new twist for me personally, that emerged from within my heart only slowly over the following years.
And so during the next two years of my life back home in Bangladesh with my companions, I began to realize this vision by a series of pilgrimages to the holy places of several religious traditions in India. I spent a week or two in the following: several Sikh temples in New Delhi and Amritsar in the western State of Punjab, the Muslim Sufi shrine to Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer in the western State of Rajasthan, and a pilgrimage to Badrinath, one of the headwaters of the sacred Ganges River high in the Himalayan mountains. After finishing my 6 year commitment to the Bangladesh Unit in November 1981, I spent 6 months in India visiting the above again and adding longer stays at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, a French city on the southeastern coast and an intense Buddhist Vipassana meditation retreat near Bombay (now called Mumbai), on the west coast.
These were heady and heart-filled and spiritually uplifting experiences whose depths I have yet to reflect on fully. (Another writing task to do!) I had the intermittent lengthy train rides up and down and across India to give me time to assimilate in an entirely non-verbal silent manner the deep experiences of these traditions and their riches. I really had no other natural response to these encounters and heart openings than the gift of silence, plus some journal writing. More than enough to do the job!
As “satisfying” as these experiences had been, they really did not satisfy or satiate me to the point of not needing any more. They only whetted my appetite for more such experiences and for a longer period of time. This was my basic motivation for wanting to return to India in 1991. In January of 1991, I had finished a Master’s Degree in Theology at Harvard Divinity School with a focus on Hinduism and Islam. I negotiated with my leadership persons for special permission to go to India for three years on my own, that is, without any financial backing from Maryknoll. Since I was due to celebrate my 25th anniversary of ordination in June of 1991, I made an appeal to a lot of friends for them to contribute monthly to my Mission Account at Maryknoll so as to support myself for those three years alone in India. I eventually received more than I needed to support my already frugal life style.
With my Harvard degree in hand, I applied for a five year multiple entry visa for India in New York and got it. On my way to India, in September 1991, I flew to Dublin and with my Irish passport, I got another five year multiple entry visa. This was unprecedented, because Christian religious personnel never got such visas for India. The trick was that I concealed my association with my missionary society and my being a Catholic priest altogether, and focused on my living in Asia and my desire to visit friends in India.
I decided to use my Irish passport in India, because the Irish shared with them a history of colonial exploitation by Great Britain and thus I could count on a warm reception from the Indian people. They were aware of having learned a lot from the much longer struggle of the Irish people for their respect and dignity and freedom from British tyranny, gained at last in December 1921. I thought that I would have to alternatively use one passport and the other, leaving the country every six months for nearby countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand, lest I reach the point of having to report to the local police. But this turned out not to be necessary.
This concern for my legal status in the country coincided with my goal of melding into the local scene, whether Hindu or Muslim, when I would be assiduously avoiding involvement with Christian communities. Through the kindness of Rachel Fell-McDermott, a Bengali scholar friend from Harvard, I was able to arrange to stay at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture (RMIC) in Gol Park in Calcutta (now Kolkata), because she had stayed there as well. Indeed, the monks of the Ramakrishna Order provided me with room and board and a sheltering at this formidable religious and cultural institute in the heart of the city.
Ramakrishna (1836-1886) was a renowned Bengali mystic living in the north of the city of Kolkata. He attracted young men to his side who became his disciples, such as the world figure of Swami Vivekananda. This disciple made a tremendous impression with his speeches at the Parliament of Worlds’ Religions in Chicago in 1893 and subsequently was able to initiate several ashrams in the US and Europe besides founding the Ramakrishna Order in 1897 near Kolkata with a great variety of religious and social programs.
I dedicated myself to studying the Bengali language daily, to my spiritual practices alone in my room, to attendance at the numerous cultural and spiritual events sponsored by the Institute, to visiting other possible venues outside the city for a longer insertion into the Bengali Hindu culture, and to longer repeat trips to various holy places and sacred shrines of the various religious traditions of this sub-continent.
During the course of these three years I had the daily compulsive habit of writing a journal and from time to time of writing personal essays.
Since I had a good grasp of the Bengali language and studied it daily, I intended to look for a Hindu contemplative community or ashram in this linguistic and cultural area of West Bengal where I could live and meditate and study with the community members. I also hoped to find a community that had some involvement with projects among the nearby farming people. I found to my chagrin that there was no such ashram community to fit my goals and needs in West Bengal. Since I was determined to stay within this area, I discovered my goals to be shifting on me.
On October 23, 1992, I rented an upstairs flat from Sitikantha Bhattyacharya in the town of Shantiniketan (“abode of peace”), the site of the university founded by the father of Rabindranath Tagore where he began to reside in 1901. My landlord was a Brahmin Hindu with a very liberal and progressive separation from the traditional exclusionary role of the Brahmins in ancient Indian society. Maybe true to their role as scholars, he worked at the university printing press.
And thus I became a hermit without ever having set my mind to it.
One task that I did set my mind to had to do with processing and reflecting upon my myriad pages of notes that I was generating by my current journal writing, with references also to my journals from my six previous years in Bangladesh and India from 1975 to the middle of 1982. As I reread those journals, I created a list of “themes” under which I would place my entries in chronological order. The following is the list of these themes, some code with codes:
1. Scripture and liturgical homilies, mostly now in current files.
2. Bengali people and culture. (B)
3. My health; one’s bodily health, mostly now in current files.
4. My Christian faith.
5. Christians and the Church in India. (CHR-IND)
6. Development: stages and kinds; family; Mexico; transitions; intellectual.
7. Dialogue between dualities.
10. Dreams
11. Humor
13. Identity: list of them; personal; priest; tensions; reconciliation; ascribed; future.
14. India
15. Indian Christian Spirituality (ICS)
16. Inter-religious dialogue (IRD)
17. Maryknoll.
18. Bangladesh (BD)
19. New Humanity
21. Pedagogy
22. Reflections, misc.: reflective process
23. Relationships
24 Sadhana chronicle and elements
25. Separation from one’s Beloved.
26. Sexuality, my
28. US culture, history, religions (US)
29. Values that I appreciate
31. Writing
33. Cross-cultural learning
34. Ramakrishna (RK)
Although I eliminated some themes in time, I maintained the numbering of the remaining ones since they were coded with their original numbers elsewhere in this vast amount of material. Some of the collected journal entries of these themes became the prime matter for a summary or an essay, as will be seen in this compilation.
INTRODUCTION
This book represents another volume in the series that I have been publishing with the title “[writings] from a Missionary Life.” The first volume was entitled: “Letters and Chronicles from a Missionary Life, from 1967 to the present”, which contains updated reflections and commentaries on the texts of the annual letters and occasional chronicles that I sent to family and friends. My upcoming memoir may have the title or subtitle: “Memoir from a Missionary Life”. Another projected volume will be entitled: “Stories from a Missionary Life”, also with updated reflections and commentaries.
In this way I am called to garner the rich fruits of my long missionary life into readable formats for family members and friends and interested folks to read. It is a special joy for me to be able to find these outlets for my writings over the decades, as this has been a calling of mine for many more years than I recall. I constantly get surprised when I read some of my old stuff only to find that I continue to speak and to write in pretty much the same way now as then, and that my contemporary concerns and interests have deep roots in my past.
Some background on this time period is necessary. I had volunteered to leave my priestly ministry in Mexico after nine years since my ordination in 1966 in order to become a member of the Bangladesh Unit of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers in 1975. I welcomed this new option for my missionary zeal since it would provide me with the challenge to live out my missionary calling among a people who were not Christian but Muslim. I had experienced frustration at the exclusive preference of my Maryknoll companions in Mexico for exercising our priestly ministry for those who were already Catholic. My initial calling to be a missionary, yes at 12 years of age, was asking for an opportunity to play itself out among a people and culture and religious tradition that were not Catholic or Christian. And so I spontaneously requested to be considered for this new Unit.
Five of us volunteers were accepted for this new Bangladesh Unit, Robert McCahill and Doug Venne from the Philippines, Jacob Esselborn and John Logan Moran from Bolivia and myself from Mexico. John Moran and I were classmates. Despite a bloody military coup in Bangladesh in August 1975 that wiped out the family of the country’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, we nonetheless took an orientation program organized for us at our Maryknoll Center in New York in September of 1975. Our visas came through toward the end of November, that quickly, much to our surprise so that we murmured our praise for one special gift of the English to India: her bureaucracy that continued to function even after the tumultuous coup. We five met in Bangkok from our several departure points in order to fly into Dacca (now Dhaka), the capital of Bangladesh on December 2, 1975.
We eschewed two traditional forms of missionary work and presence: living in a Catholic parish or mission to do pastoral ministry for the members of the Church or direct involvement in programs of a social or developmental nature for the benefit of the general population. Instead we were hearing of a “third way”, from some missiologists and theologians, ably represented by the Irish Dominican Father Bede MacGreggor who spent many years in India as a theology teacher and consultant. He gave us a series of lectures that focused precisely on this emerging third way of evangelization, as he called it. The vibrations of our own hearts were coinciding with this new way as well, which we described thus in our mission vision: to opt for an “apostolate of presence” as “brothers and friends” for the majority Muslim population.
Looking back on those days, we were highly motivated and foolhardy missionaries who had no previous experience in implementing this so-called “third way”, since all of our previous years of missionary work had been done on behalf of Catholic populations in a variety of priestly ministries, and some social development work. Yes, with a decided emphasis on doing work! More foolhardy were we in pretending to have something unique or special to offer to our Muslim sisters and brothers with whom only our two companions from the Philippines had had some contact, but no direct involvement. Fools for Christ we were, if you will.
By the end of our first week in the country, in the southern town of Barisal where we went to the language school conducted by the Holy Cross Fathers and Brothers, I underwent the most severe culture shock of my life. I found my life as I had known myself as a priestly minister in Mexico to be fundamentally disrupted on many levels: I was sick physically more often than ever, more introverted, more depressed, less capable of learning the language, less willing to interact with the Bengali people, more dependent on my affective relationships with folks back in Mexico, etc. And I lived with these disruptions stalwartly bearing all the pain for several years.
Then serendipitously I found myself making a trip to South India to the Shantivanam (Forest of Peace) Ashram of Benedictine Father Bede Griffiths in December 1979, four years later. Through his kind and subtly insightful conversations, I discovered that the culture shock had thrown me from the masculine to the feminine side of my personality, without affecting my sexual orientation. Such a profound and instantaneous shift had to have left me with severe emotional and physical disruptions, it now seemed obvious.
During my several weeks at the ashram, I began to get glimpses of a modification to my missionary vision: since 1975, this had been focused on developing my peculiar relationships with the Muslim people of Bangladesh. I had added a third way of being present to them by seeing myself as “neighbor” to those who lived nearby, besides brother and friend. Father Bede and the Spirit of his Ashram life seepingly led me to see myself to be and to become a brother, friend and neighbor to all peoples. Now this was a new twist for me personally, that emerged from within my heart only slowly over the following years.
And so during the next two years of my life back home in Bangladesh with my companions, I began to realize this vision by a series of pilgrimages to the holy places of several religious traditions in India. I spent a week or two in the following: several Sikh temples in New Delhi and Amritsar in the western State of Punjab, the Muslim Sufi shrine to Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer in the western State of Rajasthan, and a pilgrimage to Badrinath, one of the headwaters of the sacred Ganges River high in the Himalayan mountains. After finishing my 6 year commitment to the Bangladesh Unit in November 1981, I spent 6 months in India visiting the above again and adding longer stays at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, a French city on the southeastern coast and an intense Buddhist Vipassana meditation retreat near Bombay (now called Mumbai), on the west coast.
These were heady and heart-filled and spiritually uplifting experiences whose depths I have yet to reflect on fully. (Another writing task to do!) I had the intermittent lengthy train rides up and down and across India to give me time to assimilate in an entirely non-verbal silent manner the deep experiences of these traditions and their riches. I really had no other natural response to these encounters and heart openings than the gift of silence, plus some journal writing. More than enough to do the job!
As “satisfying” as these experiences had been, they really did not satisfy or satiate me to the point of not needing any more. They only whetted my appetite for more such experiences and for a longer period of time. This was my basic motivation for wanting to return to India in 1991. In January of 1991, I had finished a Master’s Degree in Theology at Harvard Divinity School with a focus on Hinduism and Islam. I negotiated with my leadership persons for special permission to go to India for three years on my own, that is, without any financial backing from Maryknoll. Since I was due to celebrate my 25th anniversary of ordination in June of 1991, I made an appeal to a lot of friends for them to contribute monthly to my Mission Account at Maryknoll so as to support myself for those three years alone in India. I eventually received more than I needed to support my already frugal life style.
With my Harvard degree in hand, I applied for a five year multiple entry visa for India in New York and got it. On my way to India, in September 1991, I flew to Dublin and with my Irish passport, I got another five year multiple entry visa. This was unprecedented, because Christian religious personnel never got such visas for India. The trick was that I concealed my association with my missionary society and my being a Catholic priest altogether, and focused on my living in Asia and my desire to visit friends in India.
I decided to use my Irish passport in India, because the Irish shared with them a history of colonial exploitation by Great Britain and thus I could count on a warm reception from the Indian people. They were aware of having learned a lot from the much longer struggle of the Irish people for their respect and dignity and freedom from British tyranny, gained at last in December 1921. I thought that I would have to alternatively use one passport and the other, leaving the country every six months for nearby countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Thailand, lest I reach the point of having to report to the local police. But this turned out not to be necessary.
This concern for my legal status in the country coincided with my goal of melding into the local scene, whether Hindu or Muslim, when I would be assiduously avoiding involvement with Christian communities. Through the kindness of Rachel Fell-McDermott, a Bengali scholar friend from Harvard, I was able to arrange to stay at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture (RMIC) in Gol Park in Calcutta (now Kolkata), because she had stayed there as well. Indeed, the monks of the Ramakrishna Order provided me with room and board and a sheltering at this formidable religious and cultural institute in the heart of the city.
Ramakrishna (1836-1886) was a renowned Bengali mystic living in the north of the city of Kolkata. He attracted young men to his side who became his disciples, such as the world figure of Swami Vivekananda. This disciple made a tremendous impression with his speeches at the Parliament of Worlds’ Religions in Chicago in 1893 and subsequently was able to initiate several ashrams in the US and Europe besides founding the Ramakrishna Order in 1897 near Kolkata with a great variety of religious and social programs.
I dedicated myself to studying the Bengali language daily, to my spiritual practices alone in my room, to attendance at the numerous cultural and spiritual events sponsored by the Institute, to visiting other possible venues outside the city for a longer insertion into the Bengali Hindu culture, and to longer repeat trips to various holy places and sacred shrines of the various religious traditions of this sub-continent.
During the course of these three years I had the daily compulsive habit of writing a journal and from time to time of writing personal essays.
Since I had a good grasp of the Bengali language and studied it daily, I intended to look for a Hindu contemplative community or ashram in this linguistic and cultural area of West Bengal where I could live and meditate and study with the community members. I also hoped to find a community that had some involvement with projects among the nearby farming people. I found to my chagrin that there was no such ashram community to fit my goals and needs in West Bengal. Since I was determined to stay within this area, I discovered my goals to be shifting on me.
On October 23, 1992, I rented an upstairs flat from Sitikantha Bhattyacharya in the town of Shantiniketan (“abode of peace”), the site of the university founded by the father of Rabindranath Tagore where he began to reside in 1901. My landlord was a Brahmin Hindu with a very liberal and progressive separation from the traditional exclusionary role of the Brahmins in ancient Indian society. Maybe true to their role as scholars, he worked at the university printing press.
And thus I became a hermit without ever having set my mind to it.
One task that I did set my mind to had to do with processing and reflecting upon my myriad pages of notes that I was generating by my current journal writing, with references also to my journals from my six previous years in Bangladesh and India from 1975 to the middle of 1982. As I reread those journals, I created a list of “themes” under which I would place my entries in chronological order. The following is the list of these themes, some code with codes:
1. Scripture and liturgical homilies, mostly now in current files.
2. Bengali people and culture. (B)
3. My health; one’s bodily health, mostly now in current files.
4. My Christian faith.
5. Christians and the Church in India. (CHR-IND)
6. Development: stages and kinds; family; Mexico; transitions; intellectual.
7. Dialogue between dualities.
10. Dreams
11. Humor
13. Identity: list of them; personal; priest; tensions; reconciliation; ascribed; future.
14. India
15. Indian Christian Spirituality (ICS)
16. Inter-religious dialogue (IRD)
17. Maryknoll.
18. Bangladesh (BD)
19. New Humanity
21. Pedagogy
22. Reflections, misc.: reflective process
23. Relationships
24 Sadhana chronicle and elements
25. Separation from one’s Beloved.
26. Sexuality, my
28. US culture, history, religions (US)
29. Values that I appreciate
31. Writing
33. Cross-cultural learning
34. Ramakrishna (RK)
Although I eliminated some themes in time, I maintained the numbering of the remaining ones since they were coded with their original numbers elsewhere in this vast amount of material. Some of the collected journal entries of these themes became the prime matter for a summary or an essay, as will be seen in this compilation.
Here is the list of writings as a table of contents:
List of Writings
Introduction
One News and Views from India; Numbers 1, October 2, 1991
Two General letter to family and friends, November 1, 1991
Three January 1992: Notes from and reflections upon my diary in India, September through December 1991; 17 pages.
A Story Too
Four "Development from a Tribal to a Universal Faith"; Seminar on Pluralism: A Curse or a Blessing?, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, November 22, 1991; 3 pages.
Five News and Views from India; Numbers 2, January 10, 1992.
Six News and Views from India; Numbers 3, July 1992. Published in Maryknoll News, October 1992. Letter to the Editor, Maryknoll News, December 1992. My reply, Maryknoll News, January 1993.
A Story Too.
Seven General letter to family and friends; English; October 1992.
A Story Too.
Eight Article, untitled, December 9, 1992, the day after the Ayodhya mosque destruction.
Nine "Ayodhya in the Press"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; January 17, 1993.
Ten "Role"; a reflection on my role and my vision in being here in India; January 21, 1993; prepared for Maryknollers' retreat in Bangkok, January 1993.
Eleven "Around the World I've Searched for You"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; January 1993; article sent to "New York Catholic" about my vocation's origins with Fr. Larkin in Ascension.
Twelve News and Views from India; Numbers 4, February 1993.
A Story Too.
Thirteen "Lessons from the St. Thomas Christians of India"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; June 1993.
Fourteen "For the Unity and Life of Humanity"; prepared for the World Celebration of Unity and Life, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu; August 10-14, 1993; June 1993.
A Story Too.
Fifteen "Mother is No More"; on the death of Sitikantha Bhattacharya's mother; Shantiniketan; June 21, 1993.
Sixteen "From God-Father to Father Bede"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; July 1993.
Seventeen News and Views from India; Numbers 5, July 1993.
A Story Too.
Eighteen "Dialogue and Dialogue"; written for Maryknoll News; October 1992.
Nineteen General letter to family and friends; English; January 1993.
A Story Too.
Twenty Christians/Church in India, Theme #5.
Twenty-one Journal theme #4: My Christian Faith.
Twenty-two Journal theme #13: My Identity.
Twenty-three Journal theme 15: Indian Christian Spirituality, c. 1994.
A WORD AFTER.
List of Writings
Introduction
One News and Views from India; Numbers 1, October 2, 1991
Two General letter to family and friends, November 1, 1991
Three January 1992: Notes from and reflections upon my diary in India, September through December 1991; 17 pages.
A Story Too
Four "Development from a Tribal to a Universal Faith"; Seminar on Pluralism: A Curse or a Blessing?, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, November 22, 1991; 3 pages.
Five News and Views from India; Numbers 2, January 10, 1992.
Six News and Views from India; Numbers 3, July 1992. Published in Maryknoll News, October 1992. Letter to the Editor, Maryknoll News, December 1992. My reply, Maryknoll News, January 1993.
A Story Too.
Seven General letter to family and friends; English; October 1992.
A Story Too.
Eight Article, untitled, December 9, 1992, the day after the Ayodhya mosque destruction.
Nine "Ayodhya in the Press"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; January 17, 1993.
Ten "Role"; a reflection on my role and my vision in being here in India; January 21, 1993; prepared for Maryknollers' retreat in Bangkok, January 1993.
Eleven "Around the World I've Searched for You"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; January 1993; article sent to "New York Catholic" about my vocation's origins with Fr. Larkin in Ascension.
Twelve News and Views from India; Numbers 4, February 1993.
A Story Too.
Thirteen "Lessons from the St. Thomas Christians of India"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; June 1993.
Fourteen "For the Unity and Life of Humanity"; prepared for the World Celebration of Unity and Life, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu; August 10-14, 1993; June 1993.
A Story Too.
Fifteen "Mother is No More"; on the death of Sitikantha Bhattacharya's mother; Shantiniketan; June 21, 1993.
Sixteen "From God-Father to Father Bede"; Shantiniketan, West Bengal; July 1993.
Seventeen News and Views from India; Numbers 5, July 1993.
A Story Too.
Eighteen "Dialogue and Dialogue"; written for Maryknoll News; October 1992.
Nineteen General letter to family and friends; English; January 1993.
A Story Too.
Twenty Christians/Church in India, Theme #5.
Twenty-one Journal theme #4: My Christian Faith.
Twenty-two Journal theme #13: My Identity.
Twenty-three Journal theme 15: Indian Christian Spirituality, c. 1994.
A WORD AFTER.
Personal Essays from a Missionary Life
This book was published at Maryknoll New York on July 5, 2017.
You may contact me to receive a copy of the book or of individual chapters.
This is the introduction to this book:
INTRODUCTION
This collection contains personal essays from a variety of times and places in the course of my missionary life. Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and various places in the US stand out for the personal experiences that I have written about. I touch on my life and contact with a variety of peoples, like Mexicans in Yucatan, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, pagans and Mormons.
The first place for the publication of many of my essays has been our Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Maryknoll News which is an in-house publication for us members to contribute to and to learn about the goings and comings of other members of our worldwide Maryknoll Missionary Family. I have acknowledged the publication of several of these essays first in this News which has always been a welcome resource for me to channel my writings, thanks to our fine editor Father Joseph Arsenault, M. M. In this publication, it is customary to put the year of one’s ordination, if a priest, or of entry to Maryknoll Society, if a Brother. So “66” appears after my name, as the year of my priestly ordination.
I have maintained the original texts in italics and have added some further explanatory notations to help the reader understand the gist of the essay or its context. In some cases, these notes contain some recent reflections on my part about the content of the essays.
I want to alert the reader that I consider essay Fifteen, entitled “TRINITY’S MISSION, FOR PAROUSIA,” to be a singularly important keystone for understanding my life and mission and spirituality. It contains the first and second elaborations of a vision experience that I had while in Bangladesh about the year 1978 or so. My hope is to do further elaboration on this key theme of my life.
INTRODUCTION
This collection contains personal essays from a variety of times and places in the course of my missionary life. Mexico, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and various places in the US stand out for the personal experiences that I have written about. I touch on my life and contact with a variety of peoples, like Mexicans in Yucatan, Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans, pagans and Mormons.
The first place for the publication of many of my essays has been our Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers Maryknoll News which is an in-house publication for us members to contribute to and to learn about the goings and comings of other members of our worldwide Maryknoll Missionary Family. I have acknowledged the publication of several of these essays first in this News which has always been a welcome resource for me to channel my writings, thanks to our fine editor Father Joseph Arsenault, M. M. In this publication, it is customary to put the year of one’s ordination, if a priest, or of entry to Maryknoll Society, if a Brother. So “66” appears after my name, as the year of my priestly ordination.
I have maintained the original texts in italics and have added some further explanatory notations to help the reader understand the gist of the essay or its context. In some cases, these notes contain some recent reflections on my part about the content of the essays.
I want to alert the reader that I consider essay Fifteen, entitled “TRINITY’S MISSION, FOR PAROUSIA,” to be a singularly important keystone for understanding my life and mission and spirituality. It contains the first and second elaborations of a vision experience that I had while in Bangladesh about the year 1978 or so. My hope is to do further elaboration on this key theme of my life.
Below is the Contents of this book with information about each chapter:
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS
ONE MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER MEETING IN MERIDA, YUCATAN, MEXICO, John P. Martin, M.M., 2003. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2004, Volume 24 #1, pp. 13-14
.
TWO I WISH MY NAME WAS PATRICK, from Elizabeth Henley’s class at New York University for March 17, 2012.
THREE HOLY SATURDAY OF HOLY WEEK, 2012, John P. Martin, July 25, 2015.
FOUR STORIES WITHIN STORIES, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, March/April/May 2016, Special Spring, pp. 25-26.
FIVE GOD IS THE BIGGER ELVIS, John P. Martin, November 27, 2012, version December 1, 2012
SIX LETTER FROM JOHN MARTIN ’66 TO BILL FRAZIER ’56, March 27, 2010. Published in Maryknoll News, Volume 30 #3, May 2010, pp. 9-10.
SEVEN MY FIRST TRIP (BACK) TO BOLIVIA, John P. Martin, M.M., April 29, 2010. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Volume 30 #4, July 2010, pp. 1-5
EIGHT JUST GOING FOR A WALK, YOU SAY?, John P. Martin, M.M., Merida, Yucatan, México. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2011, Volume 31 #1, pp. 27-28.
NINE CAN I WRAP IT UP BEFORE IT GOES AWAY?, John P. Martin, M.M., Maryknoll, NY, July 6,
2011. Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2011, Volume 31 #5, pp. 10-12.
TEN LIVING AND LEARNING WITH MUSLIMS, John P. Martin, M. M., FEBRUARY 8, 2013
ELEVEN LIVING THE FAITH IN YUCATAN, John P. Martin. Published in Maryknoll Magazine, July/August 2013, Volume 107, #4, pp. 52-53.
TWELVE LADY IN PURDAH IN BANGLADESH, John P. Martin, December 12, 2015
THIRTEEN MY GREEN CLOTH, John P. Martin, January 18, 2016. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Spring 2016, Volume 36 #2, pp. 14-15.
FOURTEEN WHO WILL TELL THE STORY OF MEXICO NOW?, John P. Martin, M.M. ’66, March 19, 2012. First published in the Latin America News. Maryknoll News, May/June 2012, Volume 32 #3, pp. 24-26.
FIFTEEN TRINITY’S MISSION, FOR PAROUSIA, John P. Martin ʼ66, April 25, 2012. Published initially in
Maryknoll News, May/June 2012, volume 32, #3, pp. 12-14.
SIXTEEN ON “A COMMON WORD” AND ITS MEANING, By John P. Martin, M.M., October 15, 2012. Published initially in Maryknoll News, November/December 2012, Volume 32 #6, pp. 18-19.
SEVENTEEN EMBODIED SPIRITS WE ARE!, Talk to the Friars of the Atonement, By John P. Martin, M.M. FEBRUARY 7, 2014.
EIGHTEEN MY PILGRIMAGE IN MISSION, John P. Martin, M.M. Published in International Bulletin of Missionary Research, New Haven CT, January 2015, Volume 39 #1
NINETEEN RELIGIONS FOR THE EARTH, A Multifaith Service, John P. Martin, M. M., September 21, 2014. Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2014, Volume 34 #5, pp. 38-39.
TWENTY LUCY ESCALANTE ESCALANTE, VIUDA DE PEON, (January 25, 1915 – July 12, 2014), John P.
Martin, M.M., Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2014, Volume 34 #5, pp. 10-11.
TWENTY-ONE MY PILGRIMAGE IN MEXICO, John P. Martin, M.M. December 12, 2014. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2015, Volume 35 #1, pp. 25-27
TWENTY-TWO AWESOME RIDE TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS AND BACK, John P. Martin, M.M. November 13, 2015
TWENTY-THREE GOING PAGAN TO GET TO MY ROOTS, BY GOLLY, John P. Martin, M.M. December 8, 2015.
TWENTY-FOUR FIFTY YEARS OF “NOSTRA AETATE” FROM VATICAN II, John P. Martin, M.M. May 28, 2015. Published initially in Maryknoll News, July/August 2015, Volume 35 #4, pp. 11-12.
TWENTY-FIVE MEETING THE WORLD IN SALT LAKE CITY, John P. Martin, M.M. JANUARY 18, 2015. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2015, Volume 35 #1, pp. 40-41 and March/April 2015, Volume 35 #2, pp. 11-12.
TWENTY-SIX SIKH SISTERS AND BROTHERS REVISITED, John P. Martin, M.M., July 25, 2015.
TWENTY-SEVEN ENDANGERED RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Special Spring, March/April 2016, pp. 52-53.
TWENTY-EIGHT MY TRIP TO THE FESTIVAL OF FAITHS, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, November 2016, Volume 36 #3
TWENTY-NINE FROM LABOR DAY TO ELECTION DAY, By John P. Martin, M. M., November 21, 2016. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Winter 2016, Volume 36, pp. 32-34
THIRTY REV. RICHARD CLIFFORD, M.M., A EULOGY, John P. Martin, M.M., Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2017, Volume 37 #1, pp. 22-23
THIRTY-ONE THE TOUCHING AROMA OF CHRISTMAS MORNING, John P. Martin, M.M., January 28, 2017. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2017, Volume 37 #2, pp. 4-5
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CONTENTS
ONE MARRIAGE ENCOUNTER MEETING IN MERIDA, YUCATAN, MEXICO, John P. Martin, M.M., 2003. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2004, Volume 24 #1, pp. 13-14
.
TWO I WISH MY NAME WAS PATRICK, from Elizabeth Henley’s class at New York University for March 17, 2012.
THREE HOLY SATURDAY OF HOLY WEEK, 2012, John P. Martin, July 25, 2015.
FOUR STORIES WITHIN STORIES, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, March/April/May 2016, Special Spring, pp. 25-26.
FIVE GOD IS THE BIGGER ELVIS, John P. Martin, November 27, 2012, version December 1, 2012
SIX LETTER FROM JOHN MARTIN ’66 TO BILL FRAZIER ’56, March 27, 2010. Published in Maryknoll News, Volume 30 #3, May 2010, pp. 9-10.
SEVEN MY FIRST TRIP (BACK) TO BOLIVIA, John P. Martin, M.M., April 29, 2010. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Volume 30 #4, July 2010, pp. 1-5
EIGHT JUST GOING FOR A WALK, YOU SAY?, John P. Martin, M.M., Merida, Yucatan, México. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2011, Volume 31 #1, pp. 27-28.
NINE CAN I WRAP IT UP BEFORE IT GOES AWAY?, John P. Martin, M.M., Maryknoll, NY, July 6,
2011. Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2011, Volume 31 #5, pp. 10-12.
TEN LIVING AND LEARNING WITH MUSLIMS, John P. Martin, M. M., FEBRUARY 8, 2013
ELEVEN LIVING THE FAITH IN YUCATAN, John P. Martin. Published in Maryknoll Magazine, July/August 2013, Volume 107, #4, pp. 52-53.
TWELVE LADY IN PURDAH IN BANGLADESH, John P. Martin, December 12, 2015
THIRTEEN MY GREEN CLOTH, John P. Martin, January 18, 2016. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Spring 2016, Volume 36 #2, pp. 14-15.
FOURTEEN WHO WILL TELL THE STORY OF MEXICO NOW?, John P. Martin, M.M. ’66, March 19, 2012. First published in the Latin America News. Maryknoll News, May/June 2012, Volume 32 #3, pp. 24-26.
FIFTEEN TRINITY’S MISSION, FOR PAROUSIA, John P. Martin ʼ66, April 25, 2012. Published initially in
Maryknoll News, May/June 2012, volume 32, #3, pp. 12-14.
SIXTEEN ON “A COMMON WORD” AND ITS MEANING, By John P. Martin, M.M., October 15, 2012. Published initially in Maryknoll News, November/December 2012, Volume 32 #6, pp. 18-19.
SEVENTEEN EMBODIED SPIRITS WE ARE!, Talk to the Friars of the Atonement, By John P. Martin, M.M. FEBRUARY 7, 2014.
EIGHTEEN MY PILGRIMAGE IN MISSION, John P. Martin, M.M. Published in International Bulletin of Missionary Research, New Haven CT, January 2015, Volume 39 #1
NINETEEN RELIGIONS FOR THE EARTH, A Multifaith Service, John P. Martin, M. M., September 21, 2014. Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2014, Volume 34 #5, pp. 38-39.
TWENTY LUCY ESCALANTE ESCALANTE, VIUDA DE PEON, (January 25, 1915 – July 12, 2014), John P.
Martin, M.M., Published initially in Maryknoll News, September/October 2014, Volume 34 #5, pp. 10-11.
TWENTY-ONE MY PILGRIMAGE IN MEXICO, John P. Martin, M.M. December 12, 2014. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2015, Volume 35 #1, pp. 25-27
TWENTY-TWO AWESOME RIDE TO THE PARLIAMENT OF THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS AND BACK, John P. Martin, M.M. November 13, 2015
TWENTY-THREE GOING PAGAN TO GET TO MY ROOTS, BY GOLLY, John P. Martin, M.M. December 8, 2015.
TWENTY-FOUR FIFTY YEARS OF “NOSTRA AETATE” FROM VATICAN II, John P. Martin, M.M. May 28, 2015. Published initially in Maryknoll News, July/August 2015, Volume 35 #4, pp. 11-12.
TWENTY-FIVE MEETING THE WORLD IN SALT LAKE CITY, John P. Martin, M.M. JANUARY 18, 2015. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January 2015, Volume 35 #1, pp. 40-41 and March/April 2015, Volume 35 #2, pp. 11-12.
TWENTY-SIX SIKH SISTERS AND BROTHERS REVISITED, John P. Martin, M.M., July 25, 2015.
TWENTY-SEVEN ENDANGERED RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Special Spring, March/April 2016, pp. 52-53.
TWENTY-EIGHT MY TRIP TO THE FESTIVAL OF FAITHS, John P. Martin, M.M. Published initially in Maryknoll News, November 2016, Volume 36 #3
TWENTY-NINE FROM LABOR DAY TO ELECTION DAY, By John P. Martin, M. M., November 21, 2016. Published initially in Maryknoll News, Winter 2016, Volume 36, pp. 32-34
THIRTY REV. RICHARD CLIFFORD, M.M., A EULOGY, John P. Martin, M.M., Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2017, Volume 37 #1, pp. 22-23
THIRTY-ONE THE TOUCHING AROMA OF CHRISTMAS MORNING, John P. Martin, M.M., January 28, 2017. Published initially in Maryknoll News, January/February 2017, Volume 37 #2, pp. 4-5
NEW!!!
ESSAYS EMANATING FROM MY VISION EXPERIENCE
This book contains 4 essays that revolve around my basic vision experience of 1979 in Bangladesh.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Page 7
***
ONE
For the Unity and Life of Humanity
Pages 9 to 11
***
TWO
A NEW HUMANITY THROUGH THE PAROUSIA, AN ESSAY ON MY VISION
Pages 13 to 22
***
THREE
UNTIL YOU COME AGAIN!
Pages 24 to 25
***
FOUR
MY IDENTITY
An Essay on my Identities, Relationships and Roles
Pages 26 to 66
INTRODUCTION
It has seemed appropriate for me to put these several essays together in one format since they really do have a common thread that goes back to my “vision experience” at St. Patrick’s parish church in the town of Mymensingh in April of 1978, when I was living with three other companions in the Bangladesh Unit of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. I have described this “vision experience” in great detail in the second essay of this collection. These four essays are the first fruits of a long writing project that will touch on several major themes of my long missionary life. All of my writings and more are available on my website: www.johnthepmartin.com or through contact with me by my email address: johnthep@msn.com.
During my pilgrimage time in India from 1991 to 1994, I continued a practice from my earlier days in Bangladesh to write something in my journal each day. I thus accumulated a huge amount of personal material that lay in those journals in helter-skelter fashion, that is, just as the impressions, feelings, reflections, dreams, thoughts, etc. came to me. I decided that to make this material useful or readable at all, I would have to organize it better. This I did by marking each paragraph of the journals with a key word. Then I created a folder for each key word and called them “themes”, ending up with about 35 of them. I have transcribed a lot of this material into photocopied or digital formats over the years. I also partially implemented another task of cross-referencing entries from one theme to another, as it seemed fit to do so. A few of these will be seen in these essays.
This is by way of a partial fulfilment of a dream to discover more connections among the various themes which would dilute the impression of fragmentation by keeping them in separate folders. As I write about what I can learn from this process, I could thus arrive at a more integrated vision of myself in my relationships and in my cosmic environment, hopefully for the benefit of my readers, too. An example of this very phenomenon can be found in “An After Word” at the end of the essay “My Identity”.
I am proud to have seen my life enriched with the company of such a spiritual giant as Father Bede Griffiths, at whose Shantivanam Ashram in South India I stayed on many occasions, and with the spirit imbedded in the writings of such giants as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
These four essays touch on the themes of “My Vision” and “My Identity”.
Enjoy!
ESSAYS EMANATING FROM MY VISION EXPERIENCE
This book contains 4 essays that revolve around my basic vision experience of 1979 in Bangladesh.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Page 7
***
ONE
For the Unity and Life of Humanity
Pages 9 to 11
***
TWO
A NEW HUMANITY THROUGH THE PAROUSIA, AN ESSAY ON MY VISION
Pages 13 to 22
***
THREE
UNTIL YOU COME AGAIN!
Pages 24 to 25
***
FOUR
MY IDENTITY
An Essay on my Identities, Relationships and Roles
Pages 26 to 66
INTRODUCTION
It has seemed appropriate for me to put these several essays together in one format since they really do have a common thread that goes back to my “vision experience” at St. Patrick’s parish church in the town of Mymensingh in April of 1978, when I was living with three other companions in the Bangladesh Unit of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. I have described this “vision experience” in great detail in the second essay of this collection. These four essays are the first fruits of a long writing project that will touch on several major themes of my long missionary life. All of my writings and more are available on my website: www.johnthepmartin.com or through contact with me by my email address: johnthep@msn.com.
During my pilgrimage time in India from 1991 to 1994, I continued a practice from my earlier days in Bangladesh to write something in my journal each day. I thus accumulated a huge amount of personal material that lay in those journals in helter-skelter fashion, that is, just as the impressions, feelings, reflections, dreams, thoughts, etc. came to me. I decided that to make this material useful or readable at all, I would have to organize it better. This I did by marking each paragraph of the journals with a key word. Then I created a folder for each key word and called them “themes”, ending up with about 35 of them. I have transcribed a lot of this material into photocopied or digital formats over the years. I also partially implemented another task of cross-referencing entries from one theme to another, as it seemed fit to do so. A few of these will be seen in these essays.
This is by way of a partial fulfilment of a dream to discover more connections among the various themes which would dilute the impression of fragmentation by keeping them in separate folders. As I write about what I can learn from this process, I could thus arrive at a more integrated vision of myself in my relationships and in my cosmic environment, hopefully for the benefit of my readers, too. An example of this very phenomenon can be found in “An After Word” at the end of the essay “My Identity”.
I am proud to have seen my life enriched with the company of such a spiritual giant as Father Bede Griffiths, at whose Shantivanam Ashram in South India I stayed on many occasions, and with the spirit imbedded in the writings of such giants as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo Ghose.
These four essays touch on the themes of “My Vision” and “My Identity”.
Enjoy!
Contact Father John P Martin
johnthep@msn.com
johnthep@msn.com
