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His full name was Thomas Augustine. He was a Catholic
priest. I knew him for a rather short period of my life. When I lived one whole
year in the same institution with him, I was just 15 years old. I was a trainee
for priesthood and he was many years my senior. We both lived in Don Bosco
school and seminary at a place called Tirupattur in Tamil Nadu. He was in charge
of a group of boys like me.
Thomas had little to do with me
directly as I was under the care of another in-charge. But his self-effacing
ways and angelic smile drew me to him. He was a living saint all the years I
knew him later. When he became a priest and was in charge of a section of a Don
Bosco institution in Kochi, I met him again and his ways hadn’t changed an
iota. You’d think he was a reincarnation of Jesus if you met him personally.
You won’t be able to meet him
anymore. He passed away a few years ago. One of the persons whom I won’t ever
forget, can’t forget as long as the neurons continue to strike the synapses
within my body, despite the fact that he was quite an ordinary person. What
made him stand out of the ordinary, for me, was his saintly lack of an ego in
the ordinary sense of the term. Thomas was a constant reminder for me of the
plain truth that you don’t have to do great things to be great but do your
ordinary duties with all the love you can bring into it.
My first experience of his tenderness
was when I was 15 and was quarantined due to chickenpox. When my quarantine
started there were already two others of my group in the isolation room. But
they recovered and left after a few days leaving me alone. I felt lonely though
someone or the other came with food four times a day and occasionally one of the
trainers [let me use that secular term for the clergy members for the sake of
the ordinary readers here] visited too.
The only visits that remain in my
memory are those of Thomas Augustine. He didn’t come at the front door to visit
me as other elders did. Behind the quarantine was a hockey playground which
couldn’t be seen from the main buildings of the seminary. The residential
building of the priests and other clergy blocked it. And I was staying on the
ground floor of this particular residential building.
Thomas Augustine would come on that
playground and call me out. “Come out through the window,” he would gesture to
me. I was small enough to pass through the window bars. Or maybe the windows
didn’t have bars. My memory isn’t good enough now. But I remember my joy in
being let out of the quarantine-prison albeit for a half-hour walk with an
angel in the playground. This was in the late evenings when everyone else in
the seminary was busy with the study hours of the system. The entire place
would be eerily silent. Not one sound anywhere. You would hear if a pin
dropped. Such is the ambience of Catholic seminaries at certain hours.
I don’t remember what Thomas
Augustine and I talked in those evenings. I was just an ignorant 15-year-old
and he was about 25 with years of seminary-imparted wisdom. We must have talked
about my family, childhood, and other immaterial things. He was only indulging
me like an elder brother making sure that I didn’t feel lonely and dejected in
that temporary prison of mine. What refuses to leave my heart is the feeling of
tenderness he left there during those walks.
I met him a few times years later on
various occasions. His tenderness hadn’t ossified an iota as it happens with a
lot of people over time. He was ever the same angel with the same winsome smile
and placid demeanour. What fascinated me about him is that he never seemed to
change as he grew older. He possessed the same serenity as a young man, the
serenity that stayed with him till his end. How blessed he was! I went through
a lot of agony as I grew older and am yet to arrive at the kind of serenity
that Thomas Augustine had all the time.
The last I met him was in his coffin.
He lay in the Don Bosco’s Thattazhathamma Church in Kochi a few years ago. His
face still carried his characteristic benedictory tenderness.
Thattazham Church |
PS. I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z
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Hari OM
ReplyDeleteThe material of saintliness... to remain congruent in body, mind and spirit, and that too with integrity. YAM xx
So very few individuals possess that!
DeleteHe must have been a very saintly person indeed.
ReplyDeleteHe was. Just the ideal material for priesthood.
DeleteHe was a rank holder in the university, the best, in the football, basketball volleyball or hockey. Can still remember him telling the story of Odessa files. Yes, his smile still haunts endearingly.
ReplyDeleteI missed these salient facts... In fact, I wasn't aware of much of this side of him. Thanks for the addition.
DeleteNice to read about a nice person again. You, sir, have met too many snakes. Kindness like his leave a mark of the softest embrace~
ReplyDeletePeople like this great being enrich our souls and enable us to deal with certain others...
DeleteBeautiful tribute!
ReplyDeleteGlad you dropped in.
DeleteHe was there for you when you needed him. There are some good people in the world.
ReplyDeleteI have wished time and again for his proximity.
DeleteBeing away from our family, having someone close to talk to, even if it is immaterial, acts like a lubricant for the bond. Tirupatur - I think they run a college also. I knew someone who studied there.
ReplyDeleteSacred Heart College.
DeleteYou were truly blessed to have Thomas Augustine in your life. Rare is a tribe like his.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Some people are blessing indeed.
Delete