Honouring the Memories of a Brother - Rememberance Article about My Late Brother - Lalson

  

On15^th September, just after midnight (around 00.30 am), my mobile phone started to ring. I was at bed and knew that it was an overseas call. Usually I never take those calls, because my friends and family overseas knew that I live in a different time zone and I like them to respect my time zone. But it started to ring again. I picked up the phone to hear that shocking news – my younger brother Lalson (36) had a silent cardiac arrest and he is no more. He was my only sibling and was working and living in Bahrain with his wife and two young children.

I couldn’t believe. I called Fr James at the Cathedral (a friend priest from Kochi, India) to come to Calwell presbytery and to verify the news. He verified the news. I cried. We did an “office for dead” at Calwell presbytery chapel.

It happened after lunchtime at Bahrain and was evening in Kochi. I instructed not to break this news to my aging parents that night and managed to get into a flight to Kochi. It was the most difficult thirteen hours of plane journey in my life. I prayed that my sister-in-law gets enough courage to bring Lalson’s body from Bahrain to Kochi, with his children. I reached on same day evening and the funeral was planned for next day evening.

When the news broke, it was devastating for my parents. My mother had to be taken to the hospital.

According to our customs (Syro-Malabar Catholic rite), the first part of the funeral ceremony is celebrated at the family house and then the body is taken to the church and then to the cemetery. It is more of a personal and communal event. There were around 1500 people gathered for the funeral including more than 50 Carmelite priests and nuns. It was an honour for me to officiate his funeral ceremony. But I could do it only with extra-ordinary grace and courage from above.

An official memorial service was conducted on the 7^th day of death, according to our tradition. The Syro-Malabar curia bishop – Mar Bosco Puthur officiated that Memorial Mass and it was followed by a solemn vegetarian lunch (Sadya) for all 600 special invitees.  I remained with my parents and the family of Lalson for the next 30 days, listening to their stories, sharing our grief and observing a fast with abstinence of non-vegetarian food and entertainments.  I officiated a Holy Mass on the 30^th day with my family and close relatives to mark the end of that fasting period.

A very special thanks to the parish community and Frs John and Peter who supported and prayed for my family and me all throughout these difficult times. It helps me to find new meaning in the mysterious ways of the plan of God in my life.

• Published in the PM magazine of Corpus Christi parish, Tuggeranong, ACT, Australia

New Year 2012 – Reflections

 

The past year was a kind of mixed bag - the Arab spring and end of dictatorships in many countries were mixed with global economic woes, centered-round Europe. Our personal life stories many not be too different. This time is the best time to reinvent the ancient Christian spiritual tradition of “examination of conscience” - to take stock of our deeds and actions. Let’s find out some time to sit and relax, may be at the beach side (weather permitting!) and to look back and evaluate our life – both materially and spiritually.

It’s also a time to look forward and to make new resolutions. We may have dreams and wishes, like “I want to pass my exams this year”. But a resolution is bit different where I would say that “I will devout an extra hour everyday for study to pass my exams”. January 1^st is also the feast day of Mary - the Mother of God, who was prepared to put her efforts to realize that title.  Luke chapter 2 verses19 and 51 show us how she “treasured the word and pondered it in her heart" to respond concretely to the plan of God in her life. She not only said “Yes” but also was ready to corroborate it with actions, which we will see all through out her life – till the cross at Calvary and the Upper House with disciples.

Year 2012-13 is called by Australian bishops’ conference as “Year of Grace”. Wish you all a grace-filled New Year. 

Publish in the Parish Bulletin of Corpus Christi parish, Tuggeranong, Canberra, Australia

Christmas Homily 2011

Christmas Homily 2011

It’s Christmas and a little story for you. Once there was man in Europe who was decent, gentle and generous. But he felt Christmas as a lot of rubbish. “The whole business of Incarnation where God becomes man sounds crazy, it doesn’t make any sense to me”, he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. It was Christmas eve and he wasn’t a Scrooge. So, he allowed his wife and children to go to midnight Mass. Soon after they left, it started to snow – it was a perfect white Christmas! But suddenly he heard some shattering noise at the living room windows. It was a flock of birds huddled miserably in storm, searching for shelter and trying to fly through his window. He felt sympathy – “after all it’s Christmas, I should help them.” He remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide them a warm shelter. He went outside, opened the barn and invited the birds to come in. They wont come. He started to do all the tricks – switched on the light, put a trail of breadcrumbs, shooing them into the barn – but wont work. He was devastated. “I wanted to help these bloody ignorant birds” he said himself, “but they don’t get it.  “And I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety. . . .”

Just at that moment the church bells rang- the Christmas Mass. He stood silent for a while and then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why You had to do it.”

And that’s why He did it – the Emmanuel – God is with us – so that we may understand, and be led to safety – for our salvation and for us to know the mind of God and to touch his kindness in human form. Now we got a model and example before us, who can perfectly communicate God to us.  And God communicated Himself to us by being a part of family - father, mother and a child – Joseph, Mary and Jesus.. That’s why Christmas is a family celebration and also Christmas is a celebration of “family”. That’s the reason why we are supposed to enjoy a beautiful Christmas lunch with our family and friends around. Hope you all will have good time with Christmas gifts and Turkey tomorrow/today!

Let us also not forget the tiniest (and most insignificant) of our human family as we share Christmas joy with our dear and near ones. Let’s make sure that every child in our families gets a chance to be born from the very moment of conception in his/her mother’s womb, as Jesus could be born into our world. Let’s make sure that every child gets the warmth of a family with a father and a mother ensuring complimenting dimensions of parenthood, as Jesus was blessed with a family. Let’s make sure that every human being gets an asylum if they run away from persecution as baby Jesus did from King Herod and not to be perished in the sea.

 And after all JOY is putting J and O before Y. That is, Jesus, Others before You! Let’s allow Jesus to take the center-stage in our lives. Let’s love him – he is very cute in that manger on the crib and also in our hearts. Let’s also love others and put their needs before us. Let’s overflow our humanity with Christmas gifts to the marginalized and the poor – we could give generously to the Archbishop’s Christmas Appeal for charity today or to Vinnies or Caritas or others. By bringing JOY to others and ourselves, let’s join the party of Jesus’ birthday. Merry Christmas and safe travelling!

• With inputs from: http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/years_abc/second_sunday_after_christmas-2.htm, http://www.munachi.com/z/christmaseve.htm

• Delivered at Corpus Christi parish, Tuggeranong, Canberra, Australia

Child Protection Sunday - Sept 11, 2011

"Child Protection Sunday is about safeguarding children and young people from abuse. This calls for the involvement of each person in the Church and in the broader Australian community" puts National Committee for Professional Standards (NCPS) - a committee of the Australian Catholic Bishops and the leaders of Religious Institutes in Australia, declaring September 11th, Sunday as the Child Protection Sunday. It further encourages that "as a Church, we must continue to put in place policies and procedures to promote the safety of children and young people, respond with openness and compassion to victims of abuse and to educate people so they can identify the signs and effects of abuse."

The theme of Child Protection Sunday for NCPS is "Safeguarding Children and Young People". National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN) also calls this Sunday, Child Protection Sunday with an emphasis to “Play Your Part” (more info at: www.playyourpart.org.au). These two themes give us a real sense of the important role, each and every one of us has to play in protecting children and young people.

Church is to be the light of the world. So, it is fare that its dark places be exposed and illuminated first. We do have a responsibility to keep vigil to keep it clean all the time and be made an example to the world, so that it becomes a world leader in child and youth friendly policies. We do also share a responsibility to take child friendly policies to our families, work places and other areas of human interaction. 

My Speech at the Inaugural Ceremony of Summer School at National University of Defense Technology, China, 2011

Respected members of the faculty, students and ladies and gentlemen,

I am very happy to be here for this prestigious international summer school at China’s National University of Defense Technology, Changsha. I consider it as a privilege and as a great opportunity. I am sure that all participants of this summer school would also feel the same.

Let me introduce myself. I am Jaison  Paul Mulerikkal. I am doing Phd at the Australian National University, Canberra. I am an Australian resident and an Indian national. I am doing my Phd in High Performance Scientific Computing. My research is to solve scientific problems using “Service Oriented Approach (SOA)” with high performance results. In the past year or so, Service Oriented Approach has evolved itself into Cloud Computing. So the research has directed more towards using Cloud Computing platforms for High Performance Scientific Computing.

I heard about this summer school through one of the old students of NUDT – Ting Cao, who is presently doing Phd at Australian National University at our department. I looked at the flier (brochure) and the website of the summer school. I was thrilled to see the great line-up of distinguished international resource-persons coming for this summer school and the topics they deal with. Then I googled (searched internet) to find that NUDT has developed the world’s fastest super-computer in 2010. I thought these guys are awesome! I made up my mind, that I should be part of this great event. So, I am here and I am very glad to be here.

I am very happy at the services provided by the organizers of this summer school. They were very helpful from the very beginning and through out the process. They have provided us with necessary paper work for visa, airport pickup, good friends to assist at the hotel and at the university. Very well done and big thank you to all the organizers.

Myself, and all other participants of this summer school are looking forward to have a great academic experience for the next two weeks. I am sure that we will have a good time in learning, understanding and sharing our knowledge in High Performance Computing area, which will benefit the whole humanity for peaceful and harmonious living.

This is my first visit to China. To be honest, you have exceeded my expectations. A great civilization with very good infrastructure and peace-loving people all around. I hope to continue to enjoy the warm hospitality of Chinese people for the next two weeks to come.

Once again thanking all of you,

Hen gou shing, jian do ni (Happy to meet you!).

Thanks. Sheshe.

Jaison Paul Mulerikkal

Australian National University

11-07-2011

The Poetry and Extreme Life of Pentecost: Reflections

Last Tuesday, while speaking at the Guinness and God event at Civic, Canberra, Archbishop Mark encouraged the audience (of mostly youngsters) to grow beyond the traditional good boy/good girl Christianity. He quoted James Cowen from his book “Journey to the Inner Mountain" in observing that we are “grown tired of [Christianity’s] entrenched moralism, its desire to mould people into some kind of polite entity devoid of the essence of poetry and extreme life”.

There is a danger for all of us to become just polite entities for many reasons. The disciples too had the same dilemma, soon after the death of Jesus. It was out of fear and uncertainty they faced in their life at that time. They lost the leader and the vision. They couldn’t see anything but darkness in front of them. So they just wanted to be polite and ordinary Jews or citizens. Except Thomas, none even dared to go out.

There was need for something extraordinary - something that comes from the breaking of the threshold of grace. The grace of the resurrection bought that to them. The resurrected Christ allowed that grace to stay with them and that was the Pentecost. The grace of God - Holy Spirit – came to them and set them on fire. They became extra-ordinary men and women.

We live in similar salvific times, where we expect the breaking of threshold of grace for a new Pentecost for many reasons, Archbishop Mark suggests I think. We need individuals who find the poetry and extreme life in the grace of God, in Holy Spirit for the Next Big Thing in the Church. We had St Francis of Assisi or St Anthony of Desert, when times demanded such outpouring of Spirit in the Church in the past. Let the Pentecost challenge all of us to respond to such big grace in our personal lives to live a life of poetry and extreme life in the Spirit.

How to listen the interview with me on Vatican Radio?

The interview will be transmitted on Vatican Radio on Friday, 11th March 2011 and re-transmitted on Saturday 12th March 2011. Thanks a lot to Fr William at Vatican Radio who interviewed me and to Fr Isaac Arickapillil CMI (Director, CIIS, Rome) who took initiative to put in on Vatican Radio.

The easiest way is to access it through Internet.

Access the interview on the following link (Broadcast on Demand) and select "Malayalam".The audio is available in mp3 and real audio format.

http://www.radiovaticana.org/in4/on_demand.asp

The interview will stay one whole day in the Vatican Radio site. So you can access it from 5.00 pm (Indian Standard Time) on Friday 11th 2011 to around 5.00 pm (Indian Standard Time) on Saturday 12th 2011.

The next way is to listen it in a "Radio".

As for my interview, it will be transmitted on 11th Friday 2011 evening 8.40 pm(Indian Standard Time) and there will be two re-transmissions on the following day (Saturday) at 6.30 am (Indian Standard Time) and 8.10 am (Indian Standard Time) on the following frequencies. You need to have a radio with shortwave frequency reception capabilities to listen to it.

Why shortwave radio? I had to research a bit to find that out. However, the research outcomes were quite interesting.

To begin with there are two types of transmissions in general.

1. FM (Frequency Modulation)
2. AM (Amplitude Modulation)
   

AM is further divided in to two:

• Medium Frequency (MF), which broadcasts on frequencies between 531kHz and 1602 kHz.
• High Frequency (HF), usually known as "short wave" radio, broadcasts on frequencies between approximately 2 MHz and 26 MHz.

Vatican Radio Malayalam is a short wave (HF) transmission. Short wave transmission is used for long distance transmissions (usually to receive broadcasts from another continents), because shortwave frequencies bounce off of the ionosphere of earth and return to earth halfway around the world.

Shortwave Radio (HF) is divided into the following bands:

3900-4000 kHz (75 meter band) 13600-13800 kHz (22 meter band)

5950-6200 kHz (49 meter band) 15100-15600 kHz (19 meter band)

7100-7300 kHz (41 meter band) 17550-17900 kHz (16 meter band)

9500-9900 kHz (31 meter band) 21450-21850 kHz (13 meter band)

11650-12050 kHz (25 meter band) 25600-26100 kHz (11 meter band)

And how to tune to it in India or elsewhere

രാത്രി 8.40-ന് തുടങ്ങുന്ന പ്രക്ഷേപണം ( 11th Friday, Indian Standard Time: 20.40)

41 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡ് 7585 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (41 meter band, 7585 KHz)

25 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡ് 11850 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (25 meter band, 11850 KHz)

22 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡ് 13765 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (22 meter band, 13765 KHz)

രാവിലെ 6.30-ന് തുടങ്ങുന്ന മലയാള പ്രക്ഷേപണം (12th Saturday, Indian Standard Time: 6.30)

49 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡില്‍ 5895 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (49 meter band, 5895 KHz)

41 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡില്‍ 7335 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (41 meter band, 7335 KHz)

രാവിലെ 8.10-നു തുടങ്ങുന്ന പ്രക്ഷേപണം (12th Saturday, Indian Standard Time: 8.10)

19 മീറ്റര്‍ ബാന്‍ഡില്‍ 15460 കിലോ ഹേര്‍ട്സ് (19 meter band, 15460 KHz)