In the year 2003 I was
appointed as the Parish priest of Our Lady of Fatima, Kirol, Mumbai after our
erstwhile vice province of Maharashtra. I accepted it reluctantly as I did not
have any prior experience of being a pastor. The first thing that I did was to
visit families in the parish and attend the meetings of various groups active
in the parish. I gathered a lot from these meetings and I came across one group
of “Divine Mercy”. I had heard and read about the devotion to Divine Mercy but
what I saw in the members of the group was the inner craving for the God’s
mercy and compassion. It was all visible in their prayers, conversations and
interactions, no one trying to feel bad or try to suppress these cravings but
openly making known to each other.
I gathered in my
visits to the family one thing and that is the pain and suffering that they
experience in their human lives. Surrounded by many man made problems, financial,
emotional and psychological problems they were seeking some divine intervention
and I experienced that they were able to receive solace in the Divine Mercy
devotion. I brought all these wounded souls, some of them abused by authorities,
some hungry and cold, others without jobs so lost into the evil designs of the
devil, into the hands of the Divine Mercy. The group began to request my
presence, preaching and healing…..I did offer willingly….the word spread around
and the other groups in the diocese began to invite me for their groups…..on
the diocese level a recollection before the feast of Divine Mercy in 205 was organized
and I was invited to preach for the group….the experience was really great and
divine….
An encounter with God
is, then, a healing encounter. It cannot be any other way for those who love
God. After years of toil and anxiety, once touched by God none of it will bear
any real weight, for your heart will be as light as a feather, the worries
swept away, happiness and joy and light will prevail. You will delight in
fragrant meadows unseen by others; you will truly know what it means to love.
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