Jesus said, “Forgive them, Father! They don’t know what they are doing” (Lk: 23:34).
Those words of Jesus elicits mockery from the soldiers and one of the two criminals crucified along with Him. But the other criminal rebukes his colleague saying, “Don’t you fear God? You received the same sentence He did. Ours, however, was right, because we are getting what we deserve for what we did; but He has done no wrong…” Jesus’ words of forgiveness converted a criminal. From the words of forgiveness Jesus uttered, the criminal concluded Jesus was innocent. He also concluded that a man who could forgive those who hanged Him as a criminal must truly be The King of the Jews, which was mockingly written above Jesus. And he said, “Remember, Jesus, when you come as king.”
A few years later, Stephen, the first follower of Jesus to be martyred cried out the forgiving words of Jesus before he died: “Lord! Do not remember this sin against them!” Those words of forgiveness haunted Saul, who led the crowd that killed Stephen by stoning, as did the curse of Abel’s murder follow Cain. He finally realises that a man who can inspire a follower of his to forgive those who kill him is indeed the Son of God. Saul become Paul, accepting Jesus, whom he hated as the enemy of the Jews, as his redeemer. That act of forgiveness by Stephen sawed the seeds of modern Christianity and the fundamental ideas (laid down by Paul in his letters) on which Christian faith developed.
Two millennia later, Sr Rani Maria was murdered in a bus at Nachanbore Hill in Indore, a city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The murderer was Samandhar Singh, who stabbed the Sister with a knife, causing 40 major injuries and 14 bruises. Sr Rani Maria’s younger sibling Sr Selmy visited Samandhar Singh in gaol and forgave him on behalf of her murdered sister and her family. That act of forgiveness made the murderer repent. He became a new man. The people who instigated him to commit the crime have toned down their animosity towards Christian missionaries. Sr Rani Maria has come to be recognised even by her own detractors as a woman who died in the service of others. Forgiveness brought about that huge change of heart in an individual and the society that inspired him to kill a saintly woman.
Forgiveness can come only from hearts that love heroically, as heroically as to be able to challenge social injustices and wrong established notions. Jesus was killed because He challenged the status quo: To a world that was divided in an eye-for-an-eye, he preached that one must love one’s enemies: to a world that was divided into the chosen people of God and the gentiles, He preached that every man is a precious child of God; to a world that divided men into masters and servants, He preached that the one who aspires to be a master must wash the feet of those whom He considers his servants; to a world that man is for the Sabbath, He taught that the Sabbath is for man; to the Pharisees and the Teachers of the Law, who were sticklers for the practice of the Law, He was a renegade who spurned the Law. The price He paid for it was shameful death on the cross.
“How stubborn you are,” Stephen went on to say. “How heathen your hearts, how deaf you are to God’s message! You are just like our ancestors: You too have always resisted the Holy Spirit! Was there any prophet that your ancestors did not persecute? They killed messengers, who long ago announced the coming of his righteous Servant. And now you have betrayed and murdered him.” That diatribe against the killers of Jesus turned Saul against Stephen.
Sr Rani Maria earned the ire of usurious landlords by effectively organising the poor, whom they fleeced, into self financing groups. Her redemptive involvement in the lives of the socially and economically disadvantaged took her to Calvary. She fell a victim to the unholy nexus of high caste supremacy and religious fanaticism that Hindutva represents. Her murder was a warning shot aimed at social activism by Christian missionaries. Unfortunately, her beatification coincides with the last days of genuine missionary zeal. Things have come to such a pass that 1. vocations to convents are drying up, 2. people are becoming priests or religious attracted by a life that is economically comfortable and professionally satisfying, 3. priests are being martyred by priests, as in the case of the rector of a seminary who fell victim to identity politics, and 4. we are seeking quick-fix solutions to everything in miracle working sessions of charismatic retreats instead of through sacrificial service.
While the forces that were behind Sr Rani Maria’s murder have established sway over the nation, instead of challenging them as she did, many of the leading lights of the Christian community are shrinking into their shells in fear or queuing up to curry favour with them. It will require some special intervention by the Holy Spirit to supply new Rani Marias to the Indian Church. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church, because it inspires generations to die like Jesus, who was both renovator and redeemer. May St Rani Maria’s blood, which worked the conversion of her murderer, bring about the conversion of a Church that is deviating from the road to Calavary.
Ponmala
