KUNJACHAN

Kunjachan uncle is just elder to Papa. He did his Pre-University in St. Joseph's College, Tiruchirappally
and then joined the Jesuits.
He preferred to remain a so called lay-brother.
That means he didn't want to get the priestly ordination,
although he had taken the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity,
just like the religious priests.
The lay-brothers are active everywhere except when the priestly service is required.

Kunjachen uncle is a consummate technician and is the director of a technical school in Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka, an island worth visiting,
Rev. Br. Philip Panjikaran
will certaily be of service there.

Kunjachan uncle wrote us shortly:
"I am at present working in a technical institute in the north east war torn area of Sri Lanka.
It is an institution run by the combined efforts of the Jesuits and the Methodists of this area.
This place is similar to the Tamil Nadu.
People here speak only Tamil.
I teach systems and methods in the technical school.
I am leaving for my retreat in Kandy.
Kandy is the place where our Panjikaran Achan did his seminary".

ALBUM

In Memoriam

After the eldest of us, our Valliapengal, left us for ever several years ago, now also Kunjachan,
the fifth of us counting from either side, has taken leave of us after a long illness.
His last days were not different from those of Valliapengal, inasmuch as suffering is concerned!
Looking back:
Out of the sheer feeling of unwantedness, out of unspeakable uncertainty about the future
Kunjachan set out from Neelimangalam holding fast to the socius-seat-belt of the Motorcycle that brought him to Esobhavan in Ernakulam.
And that was "vocation"!
Knocking at the door of a seminary, a convent or a monastery is invariably an escape,
can hide a horde of problems with which one was unable to cope with;
but nobody is ready to accept this reality, everybody is convinced: It is a case of genuine vocation!
The feeling of being superfluous, the general disability, being a further burden to the family, and the consequent feeling of rejection
drive many a youth to seek refuge in the bosom of God - a fantacy, preached as a reality by many convinced escapists.
No, even gifted, talented, at times even well-to-do youth leave all the pleasures of life, only to attain to higher pleasures, greater authority and influence.
These are not God's ways, in my opinion.
Kunjachan left home at the age of 17, I guess. A few months before getting 71 he died.
Never was he able to decide for himself, never was he able to live his life as a free and independant human being.
And today there is none left behind whom he could call his own or who is his own flesh and blood!
Is that a life in fulfillment? Did he ever experience heaven?
Oh yes, he has gone to his heavenly reward!!!
That is the greatest nonsense.
You are drilled to believe in such a lie.
Kunjachan however was courageous and indulged in many things, independant of the Jesuits,
and he paid the penalty for it through the way way he was treated in his best years.
Having neglected him in his youth - we were all were happy to profit from him during his active years - we began caring for him in his sickly age
knowing fully well that he is sinking.
No, futile was his life not at all, he lived for God, he prayed for us!!
Another nonsense!
Who says that God demands from us (Vocation?) to quit this world, remain celibate and suffer for him?
This world with all its apparently good and bad things are ultimately God's.
Therefore foresaking it is an escapism, it serves only institutionalised powers of this world.
Well, Kunjachen made the best of his plight.
He did not take so seriously the man-made rules and regulations that had bound him.
Family life was forbidden for him, but he mingled with the families of ours and others, and felt very much at home there.
We loved him for the freedom that he took for himself, and we did not care to question him, although his superiors and many fellow-Jesuits did not spare him.
He would happily have spent his last days with one of our families, but he reconciled hmself to his fate,
that had been holding him fast in its grips since his teens.
The peace and serenity that his face radiated even after he had breathed his last, is not to be interpreted
as a 'halo from heaven' as a reward for all his sufferings before and after joining the order,
but as a sign of the satisfaction or fulfillment in life that he achieved on account of his love for us all.
Let us be realistic!
Let us think of him and remember him as a man of selfless love and dedication.
He rests in peace and his memory is alive in us as long as we
think and speak of him as a man who loved us and this world.
His students are now all over the world, also in Vienna - Simple people from Edathua and the neighbouring villages.
They all speak only of his love for them and his readiness to help.
Kunjachan acquired no academic degree, he founded no religious order or congrrgation, he never touched foreign ground except Sri Lanka (exile!),
he did not have foreign benefactors, he built up no new institution, as a lay-brother he had to spend his life in submission!
All for the greater glory of God!!!
A never ending and totally baffling justification for the life-long crushing of minds and hearts!
Kunjachen needs no statue in Edathua, he needs no canonisation.
All that we are eager to do or to get done for him can only be meaningles;
we really do not know what is now meaninigful for him.

We can only do something that is meaningful for us in relation to him:
Every now and then make a review of his life, and of our life with him, thus renewing his memory!