On the Church Steps

“How 3 minutes of your life can change another person’s life forever!”

Is there one small thing that happened that has made a real change in your life? There is something that did happen to me, which seemed very small then. But I have very belatedly realized that this small incident, just 3 minutes long, has been something that has really changed my life. Now I realize that it is actually one of the most important things that happened to me in my life!

I was a young lad, about 8 or 9 years old then. Once I was returning home all alone. As I was going home from my school, St. Vincent’s, Pune, I passed through St. Xavier’s Church compound. We normally went by the left side and would come out just in front of the Cantonment market. That was in the late forties when Pune was not as big, crowded, and messy that it seems to be now.

When I reached the left-wing of the church (built in the shape of a cross) there was a man standing at the foot of the steps. There were about 8 steps to the entrance of the church. The doors were closed then. As I was passing him by, he just held my hand and took me up to the last step up near the entrance and made me sit down. I was too naive to know what this was all about. But, before he could say anything to me or do anything to me, another man appeared at the foot of the steps. He looked up and with a fierce look on his face shouted: “Hey you there, let that child go!” He then waited at the foot of the steps till I came down, led me to the street for me to go home. All this happened in about just 3 minutes.

I never forgot this incident but never gave it much importance either. In the last few years, we have started hearing about many child abuse cases. We have heard about how this has affected so many who are forced to live the horrible consequences all through their lives. Only now I realize that this man at the foot of the steps was actually my guardian angel in a very real sense. I just cannot imagine what could have happened if he had not turned up. Maybe I would have been abused that day and then again and again. Today I could have become a miserable person, paying the price for the abuse. Maybe my school life would have suffered, and I would then have become one who later harmed others. All it had taken was 3 minutes or so for my guardian angel to look up and shout: “Hey you there, let that child go!” He then waited a short time till I went free.

That guardian angel of mine will either be a very old man now or he will be up there in heaven waiting to embrace me. I will say to him something that I should have said long ago: “Thank you so very much. What you have done for me with those 3 minutes of your life, was to set me free!”

It is now 60 years since I joined the Jesuits. Over the years I have been involved in a wide variety of activities not only in India but also in Cambodia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Timor Leste and am now back in Cambodia. I am truly grateful for the companionship and support of the Jesuits and other friends. Without all this support I doubt that I could have achieved even one-tenth of what I think has been achieved.

I know that many of those who contribute generously to our works are simple people. They give us not what they can do without. They give us that with which they could have done something for themselves. But they thought of us! We cannot let them down.

I believe that these friends and supporters who have generously contributed to our mission are all of them our Guardian Angels. What they have done for me and for all whom we are working for is immeasurable. I am always grateful and pray for them. I thank God for having sent us these Guardian Angels of the poor we serve. May God grant them abundant blessings.