Guru, St. Ignatius of Loyola

Hindu students accept saint as guru, hail Jesuit mission

By Prakash Chand Dubey
8/16/2007
UCANews

BETTIAH, India (UCAN) – Celebrations of St. Ignatius Loyola's 450th death anniversary in 2006 had an unexpected impact on Hindu students in an eastern Indian school. They now consider the saint their revered guru.

Khrist Raja (Christ the King) School in Bihar state's Bettiah Diocese held various programs observing the death centenary of the Society of Jesus' co-founder. The 80-year-old Jesuit school is in Bettiah, a town 980 kilometers (about 610 miles) east of New Delhi.

The school conducted debates, seminars, dances and dramas during the yearlong celebration. The programs explained how Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits pioneered education in the world for social betterment. Students hailed him for providing spiritual and temporal leadership in the Indian tradition, through his followers.

This year, some 2,000 students, a majority of them Hindus, took the initiative to celebrate the 16th-century saint's feast day.

Akash Tiwary, an eighth-grader who joined in organizing the celebration, told UCA News the celebration was the first such event at their school. Students came to know more about the saint and the Jesuits through the programs of last year, he added.

When students rejoined classes after summer vacation this July, Akash said, some seniors suggested celebrating the July 31 feast. Later, class leaders discussed the matter.

Priyanka Verma and a few other senior students mooted and mulled the idea.

"Everyone lapped it up," Priyanka, a 10th-grader, told UCA News Aug. 2. "We thought we should celebrate the feast as a tribute to the Jesuits' sacrifices and contributions," the Hindu girl added.

Hindu tradition and scriptures, she explained, "allow us to choose our guru from any creed or community." She said all agreed they have a right to revere St. Ignatius as their guru and celebrate his feast.

But the schools' Jesuit officials were reluctant, saying Hindu students celebrating the feast could have negative impact, Priyanka recounted.

Permission was granted when students assured they would not celebrate the feast as a religious ceremony, but as a cultural event, with programs stressing the saint as their "guru and world teacher."

Each student contributed 5 rupees ($0.12 USD) for programs on July 30, a date chosen to avoid colliding with the Jesuits' programs the following day, Priyanka explained.

The students' programs were a "synthesis" of cultures and religions, commented Ajay D'Cruze, a Catholic who teaches in the school. He said Hindu students staged dramas based on biblical themes and Jesuit history. They also honored the 11 Jesuits at the school with flowers and gift packets.

The students' celebration was on a "miraculously auspicious" day, commented Brij Mohan Sharma, a Brahmin who teaches Sanskrit in the school. July 30 this year was Guru Purnima, a full-moon feast when Hindus recognize their gurus.

Hitendra Narayan Mitra, 83, a Hindu physician who studied at the school during the 1940s, said high-caste Hindus at that time avoided close interaction with the Jesuits. Mostly Caucasian Americans, the eeligous were "considered untouchable" in the caste-ridden society, he recalled.

"So we neither tried to know who they were, nor did they try to tell us," Mitra said, thanking the present students for "their marvelous act." He said Jesuits, having worked in the school since 1927, "are our real gurus."

D'Cruze said that in the past, only Catholic students attended the feast-day programs. Others enjoyed a holiday.

"The feast used to be a non-event. But this year virtually everyone in the town came to know about it, thanks to our Hindu students," he remarked.

For centuries the feast has been the Church's "exclusive affair," commented Jesuit Father Francis Palliparambil, the school headmaster. But this year "our students set a new historic trend," he told UCA News. He hopes students in Jesuit institutions in more than 100 countries will emulate his students.

School rector Father Joseph Thadavanal said he and the other Jesuits were "really inspired by our students to do more and more to actualize our mission."

Big Indian Catholic website (here)

Original article (here)