Today I went to visit the Basilica of Mount Mary in Bandra and the Pastoral center for the Archdiocese of Bombay. If you have downloaded Google Earth onto your computer, you can view my pictorial of the parish, by clicking here. You may also see the pictures of St. Andrew’s parish, which is over 400 years old by clicking here.
“If you come during the feast day, there are many, many people.”
“Really?”
“Yes. All sorts of people. Even non-Catholics.”
“You don’t say.”
“That’s right. Even the Hindus come, sometimes more so than the Catholics.”
“Who would have thought?”
It is a good thing that I’m a professional actor as well as a minister. I would never be able to get through the same conversation, for the 6th time in the last three weeks, if I didn’t know how to feign interest. Each time, I swear that I am having the same conversation. People tell me about their shrine. It is wonderful... They attract multitudes of people… People from other faiths come... Blah, blah, blah…
I get it already.
So today, when I was at Mount Mary’s Basilica, I acted surprised, and then moved in for the kill, I asked the burning questions, you know… “What’s the point? I mean if all they are doing is coming to burn some candles out of some kind of superstition, which is actually fed by Hindu beliefs, why do all this? The Hindus have no appreciation for our doctrine, no appreciation for our beliefs, no concern for charity, and no intention to make any change in their life. Why go through all the trouble for a feast day, if there is nothing we can show for it?”
There is of course the financial kick back. Fr. Savio Rodriguez was telling me how on the feast day, September 8, a single vending booth on the parking lot rents for $50,000. The vendor can make the money back before lunch, and this, in a country that has enormous concerns with water shortages and poverty.
Speaking of vendors, there is a unique twist on things at Mount Mary’s Basilica that I haven’t seen at other shrines. The vendors outside this parish sell wax items that you can put at the foot of the altar dedicated to Mary, plastic cars (I keep hearing the country song, “Lord! won’t you send me, a Mercedes Benz), plastic boys (for having a baby boy), plastic girls (for having a baby girl), plastic houses, plastic dogs... You get the picture.
It is funny how your reaction changes the more you hear the same story. The first time I heard, “The Hindus come to the shine too,” I was intrigued, imagining a world in which all religions respected and encouraged one another. The second through fourth time, I was moved by the way, “Asians feel faith with their heart, not their head.” Now, I’m just annoyed. This comes from a growing sentiment fostered by my own pastoral environment. Where I work, St. Ignatius parish in Chicago, we play the host to special devotions three times a year. It is difficult to say that the effort increases our active membership, the dedication of the people, or our finances. Actually, it is more likely that the cost of clean up, and extra work to host the devotions, is a burden rather than a benefit.
So it was good that the staff at the Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese of Bombay answered my questions with kindness. “It leads some to a complete change of heart.” As moved as I have been in Asia by the heart as the primary mode of access to one’s faith, I’m starting to get a little suspicious of this heart thing. “What about the mind! Where does right judgment and right reason fit in?”
There are many reasons that people choose to become Catholic/Christian. One of the funnier ones that I heard today was because one women wanted to become Catholic for fashion. “If I’m Catholic, I can wear blue jeans.” I keep trying to remind myself, “Cultural differences are fun!” Sometimes I’m more successful at convincing myself of that than at other times.
There are around 300 people converting to Catholicism in the Archdiocese of Bombay this year. All of them have to have a legal affidavit signed attesting that they are not being forced to become Catholic. It is a government imposed sanction since the many years of hostility between Hindus, Muslims, and Christian missionaries. Still, most of the converts are converting because they intend on marrying a Catholic within the next year. Their choice is probably better than a longing desire to wear blue jeans, but it is still for a reason of the heart.
I was assured by the RCIA director that in the process, there are some real conversions, there is some real change. I’m always a little skeptical, but at least it calmed my nerves enough so that I didn’t start overturning the moneychangers’ booths outside the temple/church, even if I do think the practice of buying a wax heart, to offer to Mary, for your upcoming heart surgery, does border on a violation of the Second Commandment.
It becomes a question, for those of us who over-think, whether or not we have faith in Divine Providence. Do we believe that we alone are responsible for the activity of God, or can we allow God to speak to people in God’s time? If all we have done is create the space for people to come and discover God on their own terms, then we have probably done a lot. Catholics/Christians should always be ready and willing to share the “Good News.” This is true, but Catholics/Christians are guilty of sometimes believing that we are God. We criticize the characteristics of other faiths, saying that they make false idols for God, and while intending to write the wrongs and fix their errors, we become false idols ourselves.
OK, maybe you don’t, but I do. I become my own false idol, thinking that I have answers for other people. I don’t. God’ does. If I would just let a shrine be a shrine. Let the Hindu’s come, and let God do his job. I’m sure it will all work out in the end, even for the guy paying $50,000 to rent the vending booth, but probably for all of us too… I’m quite certain.