[Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
Hi Sonia, Just to clarify the following: > Roland my dear. I understand your agony at being fed a stale bun and > lukewarm coffee at your dismal Jesuit School. 1. The school was not ‘dismal’. It was a rather high end Bombay school. 2. The ‘dismal’ part referred only to the breakfast on feast days provided to the students. It was not a boarding school. So the students had well nourishing food amidst a welcoming family at home. 3. The frustration at a god and the saints arises not from any perceived treatment received at the hands of the church or its officials (excepting the horrendous child molestation abuse perpetrated on innocent children that we all read about), but at the fact that we were brainwashed when young to believe in the completely irrational. Roland.
Re: [Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 14:07, Sonia Gomes wrote: > Roland my dear. I understand your agony at being fed a stale bun and > lukewarm coffee at your dismal Jesuit School. By the time we were in school, in the late 1970s, the Jesuits had already sworn by an "option for the poor". They were into their johlawala phase; don't know what it was like earlier. The Jesuit table (then at least) was very sparse. I've had tea or a meal in their pantry (with the priests, that is) and it's like the 80 rupee rice plate I used to eat at Ajanta. Maybe not that well prepared. >From what I hear (no first-hand experience), the Salesians are the best fed. Was once told a joke about three things God doesn't know -- what the Salesians will have for dinner that night, what conspiracy the Jesuits are planning next, and how many congregations of nuns actually exist on the planet! As you could guess, the joke came from a Jesuit! FN PS: My memory doesn't seem very good: https://wesleyanarminian.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/what-are-the-three-things-god-doesnt-know-joke/ -- FN* फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا +91-9822122436
Re: [Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
Absolutely Roland! Remember we have been given the freedom of choice. The priests could have and should have had a better conscience, considering that these parents were working extremely hard and all that mattered to them was that their children did well. Thank you for your good wishes Sonia On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 21:49, Roland Francis wrote: > Thank you Sonia for your post. Best wishes of Christmas and the season to > you too. > > You said: > Where was God when all those atrocities were > happening to the inmates of the concentration camps? And there was an > answer, 'Where was Man?' > > I reply: > Quite my point. > You don’t require a god to steer man’s destiny. > > Regards. > Roland. > > > > > > > On Dec 3, 2020, at 11:36 PM, Sonia Gomes wrote: > > > > Where was God when all those atrocities were > > happening to the inmates of the concentration camps? And there was an > > answer, 'Where was Man?' >
Re: [Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
Thank you Sonia for your post. Best wishes of Christmas and the season to you too. You said: Where was God when all those atrocities were happening to the inmates of the concentration camps? And there was an answer, 'Where was Man?' I reply: Quite my point. You don’t require a god to steer man’s destiny. Regards. Roland. > On Dec 3, 2020, at 11:36 PM, Sonia Gomes wrote: > > Where was God when all those atrocities were > happening to the inmates of the concentration camps? And there was an > answer, 'Where was Man?'
Re: [Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
Roland my dear. I understand your agony at being fed a stale bun and lukewarm coffee at your dismal Jesuit School. Braz Meneges in his trilogy has highlighted every aspect of his terrible hunger. To be blunt, the food offerings were little better than what the inmates of a concentration camp got. The hunger was so intense that boys whose parents were paying enormous sums of money for their studies and boarding were forced to forage in nearby orchards. Now coming to the crucial question, does St. Francis Xavier have anything to do with it? Does it have any bearing on the faith people repose in the Saint? And the answer is No,of course not. That the Jesuits, duped the parents of the boarders, extorted money from parents who worked extremely hard, has nothing to do with St. Francis, it has everything to do with the Priests, with their callous, awful attitude towards the helpless boarders who were young and whose parents were so far away. Once there was a question, ' Where was God when all those atrocities were happening to the inmates of the concentration camps? And there was an answer, 'Where was Man?' A beautiful Christmas to you Roland, Mog assundi and enjoy yourself!!! Love from Goa Sonia On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 05:20, Frederick Noronha wrote: > The chances of you sitting in distant Toronto and writing this in distant > 2020 Anno Domini would have been infinitesimally smaller, without doubt! FN > > On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 04:16, Roland Francis > wrote: > > > Spare a few moments to dwell upon what would have happened if the man had > > not reached Goa. Of course we would not have had food and drink and > > merriment on the third of December every year, but by not being bathed in > > the joys of Christianity, would we have been children of any lesser god. > > > > Roland > > Toronto. > > > -- > FN* फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا +91-9822122436 >
Re: [Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
The chances of you sitting in distant Toronto and writing this in distant 2020 Anno Domini would have been infinitesimally smaller, without doubt! FN On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 04:16, Roland Francis wrote: > Spare a few moments to dwell upon what would have happened if the man had > not reached Goa. Of course we would not have had food and drink and > merriment on the third of December every year, but by not being bathed in > the joys of Christianity, would we have been children of any lesser god. > > Roland > Toronto. > -- FN* फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا +91-9822122436
[Goanet] St Francis Xavier - Stray Thoughts
I don’t think what I am saying will receive much empathy but I am not looking for it. What if the reality created around the saint does not reflect the facts that might have occurred? Here is a nobleman from Spain caught up in the fanatical religious fervour of his time and country, sailing off to convert the heathen. Only, they were not heathen, they were an organized society finding themselves constant victims of the greed of invaders and neighbouring kingdoms. Of course this society had its ills like caste and discrimination and the various undesirable traits of the sixteenth century when viewed from the eyes of the twenty-first. Come to think of it, the Christian world of the time had at least an equal number of bad habits not the least of which was burning people who didn’t share your views, at the stake, not to mention the sexual and other profligacies of the popes. So the man sails off to Goa and converts much of the local population. This is something that remains a mystery to me to this day. What is it he said to the population that had its own religion, practices and deep rooted culture that could have turned wide swaths of them to his way of worship. Violence and really heavy enticements could be plausible answers. So time passes, this man dies, somebody embalms some corpse somewhere and brings it to Goa, building so called miracles that defy all rational belief around that body and that man. So powerful do the myths and the legends become that we are led to imagine he is now the saviour and protector of Goa. A man that came to convert people for the glory of his king and pope and for a god that had never made an appearance to the billions who have humbly and faithfully worshipped him out of fear of what they think awaits them after death but have no proof of it. So the people of Goa ascribe all sorts of events positive to them to blessings of this saint. What are blessings actually? Some good word whispered in the omnipotent creators ear of which he should have been himself acutely aware due to his (or her) omnipotence and omnipresence. Why should this god tolerate all the killings done directly or indirectly by this saint to people that were made in his own image. So off we go in our Sunday best to worship (we will deny it as worship, calling it pray) and then celebrate it with food and drink worthy of sixteenth century fiesta. Spare a few moments to dwell upon what would have happened if the man had not reached Goa. Of course we would not have had food and drink and merriment on the third of December every year, but by not being bathed in the joys of Christianity, would we have been children of any lesser god. As for me all I know is that I would not have had the simple pleasures of a stale bun and lukewarm coffee in a dreary lunch hall after a high mass in a Jesuit school where the Jesuits priests I am told, partook of a table loaded with a fancy hot breakfast of all kinds of egg preparations, cold meat cuts, croissants and cakes with juices and coffees, that the alter servers among us got a minuscule, hurried bit to share. Roland Toronto.
