1st Week of Lent, Wednesday, Feb 25th; Bl Rani Maria
Jonah 3:1-10 / Luke 11:29-32
People asked Jesus for a sign; "No sign will be given. "
The sign of Jonah was the radical conversion of the Ninevites as a result of Jonah's preaching. The Ninevites underwent a radical conversion because they heard God's voice in Jonah's. The reason they converted was that their ears and hearts were open to what Jonah had to say.
The Jews weren't converted when they heard Jesus preach because they didn't recognise God's voice in his. And the reason they didn't do this was that their ears and hearts were closed to what Jesus had to say. If the Jews had opened their hearts to Jesus' preaching, they too would have seen the "sign of Jonah," a radical conversion of themselves and their brothers and sisters.
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How open is our heart to what Jesus has to say? " 'You shall indeed hear but not understand, you shall indeed look but never see.' " Matthew 13:14
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Even for pagans, even for those known for their cruelty, like the people that enslaved the Jews, it is possible to be converted. When the author of the Book of Jonah told this to the Jews, it was an astonishing message to them. For Jews, yes, but for pagans? Jesus seems to turn things around: pagans turn to God, but you, God’s people, don’t. Aren’t we Christians perhaps too smug too, thinking that we are God’s people, and therefore need no conversion?
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There are plenty of material about the predictions of the end of the world and doomsday prophecies. So much so that we get numbed by it and we begin to see them as some kind of a dumb joke. Yet, whether we frown upon or make fun of it, there is an urgency about these doomsday prophecies. Putting it simply, it tells us to be prepared and to get ready for impending judgement and punishment.
Well, in the 1st reading, if the people of Nineveh were to frown or make fun of the prophet Jonah, then it would have been really disastrous for them. But they heeded the message, maybe because they acknowledge their evil behaviour and the wicked things they have done. The season of Lent calls us to conversion and repentance so that we can be forgiven and healed by God.
Yet it is not a question of whether we are heeding the message. We all know we must repent, but is there an urgency? Let us not wait and take things easy, especially in this season of Lent. The people of Nineveh were given three days. We may have lesser time.
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Encountering Christ:
· Demanding a Sign: Despite the fulfillment of dozens of major Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, some in the crowd demanded yet more signs from Jesus. He offered another chance to these unbelievers by clearly stating that he was “something greater” than Jonah of the Old Testament, who was a sign of God’s love for the Ninevites, or King Solomon, who was sought for his wisdom by the Queen of Sheba. Jesus, himself, was the sign to Israel and the promised Messiah. Pagans such as the Ninevites and the Queen of Sheba turned their hearts to God when they met his imperfect messengers. These Jews had the most perfect sign in their midst, the Son of God himself, yet many did not believe.
· Recognizing Our Lord: There is a warning here for followers of Christ today. Do we pick and choose which teachings of the Church conveniently align with our own opinions and desires? Or do we acknowledge “something greater” in Christ Jesus, and trust in the wisdom of his bride the Church? Jesus warns that the men of Nineveh and the Queen of Sheba will condemn the generations who fail to acknowledge God in their midst. We must take this warning to heart.
· Seeking God at Great Cost: The Queen of Sheba went to great trouble and expense to seek out the wisdom of Solomon. A pagan ruler of Saba, in Southwest Arabia, she became a believer after visiting Solomon and learning of the God of Abraham. The people of Nineveh, a pagan Assyrian stronghold, converted to faith in the Lord when Jonah preached repentance to them. Seeking and following Jesus can be a costly undertaking. It can require painful detachment, lots of sacrifice, and little failures along the way. Yet, this process of transformation reaps for us eternal rewards beyond our imagining. “For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).
Conversation with Christ: Lord, I thank you for your words and your presence. You are truly a God of second chances. Forgive me for the times I have doubted you, ignored you, or strayed from your ways. Strengthen my faith in you. I pray for true conversion in my heart.
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will prayerfully read the first reading of the day, Jonah 3:1-10. I will reflect on the second chance you gave Jonah and the amazing results when Jonah followed your wishes. I will pray for courage and strength to do what you ask in my own life.
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Prayer
Forgiving, merciful God, we pray you for a good measure of humility and honesty to acknowledge before you and people that we are weak and fallible men and women, who often try to turn a blind eye to our shortcomings and our sins. Strong with the grace won in the hard way by your Son on the cross, we beg you for the courage to seek your forgiveness and to turn and return wholeheartedly to you and to serve you and people. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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In 1995, Sister Rani Maria was murdered near Indore. Ahead of her beatification this November, HT recounts the moving story of how her family forgave the killer and accepted him as their own
Sometime in March 2002, one of the murder convicts serving life imprisonment in Indore central prison got an unexpected visitor. Like the rest of the population of Madhya Pradesh (MP), the visitor, Swami Sadanand, a Carmelite Father working among prisoners in the state, was also aware of inmate Samandar Singh. The frail, short-statured Singh, with bulging eyes and a chevron moustache, had murdered a 41-year-old nun, Sister Rani Maria near Indore in 1995, by stabbing her more than 50 times.
“It is regarding Sister Rani Maria. That man says he is her brother. There is no harm in seeing him,” said the superintendent.
It would take the Father two months and five meetings to convince Singh that Sister Rani Maria’s family had forgiven him and wanted to see him.
“I trust you Swami ji, but are you sure this is why they want to meet me? I am asking this because I have done nothing to earn their forgiveness,” Singh would keep asking.
“You have spent seven years here in prison. And you are repenting. You have suffered enough,” would be the Father’s response every time.
THE MURDER
In 1992, Samandar Singh was a 28-year-old ordinary villager making a living by farming and doing odd jobs when Sister Rani, professed sister of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, got posted in Udainagar, about an hour’s drive from Indore. She was in the general vicinity of Singh’s village, Semlia Raimal.
Hailing from Pulluvazhy, a small hamlet near Kochi, Kerala’s commercial capital, she worked with the tribal and Dalit communities in Bijnor (Uttar Pradesh) and Satna (MP). Those stints helped her build a rapport with villagers in Udainagar, who depended a great deal on money lenders. She conducted camps informing them about government subsidies and loans and in the process, antagonised the money lenders.
In December 1994, there was a clash between the tribals and the people of Semlia Raimal. Jeevan Singh, a money lender close to Singh, was wounded. Sister Rani bailed the tribals out. “That was the trigger for what happened,” Singh told HT.
Roughly two months after that incident, at 8.15am on February 25, 1995, Sister Rani Maria boarded a bus from Udainagar to Indore. She intended to reach Bhopal to take a train to Kerala and visit her home town. Samandar, Jeevan and their accomplice Dharmendra were already in the bus. “Why have you come here from Kerala? Have you come to convert tribal people to Christianity? We won’t allow that,” Jeevan told Sister Rani. Around 20 km from Udainagar, the bus was passing by a jungle when Samandar asked the driver to stop. He got down, broke a coconut against a rock on the road side, got back in the bus and distributed it to passengers. He offered a piece to Sister Rani but then withdrew it. She asked him, “Why are you so overjoyed today?”
As the passengers cowered in terror or began running away, Singh dragged Sister Rani Maria out of the bus and stabbed her to death. There were 40 major injuries and 15 bruises on her body, as per the post-mortem report. “I panicked,” Singh recalled those moments, after which the three disappeared in the thick jungles of the Malwa region, to be caught after three days.
For more than four hours, Sister Rani Maria’s body lay on the road, unattended.
THE PARDON
Selmy Paul was working as a nun in Bhopal when she received the news of the murder of her elder sister, Rani. The first thought that came to her mind was that she would never forgive her didi’s assassin.
Sister Selmy said that when she touched the corpse of her sister, she could recall her saying that she would work for the poor till her last breath. Sister Selmy was overwhelmed, thinking that her sister’s wish had been fulfilled. But she could not come to terms with the fact that her sister, who had worked for the poor all her life, had been brutally murdered and abandoned on the road to breathe her last. “I was sobbing and asking Jesus, why did you let my sister die in pain all alone?” recalled Sister Selmy. After a few minutes, she heard a voice. She felt as if Jesus was saying, “Me and Mother Mary were with Sister Rani at the time of her death. Is that not enough for you?”
Since that moment, Sister Selmy said, she began to believe that her sister’s death was God’s plan and Samandar Singh was merely an instrument. “That realisation gave me the power to pardon my sister’s assassin,” said Sister Selmy.
“But how would I convince my family to forgive the assassin and move on?” she wondered.
Three months after this, Sister Selmy’s mother visited Udainagar for the first time. They had to pass a stretch where they could have come across Jeevan and Dharmendra who were out on bail. Sister Selmy was apprehensive and asked her mother what if she saw them. Her mother said she would kiss their hands because they had the blood of her daughter on them.
“In hindsight, I believe that my sister forgave her assassin and that gave us the power to do the same,” said Sister Selmy. “And don’t forget that our religion encourage forgiving the enemy. We are conditioned like that.”
THE MEETING
Though Father Sadanand was in touch with Singh, he had never met or interacted with Sister Selmy. In mid July 2002, he phoned her asking her if she was ready to meet Singh in prison on Raksha Bandhan. “Yes, but I don’t know if I will get access,” she said. The Father said that he would arrange the meeting.
August 21, 2002 is an unforgettable day for Sister Selmy. That evening, all seven passengers in the mini bus – six Sisters and Father Sadanand– remained silent all through the 45-minute journey from Pithampur town (MP) to Indore prison. “I was constantly praying to God to give me the strength to pardon Singh,” said Sister Selmy.
Watch: How Sister Rani Maria’s family forgave her killer and accepted him as one of their own
“We have forgiven you. Do not keep anything in your heart. Be good to everyone,” Sister Selmy told Singh, and tied a rakhi on his wrist. “It is hard to believe but from then on, I received the grace to feel that he was my own brother,” Sister Selmy said.
SAMANDAR, MY BROTHER
She met Singh again after six months. And again on the next Raksha Bandhan. This time, Singh gave her a hand written apology letter and requested her if she could help him in getting parole.
In the next three years, Singh would get parole twice.
Singh had spent nine years in prison when Sister Selmy began to believe that she should explore options for his early release, the way she would have done for her real brother. Sister Selmy and Father Sadanand moved the prison authorities for Singh’s probation.
In August 2006, after spending 11 years and six months in prison, Singh was released on probation.
The following year, he visited Sister Selmy’s family in Pulluvazhy. All through the meeting, Singh said, he could not believe that the family of the woman whom he murdered had forgiven him and embraced him as their third son. “I was thinking that it was beyond imagination, what they did for me. At the same time, I was happy to have got a new family,” said Singh.
He makes sure to visit Sister Rani Maria’s grave and memorial – the latter is constructed at the spot where she was murdered – on her death anniversary. How is it to pray at the grave of someone you killed? Sister Selmy once asked Singh. “The first time, I was trembling. Over the years, I got used to it. Now I pray for her soul’s peace and my peace of mind,” Singh said.
Singh is a changed man. He said the transformation started in the third year of his sentence. RD Shukla, then chief judicial magistrate of Indore High Court, visited the prison to inaugurate a yoga camp. Singh appealed before him for bail. “Shukla sir asked me if I understood the intensity of pain I had caused Sister Rani and her family. He left it at that.
Singh said until Sister Rani Maria’s family pardoned him, his plan was to kill the two men who persuaded him to murder Sister Rani, and then commit suicide. “Those thoughts vanished once I was forgiven,” he said. “This is a different Samandar Singh standing before you.”
In March, the Vatican cleared Sister Rani Maria’s beatification – the penultimate stage in the four-phased canonisation process in the Catholic Church. The process of her canonization began in 2003. After four years, she was declared a Servant of God.
