History of the Little Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India
“Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. His love endures forever” (1Chr16:34). With grateful heart we would like to share our missionary journey in the diocese of Jhansi. Before we go to the locality where we are, it will be better to share the geographical background.
Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India. 2500 km far from Kerala. With roughly 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in India. Hindi is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state. Hinduism is practiced by more than three-fourths of the population, with Islam being the next largest religious group.
Uttar Pradesh has a humid subtropical climate and experiences four seasons. Summers are extreme with temperatures fluctuating anywhere between 0 °C and 50 °C in parts of the state coupled with dry hot winds called the Loo. Wheat is the state’s principal food crop and sugarcane is the main commercial crop.
Jhansi lies in the extreme south of Uttar Pradesh. It is about 415 kilometres from New Delhi. Jhansi diocese has an area of 29,418 square kilometers, with seven civil districts. There are 12,832 Catholics, representing 0.046 percent of 82, 32,071 people in the territory. The diocese has 24 parishes and more than 40 mission stations. Around 75 priests and 26 religious congregations are serving the diocese. Rev. Dr. Peter Parapullil has been the diocesan Bishop since 2012. The church here is involved in the ministries of education and social welfare activities.
The locality where we are doing our mission is 67 km away from the city of Jhansi, which is MADHA, MAURANIPUR. Mauranipur had a population of 61,449. The mission station was established in 1987 which is St.Mary’s Inter College. Madha mission is an extension of St.Mary’s Mission. This Mission station is 4 km away from St.Mary’s Inter College. The land of 10 acres bought in order to have separate English medium school with the future plan of having a college up to Bachelor of Science. The school is directed by the Principal Fr. Paul Raj who is from Tamil Nadu, Vice Principal Fr. Prakash from Andra Pradesh with 50 teachers and 2186 students. Most of the teachers are from the locality who belongs to Hindu religion.
In the year of 2017, 31st July, LMSH (Srs.Ceena, Mini and Salini) became part of this mission. After having four years of missionary life here, with one voice we can say that we are blessed and they too are blessed with our presence. We are teaching different subjects in different classes. Even though all the students and teachers are belongs to Hindu religion, the classes begin with a hymn to Jesus and with the Lord’s Prayer and the students guide the prayer ceremony creatively and participate actively. Having lessons in different classes, we have the opportunity to meet at least 500 students, everyday for 40 minutes in each class.
This is where we share the Love of the Heart of Jesus. We never leave the class without giving them any moral lessons. Many students used to come and share their personal problems and we are able to guide them well. We used to approach the problematic students who are quite rebellious and try to counsel them.
There are some students have shown the interest to read the Bible. Not only among students but also among teachers we are a witnessing God’s Love.
A joyful experience which we would like to share is that, one of our teachers started to come for the Sunday Holy Eucharist and started to pray the novena to the Sacred Heart for his father who is partially paralyzed. We believe that God really wants our presence among our Hindu brethren who still doesn’t know Christ. The process will not be very fast like in the first centuries, but surely concrete.
Prayer without action is powerless. Our prayer is always become fruitful in our mission. It is only from our intimacy with Christ and the oneness among ourselves gave us strength to do the mission. We are very happy to co- operate with our priest in charge in proclaiming the word of God, in animating the liturgy etc.
We acknowledge that we are nothing but with God everything is possible. Like St. Paul we would like to say “His Grace is enough for me”.