As most of us know, the densely populated Himalayan country of Nepal was struck by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake on April 25, killing at least 8,000 people and leaving more than one million survivors homeless. Now, just this morning, only seventeen days later, Nepal has suffered another major earthquake, this one magnitude 7.3. I don't know what the odds are of two seventh-magnitude earthquakes striking the same location less than three weeks apart, but I don't think I've ever heard of this happening before. There is considerable evidence (widely touted by creationists, and largely ignored by evolutionists) that the Himalayan mountains themselves are the result of a tremendous collision between two large tectonic plates during the Great Flood of Genesis. Now the Indian plate is slowly pushing northward over time into the larger main Asian plate, and occasional bumps and rough spots in this process can trigger earthquakes in the region. I also know that India and Pakistan, the two powerful rival nations of South Asia, both have nuclear weapons and occasionally perform underground nuclear tests, especially when they are preparing for war, which can also trigger earthquakes in the Himalayas. I'm not sure what the causes of these two particular earthquakes were, but since I'm not aware of any nuclear testing activities or heightened hostility between India and Pakistan at the moment, I will for now assume natural causes were responsible for these two events.
Although I felt several tremors when I was growing up in California and experienced the magnitude 5.9 quake that shook Virginia on August 23, 2011 at my home more than 100 miles from the epicenter, I have been blessed so far to have never directly experienced a truly destructive earthquake. I can only imagine the gut-wrenching situation in which the people of Nepal now find themselves and what they must be going through at this moment, having lost homes and loved ones just weeks ago, and now with their lives and nerves having been shattered yet again while recovery and rebuilding efforts from the first quake had only just begun. Let's keep the victims of this rare double earthquake in our prayers and compassion and do what we can to help them. Thankfully, Catholic Relief Services has responded to the initial disaster with its accustomed timely, well-organized and professional approach to humanitarian relief, and the agency is now redoubling its efforts to address the latest crisis. I cannot recommend their work highly enough, and I encourage all readers who are able to do so to donate to CRS earthquake relief.
Showing posts with label Catholic Relief Services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Catholic Relief Services. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Christmas with Mother Teresa: A True Story Never Before Told
A newly written book, Christmas with Mother Teresa tells an amazing true story that has never before been told. It is the story of how Catholic Relief Services and the Missionaries of Charity joined forces to being emergency humanitarian aid to millions of Bengali refugees from East Pakistan who flooded eastern India in 1971. It’s a dramatic, action-packed tale of political repression, natural disaster, guerilla warfare, ethnic cleansing, massive population shifts, Cold War politics, modern war, and the birth of a new nation. More than that, however, it’s a powerful drama of great human tragedy and suffering illuminated and uplifted by the gentle touch of Christ’s redeeming love.
Well-researched, compelling, and inspiring, Christmas with Mother Teresa gives readers the historical and cultural background of the events it describes. It explains that the innocent Bengali people of East Pakistan were massacred and forced onto India’s doorstep in such great numbers in 1971 because their determination to be free conflicted with West Pakistani commercial interests.
As related in the book, the Hindu natives of East Bengal had lived as second-class citizens in the apartheid-style nation of East Pakistan for decades, ruled by Islamic West Pakistani foreigners with whom they had little in common. Late in 1970, facing continued repression and racism, government mismanagement of a terrible natural disaster, and persistent violations of their rights, the Bengalis started a guerrilla uprising against the corrupt Pakistani regime.
Pakistan was governed by a brutal military dictator named General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, who was determined to crush the rebellion and restore full Pakistani control of East Bengal no matter what the cost. When mass arrests, torture, and random cold-blooded shootings of East Pakistani civilians failed to destroy the liberation movement, General Khan turned to mass murder. The Pakistani Army began ruthlessly massacring tens of thousands of innocent Bengali men, women and children and burning dozens of villages across its eastern colony.
This wholesale reign of terror precipitated a mass exodus of Bengalis from East Pakistan. Beginning in March of 1971 and continuing until December of that year, nearly ten million of them—mostly civilians, but with a few guerrillas mixed in—ran for their lives, pouring en masse across the Indian border, seeking refuge from their enemies in the nearest friendly country. A large number of them landed in the already densely populated and impoverished Indian state of West Bengal, whose capital was Calcutta. These millions of refugees arrived in India absolutely destitute, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, presenting their host nation with a humanitarian crisis of almost unimaginable proportions—and presenting Catholic Relief Services with one of the greatest relief challenges in the organization’s remarkable history.
Christmas with Mother Teresa tells how Catholic Relief Services (CRS)—the overseas charitable agency of the U.S. Catholic Church—brilliantly rose to the occasion, planning and executing a tremendous feat of emergency relief. From March to December of 1971, as the horrific Bengali genocide decimated East Pakistan, Cold War leaders played ruthless power games, and the threat of war hung over the Indian subcontinent, CRS staff and thousands of volunteers led by the Missionaries of Charity worked together around the clock building some two hundred refugee camps along the Indian border and supplying all the material needs of two million Bengali refugees: sanitation, medical services, food, water, clothing, soap, and shelter. In collaboration with CRS, the Missionaries of Charity also provided for the refugees’ critical spiritual and emotional needs of love, friendship, recreation, comfort, support, and encouragement.
Based on eyewitness testimony, Christmas with Mother Teresa tells how this extraordinary work of charity was organized and carried out under the principal direction of two individuals: the CRS Program Director for India and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The climax of this profoundly moving and unforgettable true story is a totally unexpected and unique Christmas experience shared with the “saint of Calcutta”, the refugees, and a special visitor from the United States whose cause for sainthood is also underway.
The book will also relate in detail:
• How Catholic Relief Services helped Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity perform their daily works of mercy in Calcutta • How CRS and the Missionaries of Charity brought aid to desperate Bengalis after a crippling natural disaster struck East Pakistan in 1970 • How India and the world responded to the massive refugee crisis • The role played by Cold War superpowers in the conflict between India and Pakistan • How Mother Teresa’s example and leadership contributed to the success of the CRS refugee relief program • Why Mother Teresa became known as “a great symbol of peace” • How the Bengali genocide and refugee crisis were ultimately stopped • What happened to the refugees after the crisis • Everyday examples of Mother Teresa’s heroic virtues such as humility, charity, patience, abandonment to the Divine Will, and trust in Divine Providence as witnessed by the CRS Program Director • What the Program Director learned from Mother Teresa’s example of holiness
Why has this gem of a story remained buried for so many years? One reason is that the events took place in a relatively obscure developing country during polarized and chaotic times for the world in general. The Cold War was raging, and many nations fell into one of two camps, either pro-Communist (led by the Soviet Union) or anti-Communist (led by the United States). India, however, refused to take part in this conflict, so it was generally marginalized by the two Cold War superpowers who dominated the world stage. Also, despite their magnitude, the Bengali genocide and refugee crisis were overshadowed in the international media and in people’s minds by other, “bigger” events and issues such as the Vietnam War, radical social and cultural changes, environmental concerns, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, the Apollo moon landings, and the sweeping liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Another reason why this novel-like tale has remained untold has to do with a disturbing and lesser-known aspect of the Cold War politics of the time. For political reasons, as the book candidly points out, in the early 1970s the U.S. government was allied with and even secretly arming the Pakistani military dictatorship responsible for the massacre of up to three million innocent Bengalis and the forced displacement of ten million others into India. The Nixon administration downplayed the ethnic cleansing and refugee crisis, thus keeping its shameful and illegal involvement in these humanitarian tragedies largely hidden from American public view. The horrible details of the Bengali genocide and the U.S. role in it were not fully revealed to the Western world until after the Cold War had ended, beginning in the late 1990s with the research of R. J. Rummel and other historians and continuing since 2002 with the declassification of relevant U.S. State Department documents.
A third reason why this account is generally unknown is that no one has written and published an in-depth account of it, firsthand or otherwise. Nearly all of the eyewitnesses to these events have passed away, taking their memories to their graves. Even Eileen Egan (1911-2001), the great contemporary journalist, biographer and co-worker of Mother Teresa and a prominent figure in Catholic Relief Services, only gives a thumbnail sketch of the enormous refugee crisis and relief effort or mentions them in passing in her published writings because she was not directly involved in them firsthand (cf. Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa—The Spirit and the Work [New York: Doubleday, 1985], pp. 196-99, 204, 212; also cf. Catholic Relief Services: The Beginning Years [New York: Catholic Relief Services, 1988], pp. 292-93).
Indeed, this amazing story might have been lost for all time—except for the fact that at least one eyewitness to it is still alive today and willing to share it with others. Moreover, this eyewitness was not a casual bystander or passive victim of the historic events he witnessed, but rather a key figure who was intimately involved in them. As the CRS Program Director for India from 1969 to 1977, this man spent nine years working closely with Mother Teresa and was in charge of the tremendous relief effort for East Pakistani refugees. This humble and cheerful man, now retired and in his late seventies, is a good storyteller and a good friend of mine. Over the past few years, he has kindly granted me a series of private interviews in which he told the untold story; he also shared with me his personal photo collection of his unique Christmas with Mother Teresa (some of these photos will be included in the published book). I have written the narrative based on my interviews with him as well as on my own additional research, and the book is now being marketed to various Catholic publishers in the U.S. The identity of the CRS Program Director will be revealed in the published book.
Christmas with Mother Teresa will acquaint readers with a major unrecognized achievement in the history of Catholic Relief Services and will fill an important gap in the biographies of Mother Teresa published to date. Information about the book’s publisher, release date, availability, and pricing will be provided on my Twitter page at twitter.com/justinsoutar as well as here on my blog as it becomes available, so please stay tuned.
Well-researched, compelling, and inspiring, Christmas with Mother Teresa gives readers the historical and cultural background of the events it describes. It explains that the innocent Bengali people of East Pakistan were massacred and forced onto India’s doorstep in such great numbers in 1971 because their determination to be free conflicted with West Pakistani commercial interests.
As related in the book, the Hindu natives of East Bengal had lived as second-class citizens in the apartheid-style nation of East Pakistan for decades, ruled by Islamic West Pakistani foreigners with whom they had little in common. Late in 1970, facing continued repression and racism, government mismanagement of a terrible natural disaster, and persistent violations of their rights, the Bengalis started a guerrilla uprising against the corrupt Pakistani regime.
Pakistan was governed by a brutal military dictator named General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan, who was determined to crush the rebellion and restore full Pakistani control of East Bengal no matter what the cost. When mass arrests, torture, and random cold-blooded shootings of East Pakistani civilians failed to destroy the liberation movement, General Khan turned to mass murder. The Pakistani Army began ruthlessly massacring tens of thousands of innocent Bengali men, women and children and burning dozens of villages across its eastern colony.
This wholesale reign of terror precipitated a mass exodus of Bengalis from East Pakistan. Beginning in March of 1971 and continuing until December of that year, nearly ten million of them—mostly civilians, but with a few guerrillas mixed in—ran for their lives, pouring en masse across the Indian border, seeking refuge from their enemies in the nearest friendly country. A large number of them landed in the already densely populated and impoverished Indian state of West Bengal, whose capital was Calcutta. These millions of refugees arrived in India absolutely destitute, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, presenting their host nation with a humanitarian crisis of almost unimaginable proportions—and presenting Catholic Relief Services with one of the greatest relief challenges in the organization’s remarkable history.
Christmas with Mother Teresa tells how Catholic Relief Services (CRS)—the overseas charitable agency of the U.S. Catholic Church—brilliantly rose to the occasion, planning and executing a tremendous feat of emergency relief. From March to December of 1971, as the horrific Bengali genocide decimated East Pakistan, Cold War leaders played ruthless power games, and the threat of war hung over the Indian subcontinent, CRS staff and thousands of volunteers led by the Missionaries of Charity worked together around the clock building some two hundred refugee camps along the Indian border and supplying all the material needs of two million Bengali refugees: sanitation, medical services, food, water, clothing, soap, and shelter. In collaboration with CRS, the Missionaries of Charity also provided for the refugees’ critical spiritual and emotional needs of love, friendship, recreation, comfort, support, and encouragement.
Based on eyewitness testimony, Christmas with Mother Teresa tells how this extraordinary work of charity was organized and carried out under the principal direction of two individuals: the CRS Program Director for India and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The climax of this profoundly moving and unforgettable true story is a totally unexpected and unique Christmas experience shared with the “saint of Calcutta”, the refugees, and a special visitor from the United States whose cause for sainthood is also underway.
The book will also relate in detail:
• How Catholic Relief Services helped Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity perform their daily works of mercy in Calcutta • How CRS and the Missionaries of Charity brought aid to desperate Bengalis after a crippling natural disaster struck East Pakistan in 1970 • How India and the world responded to the massive refugee crisis • The role played by Cold War superpowers in the conflict between India and Pakistan • How Mother Teresa’s example and leadership contributed to the success of the CRS refugee relief program • Why Mother Teresa became known as “a great symbol of peace” • How the Bengali genocide and refugee crisis were ultimately stopped • What happened to the refugees after the crisis • Everyday examples of Mother Teresa’s heroic virtues such as humility, charity, patience, abandonment to the Divine Will, and trust in Divine Providence as witnessed by the CRS Program Director • What the Program Director learned from Mother Teresa’s example of holiness
Why has this gem of a story remained buried for so many years? One reason is that the events took place in a relatively obscure developing country during polarized and chaotic times for the world in general. The Cold War was raging, and many nations fell into one of two camps, either pro-Communist (led by the Soviet Union) or anti-Communist (led by the United States). India, however, refused to take part in this conflict, so it was generally marginalized by the two Cold War superpowers who dominated the world stage. Also, despite their magnitude, the Bengali genocide and refugee crisis were overshadowed in the international media and in people’s minds by other, “bigger” events and issues such as the Vietnam War, radical social and cultural changes, environmental concerns, the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race, the Apollo moon landings, and the sweeping liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Another reason why this novel-like tale has remained untold has to do with a disturbing and lesser-known aspect of the Cold War politics of the time. For political reasons, as the book candidly points out, in the early 1970s the U.S. government was allied with and even secretly arming the Pakistani military dictatorship responsible for the massacre of up to three million innocent Bengalis and the forced displacement of ten million others into India. The Nixon administration downplayed the ethnic cleansing and refugee crisis, thus keeping its shameful and illegal involvement in these humanitarian tragedies largely hidden from American public view. The horrible details of the Bengali genocide and the U.S. role in it were not fully revealed to the Western world until after the Cold War had ended, beginning in the late 1990s with the research of R. J. Rummel and other historians and continuing since 2002 with the declassification of relevant U.S. State Department documents.
A third reason why this account is generally unknown is that no one has written and published an in-depth account of it, firsthand or otherwise. Nearly all of the eyewitnesses to these events have passed away, taking their memories to their graves. Even Eileen Egan (1911-2001), the great contemporary journalist, biographer and co-worker of Mother Teresa and a prominent figure in Catholic Relief Services, only gives a thumbnail sketch of the enormous refugee crisis and relief effort or mentions them in passing in her published writings because she was not directly involved in them firsthand (cf. Such a Vision of the Street: Mother Teresa—The Spirit and the Work [New York: Doubleday, 1985], pp. 196-99, 204, 212; also cf. Catholic Relief Services: The Beginning Years [New York: Catholic Relief Services, 1988], pp. 292-93).
Indeed, this amazing story might have been lost for all time—except for the fact that at least one eyewitness to it is still alive today and willing to share it with others. Moreover, this eyewitness was not a casual bystander or passive victim of the historic events he witnessed, but rather a key figure who was intimately involved in them. As the CRS Program Director for India from 1969 to 1977, this man spent nine years working closely with Mother Teresa and was in charge of the tremendous relief effort for East Pakistani refugees. This humble and cheerful man, now retired and in his late seventies, is a good storyteller and a good friend of mine. Over the past few years, he has kindly granted me a series of private interviews in which he told the untold story; he also shared with me his personal photo collection of his unique Christmas with Mother Teresa (some of these photos will be included in the published book). I have written the narrative based on my interviews with him as well as on my own additional research, and the book is now being marketed to various Catholic publishers in the U.S. The identity of the CRS Program Director will be revealed in the published book.
Christmas with Mother Teresa will acquaint readers with a major unrecognized achievement in the history of Catholic Relief Services and will fill an important gap in the biographies of Mother Teresa published to date. Information about the book’s publisher, release date, availability, and pricing will be provided on my Twitter page at twitter.com/justinsoutar as well as here on my blog as it becomes available, so please stay tuned.
Monday, August 19, 2013
"My Christmas with Mother Teresa" Is Now Complete!
Great news! More than five years after beginning the work, I have now completed a final draft of my second book, entitled My Christmas with Mother Teresa, and have begun the process of locating a publisher. This book tells the amazing never-before-told true story of how the Missionaries of Charity and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) worked together to bring emergency humanitarian aid to some ten million Bengali refugees who flooded eastern India in 1971. The written account is based on my personal interviews with John Mathews, the now retired CRS Program Director who spent nine years (1969 - 77) in India working side by side with Mother Teresa helping the poorest of the poor. The book tells how he and Mother Teresa organized and directed this massive charitable undertaking for the East Pakistani refugees--and how he was unexpectedly given the opportunity of a lifetime to spend one very special Christmas with "the Saint of Calcutta". Details of the book's publication and availability will be coming soon here on my blog, so please stay tuned!
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Christmas with Mother Teresa: A True Story Never Before Told
A new book I am now writing, to be entitled My Christmas with Mother Teresa, will tell an amazing true story that has never before been told. It is the story of how Catholic Relief Services and the Missionaries of Charity joined forces to being emergency humanitarian aid to the ten million Bengali refugees from East Pakistan who flooded eastern India in 1971. It’s a dramatic, action-packed tale of political repression, natural disaster, guerilla warfare, ethnic cleansing, massive population shifts, Cold War politics, modern war, and the birth of a new nation. More than that, however, it’s a powerful drama of great human tragedy and suffering illuminated and uplifted by the gentle touch of Christ’s redeeming love.
Why were the innocent Bengali people of East Pakistan massacred and forced onto India’s doorstep in such great numbers in 1971? Because their determination to establish their own free and independent nation of Bangladesh conflicted with West Pakistani commercial interests. Since 1947, the Hindu natives of East Bengal had lived as second-class citizens in the apartheid-style nation of East Pakistan, ruled by Islamic West Pakistani foreigners from Islamabad with whom they had little in common. Late in 1970, facing continued repression and racism, government mismanagement of a terrible natural disaster, and persistent violations of their rights, the East Bengalis finally started a guerrilla uprising against the Pakistani regime.
During this time, Pakistan was ruled by a brutal military dictator, General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan. General Khan was determined to crush the rebellion and restore full Pakistani control of East Bengal no matter what it took to do so. In early March 1971, he declared martial law and had Bangladeshi independence leaders arrested and imprisoned. Later that month, he sent military reinforcements into Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, to quash the uprising with mass arrests, torture, and the indiscriminate murder of Bengali civilians. When even these measures failed to destroy the liberation movement—on the contrary, it only grew stronger—General Khan turned to all-out mass murder. The Pakistani Army turned completely against the Bengali people of East Pakistan, ruthlessly massacring tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children and burning dozens of villages.
This wholesale reign of terror precipitated a mass emigration of Bengalis from East Pakistan. Beginning in March of 1971 and continuing until December of that year, millions upon millions of East Bengalis—mainly civilians, but also some guerrillas—ran for their lives, pouring en masse across the Indian border, seeking refuge from their enemies in the nearest friendly country. Millions arrived in the already densely populated and impoverished Indian state of West Bengal, whose capital was Calcutta, while millions of others poured into the neighboring border states of Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, and Tripura. These ten million refugees arrived in India absolutely destitute, presenting their host nation with a humanitarian crisis of almost unbelievable proportions—and presenting Catholic Relief Services with one of the greatest relief challenges in the organization’s history.
The book will tell how Catholic Relief Services (CRS) rose to the occasion, planning and executing a tremendous feat of emergency relief. From March to December of 1971, with assistance from the Missionaries of Charity, CRS built some 200 refugee camps along the Indian border and continuously supplied all the material needs of the Bengali refugees: sanitation, medical services, food, water, clothing, soap, and shelter. The book will tell how this extraordinary relief undertaking was organized and carried out under the principal direction of two individuals: the CRS Program Director for India and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
However, the crème de la crème of this book will be its account of the CRS Program Director’s unexpected Christmas surprise of 1971 at the climax of the great refugee relief effort. Cardinal Terence Cooke, who was Archbishop of New York, Vicar of the U.S. Military Archdiocese and head of Catholic Relief Services, was visiting U.S. troops stationed in the Holy Land on Christmas Eve when he decided on the spur of the moment to come visit Mother Teresa and the refugees the following day. The Program Director hastily organized the unforeseen visit, personally escorting the saintly cardinal as he toured the Calcutta refugee camp on Christmas Day in the company of Mother Teresa.
It’s quite remarkable that such a heroic humanitarian achievement that changed the course of history, capped by an unforgettable encounter between two renowned Catholic figures of the twentieth century, has never before appeared in print. My Christmas with Mother Teresa will finally tell this unforgettable story based on the personal eyewitness account of that now retired CRS Program Director who oversaw the tremendous East Pakistani refugee relief effort and who brought Mother Teresa and Cardinal Cooke together on December 25, 1971. A few years ago, this humble and cheerful gentleman, who is a good friend of mine, kindly granted me a series of interviews in which he told the untold story. He also shared with me his personal photo collection of his cherished Christmas with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (some of these photos will likely be included in the published book). I have spent much of the last few years writing the story based on these interviews as well as on my own additional research, and the manuscript is now nearing completion. The identity of this CRS Program Director will be revealed in the published book.
My Christmas with Mother Teresa will acquaint readers with a major unrecognized achievement in the history of Catholic Relief Services, and it should also help fill a gap in the biographies of Blessed Mother Teresa published to date. Information about the book’s publisher, release date, and availability will be provided on my Twitter page and here on my blog as it becomes available, so please stay tuned.
Why were the innocent Bengali people of East Pakistan massacred and forced onto India’s doorstep in such great numbers in 1971? Because their determination to establish their own free and independent nation of Bangladesh conflicted with West Pakistani commercial interests. Since 1947, the Hindu natives of East Bengal had lived as second-class citizens in the apartheid-style nation of East Pakistan, ruled by Islamic West Pakistani foreigners from Islamabad with whom they had little in common. Late in 1970, facing continued repression and racism, government mismanagement of a terrible natural disaster, and persistent violations of their rights, the East Bengalis finally started a guerrilla uprising against the Pakistani regime.
During this time, Pakistan was ruled by a brutal military dictator, General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan. General Khan was determined to crush the rebellion and restore full Pakistani control of East Bengal no matter what it took to do so. In early March 1971, he declared martial law and had Bangladeshi independence leaders arrested and imprisoned. Later that month, he sent military reinforcements into Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan, to quash the uprising with mass arrests, torture, and the indiscriminate murder of Bengali civilians. When even these measures failed to destroy the liberation movement—on the contrary, it only grew stronger—General Khan turned to all-out mass murder. The Pakistani Army turned completely against the Bengali people of East Pakistan, ruthlessly massacring tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children and burning dozens of villages.
This wholesale reign of terror precipitated a mass emigration of Bengalis from East Pakistan. Beginning in March of 1971 and continuing until December of that year, millions upon millions of East Bengalis—mainly civilians, but also some guerrillas—ran for their lives, pouring en masse across the Indian border, seeking refuge from their enemies in the nearest friendly country. Millions arrived in the already densely populated and impoverished Indian state of West Bengal, whose capital was Calcutta, while millions of others poured into the neighboring border states of Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, and Tripura. These ten million refugees arrived in India absolutely destitute, presenting their host nation with a humanitarian crisis of almost unbelievable proportions—and presenting Catholic Relief Services with one of the greatest relief challenges in the organization’s history.
The book will tell how Catholic Relief Services (CRS) rose to the occasion, planning and executing a tremendous feat of emergency relief. From March to December of 1971, with assistance from the Missionaries of Charity, CRS built some 200 refugee camps along the Indian border and continuously supplied all the material needs of the Bengali refugees: sanitation, medical services, food, water, clothing, soap, and shelter. The book will tell how this extraordinary relief undertaking was organized and carried out under the principal direction of two individuals: the CRS Program Director for India and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
However, the crème de la crème of this book will be its account of the CRS Program Director’s unexpected Christmas surprise of 1971 at the climax of the great refugee relief effort. Cardinal Terence Cooke, who was Archbishop of New York, Vicar of the U.S. Military Archdiocese and head of Catholic Relief Services, was visiting U.S. troops stationed in the Holy Land on Christmas Eve when he decided on the spur of the moment to come visit Mother Teresa and the refugees the following day. The Program Director hastily organized the unforeseen visit, personally escorting the saintly cardinal as he toured the Calcutta refugee camp on Christmas Day in the company of Mother Teresa.
It’s quite remarkable that such a heroic humanitarian achievement that changed the course of history, capped by an unforgettable encounter between two renowned Catholic figures of the twentieth century, has never before appeared in print. My Christmas with Mother Teresa will finally tell this unforgettable story based on the personal eyewitness account of that now retired CRS Program Director who oversaw the tremendous East Pakistani refugee relief effort and who brought Mother Teresa and Cardinal Cooke together on December 25, 1971. A few years ago, this humble and cheerful gentleman, who is a good friend of mine, kindly granted me a series of interviews in which he told the untold story. He also shared with me his personal photo collection of his cherished Christmas with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta (some of these photos will likely be included in the published book). I have spent much of the last few years writing the story based on these interviews as well as on my own additional research, and the manuscript is now nearing completion. The identity of this CRS Program Director will be revealed in the published book.
My Christmas with Mother Teresa will acquaint readers with a major unrecognized achievement in the history of Catholic Relief Services, and it should also help fill a gap in the biographies of Blessed Mother Teresa published to date. Information about the book’s publisher, release date, and availability will be provided on my Twitter page and here on my blog as it becomes available, so please stay tuned.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Christmas with Mother Teresa: A True Story
Imagine working eighteen hours a day, every day for several months straight. Imagine baking, packing, shipping, unloading, and distributing two million loaves of bread a day. Imagine feeding, clothing and sheltering millions of homeless and needy visitors from another country. Imagine doing all this with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta—and then spending your Christmas with her through an unforeseen twist of circumstances.
These are the actual experiences of a man whom I know personally. As an overseas Program Director for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), this man spent nine years in India working closely with Blessed Mother Teresa. In 1971, with her assistance, he organized and directed a tremendous humanitarian relief program for millions of East Pakistani refugees. Then, at the climax of this great effort, he and Mother Teresa unexpectedly shared a providentially arranged Christmas with a very special visitor: a well-known American Catholic archbishop whose cause for sainthood is now underway.
A few years ago, I was blessed with the incredible opportunity to interview this living witness of Mother Teresa’s sanctity and hear his own firsthand account of the amazing events in which he was involved—a true story never before told. I found it to be a dramatic, inspiring and deeply moving account of great human tragedy and suffering illuminated and uplifted by the gentle touch of Christ’s redeeming love.
Catholic Relief Services spent tens of millions of dollars to bring the East Pakistani refugees necessary food, water, clothing, soap, shelter, and medical aid, but Mother Teresa gave them what no money could buy—Christian love and compassion. “She was truly a mother to everybody, and of course the people responded to that,” the former CRS Program Director tells me in one of our interviews. He also recalls how the refugees in each camp would eagerly await Mother Teresa’s arrival regardless of the time of day or night. Whenever he and she arrived at a camp, the refugees would courteously welcome them according to Bengali custom by placing garlands of flowers on their shoulders and offering them food and drink. “Especially when it’s Mother Teresa because she was the big honored guest, so just by association I would get my share too,” chuckles the Director.
However, his fondest memory of the relief program is his unique Christmas spent with Mother Teresa and her famous visitor from the United States. “Mother Teresa had a wonderful opportunity that day to demonstrate to everybody just how a saint would operate on Christmas Day,” he remarks, “because I’m sure that she would have had a totally different type of a Christmas Day herself.”
More than forty years after it happened, this powerful true story will finally be told to the world as it was told to this author in a new book currently being written. The book, entitled My Christmas with Mother Teresa, will tell you who that surprise Christmas visitor was, why he came to visit Mother Teresa and the refugees, and how the CRS Program Director was personally affected by spending Christmas with two such holy individuals. (The identity of this now retired Program Director will be revealed in the published book.)
The book will also delve into the historical background of the East Pakistani refugee crisis to answer common questions such as: What prompted ten million East Pakistani refugees to flee into India in a single year? How did India and the world respond to the massive refugee crisis? How did the crisis end? What happened to the refugees after the crisis?
Additionally, My Christmas with Mother Teresa will feature a variety of colorful, entertaining, inspiring, and amazing personal anecdotes and experiences of the CRS Program Director culled from memories of his nine years’ life and work in India and his personal friendship with the “Saint of Calcutta.”
Information about the book’s publisher, release date, and availability will be posted on my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/justinsoutar as well as right here on my blog.
These are the actual experiences of a man whom I know personally. As an overseas Program Director for Catholic Relief Services (CRS), this man spent nine years in India working closely with Blessed Mother Teresa. In 1971, with her assistance, he organized and directed a tremendous humanitarian relief program for millions of East Pakistani refugees. Then, at the climax of this great effort, he and Mother Teresa unexpectedly shared a providentially arranged Christmas with a very special visitor: a well-known American Catholic archbishop whose cause for sainthood is now underway.
A few years ago, I was blessed with the incredible opportunity to interview this living witness of Mother Teresa’s sanctity and hear his own firsthand account of the amazing events in which he was involved—a true story never before told. I found it to be a dramatic, inspiring and deeply moving account of great human tragedy and suffering illuminated and uplifted by the gentle touch of Christ’s redeeming love.
Catholic Relief Services spent tens of millions of dollars to bring the East Pakistani refugees necessary food, water, clothing, soap, shelter, and medical aid, but Mother Teresa gave them what no money could buy—Christian love and compassion. “She was truly a mother to everybody, and of course the people responded to that,” the former CRS Program Director tells me in one of our interviews. He also recalls how the refugees in each camp would eagerly await Mother Teresa’s arrival regardless of the time of day or night. Whenever he and she arrived at a camp, the refugees would courteously welcome them according to Bengali custom by placing garlands of flowers on their shoulders and offering them food and drink. “Especially when it’s Mother Teresa because she was the big honored guest, so just by association I would get my share too,” chuckles the Director.
However, his fondest memory of the relief program is his unique Christmas spent with Mother Teresa and her famous visitor from the United States. “Mother Teresa had a wonderful opportunity that day to demonstrate to everybody just how a saint would operate on Christmas Day,” he remarks, “because I’m sure that she would have had a totally different type of a Christmas Day herself.”
More than forty years after it happened, this powerful true story will finally be told to the world as it was told to this author in a new book currently being written. The book, entitled My Christmas with Mother Teresa, will tell you who that surprise Christmas visitor was, why he came to visit Mother Teresa and the refugees, and how the CRS Program Director was personally affected by spending Christmas with two such holy individuals. (The identity of this now retired Program Director will be revealed in the published book.)
The book will also delve into the historical background of the East Pakistani refugee crisis to answer common questions such as: What prompted ten million East Pakistani refugees to flee into India in a single year? How did India and the world respond to the massive refugee crisis? How did the crisis end? What happened to the refugees after the crisis?
Additionally, My Christmas with Mother Teresa will feature a variety of colorful, entertaining, inspiring, and amazing personal anecdotes and experiences of the CRS Program Director culled from memories of his nine years’ life and work in India and his personal friendship with the “Saint of Calcutta.”
Information about the book’s publisher, release date, and availability will be posted on my Twitter page at http://twitter.com/justinsoutar as well as right here on my blog.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Where Have I Been Lately?
Answer: I've been busy, busy, busy! Which is a whole lot better than having nothing to do.
The former program director of Catholic Relief Services let me know that he has almost finished reviewing my book and answering my questions about his experiences with Mother Teresa. When he's done, he'll send the manuscript back to me so I can incorporate his answers, fix any errors and then finalize the manuscript. Then, finally, I'll be able to submit it to a publisher. I have been looking forward to this for years. It was truly an inspiration from God to write this book, and the Holy Spirit has been guiding the project from its inception in 2008. This book recounts an amazing true story that has never before been written about in detail or published: how Mother Teresa and Catholic Relief Services helped save the lives of ten million Bangladeshi refugees in India in 1971. This former program director, whom I am honored to call my friend, oversaw this vast relief effort for CRS. I am also honoring his wish to remain anonymous for as long as possible--that is, until the book comes out. I'll be sure to let you know when the book comes out, and where you can get it.
Meanwhile, I've been busy with other writing projects. In May, my comprehensive article on the new Roman Missal translation entitled "Missale Romanum, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II" was conditionally accepted for publication by Inside the Vatican--the condition being that the article length should be cut in half (it was over 8,000 words). So I cut 3,000 words and the editor took out another thousand. In the end I was happy with the result--the essay still contains most of the essential information that I wanted to convey to readers. The editor said it would be placed in the August/September issue of the magazine. I recently obtained a subscription to the magazine, and am looking forward to getting that issue and seeing if my piece is in there. In the meantime, I've also submitted my original 8,000-word article (with ITV's permission) to other Catholic publishers, since I would like to get the whole thing published somewhere if I could. We're now only three months away from the full implementation of the new Roman Missal. Catholics need to be prepared for it.
I've also been writing some material dealing with Catholic creation doctrine and theology as I continue to work my way through Father Warkulwiz's tome, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11. While I've found that this book has a lot of good information about Catholic teaching on creation and the importance of preserving and handing on the Church's creation doctrine, I disagree with some of the opinions expressed. So I'm writing down respectfully what I disagree with and why.
Another piece I have in the works challenges the conventional scientific wisdom about the planet Mars having once been a very wet place. This is a really interesting subject. I've been doing some research, and I've found that most of the evidence planetary scientists use to claim past oceans of liquid water on Mars can be readily and more accurately explained by non-hydrological processes in the Red Planet's past that scientists already have proof of such as volcanism, geothermal activity and impact cratering.
I'm also gradually getting more into music writing. I love creating new solo piano arrangements of traditional Catholic hymns. The last couple days I wrote my own arrangement of "O Holy Night," which is the second Christmas carol that I've written a piano arrangement for. The first was "We Three Kings" back in late 09/early 10. I haven't published any of my scores yet, but I'm hoping to do so soon. I recently acquired an account on ScoreExchange.com, which is a website where you can sell music, but I don't have a PayPal account yet. You have to have that before you can sell music on the site. I need to find out 1) how you get a PayPal account and 2) how it works--how the website will pay me through PayPal.
Earlier this month, here at Terra Patris we had a celebration in honor of the proposed feast day of God the Father. Our landlord has been holding this event annually for several years now on the first Sunday of August. This year we had a procession with an image of God the Father from the parking area into a tent in the riverside park, along with songs and a few prayers. (Good thing we had the tent, because it rained a little.) Then we had a dinner including a lamb roast, hamburgers, hot dogs and covered dishes that people brought to share. We had people come from Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida this year. Our local priest came as he usually does to lead us in the prayers and bless the image of God the Father. This painting was commissioned by Saint Margaret d'Youville, a Canadian nun who lived in the 1700s. The idea for a feast day in honor of our Heavenly Father came from the Heavenly Father himself in messages given to an Italian nun, Mother Eugenia Ravasio, in the 1930s. These messages have been approved by the Church. Sadly, God the Father has often become "the forgotten Person of the Trinity" these days. It is our hope to remind people how much God the Father loves us and to rekindle devotion to Him, hopefully leading eventually to the Church's formal institution of a feast day in His honor.
My sister and Dad went to the EWTN Family Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama last month. They really enjoyed it. My sister got to meet Raymond Arroyo (for the second time) as well as Father Frank Pavone, Johnette Benkovic, Father Anthony and Father Mark. Both my Dad and sister got to meet Bishop Baker as he was coming in to say Mass. It's phenomenal how EWTN has grown in the last thirty years. When we started watching it in 1993, the network was reaching 18 million homes. Today it reaches 160 million homes through television alone and many millions more through radio (AM/FM, shortwave, Sirius) and the Internet, proclaiming the truth of the Catholic faith to the whole world.
Well, I better get going--I've got to rest, too. Good night!
The former program director of Catholic Relief Services let me know that he has almost finished reviewing my book and answering my questions about his experiences with Mother Teresa. When he's done, he'll send the manuscript back to me so I can incorporate his answers, fix any errors and then finalize the manuscript. Then, finally, I'll be able to submit it to a publisher. I have been looking forward to this for years. It was truly an inspiration from God to write this book, and the Holy Spirit has been guiding the project from its inception in 2008. This book recounts an amazing true story that has never before been written about in detail or published: how Mother Teresa and Catholic Relief Services helped save the lives of ten million Bangladeshi refugees in India in 1971. This former program director, whom I am honored to call my friend, oversaw this vast relief effort for CRS. I am also honoring his wish to remain anonymous for as long as possible--that is, until the book comes out. I'll be sure to let you know when the book comes out, and where you can get it.
Meanwhile, I've been busy with other writing projects. In May, my comprehensive article on the new Roman Missal translation entitled "Missale Romanum, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II" was conditionally accepted for publication by Inside the Vatican--the condition being that the article length should be cut in half (it was over 8,000 words). So I cut 3,000 words and the editor took out another thousand. In the end I was happy with the result--the essay still contains most of the essential information that I wanted to convey to readers. The editor said it would be placed in the August/September issue of the magazine. I recently obtained a subscription to the magazine, and am looking forward to getting that issue and seeing if my piece is in there. In the meantime, I've also submitted my original 8,000-word article (with ITV's permission) to other Catholic publishers, since I would like to get the whole thing published somewhere if I could. We're now only three months away from the full implementation of the new Roman Missal. Catholics need to be prepared for it.
I've also been writing some material dealing with Catholic creation doctrine and theology as I continue to work my way through Father Warkulwiz's tome, The Doctrines of Genesis 1-11. While I've found that this book has a lot of good information about Catholic teaching on creation and the importance of preserving and handing on the Church's creation doctrine, I disagree with some of the opinions expressed. So I'm writing down respectfully what I disagree with and why.
Another piece I have in the works challenges the conventional scientific wisdom about the planet Mars having once been a very wet place. This is a really interesting subject. I've been doing some research, and I've found that most of the evidence planetary scientists use to claim past oceans of liquid water on Mars can be readily and more accurately explained by non-hydrological processes in the Red Planet's past that scientists already have proof of such as volcanism, geothermal activity and impact cratering.
I'm also gradually getting more into music writing. I love creating new solo piano arrangements of traditional Catholic hymns. The last couple days I wrote my own arrangement of "O Holy Night," which is the second Christmas carol that I've written a piano arrangement for. The first was "We Three Kings" back in late 09/early 10. I haven't published any of my scores yet, but I'm hoping to do so soon. I recently acquired an account on ScoreExchange.com, which is a website where you can sell music, but I don't have a PayPal account yet. You have to have that before you can sell music on the site. I need to find out 1) how you get a PayPal account and 2) how it works--how the website will pay me through PayPal.
Earlier this month, here at Terra Patris we had a celebration in honor of the proposed feast day of God the Father. Our landlord has been holding this event annually for several years now on the first Sunday of August. This year we had a procession with an image of God the Father from the parking area into a tent in the riverside park, along with songs and a few prayers. (Good thing we had the tent, because it rained a little.) Then we had a dinner including a lamb roast, hamburgers, hot dogs and covered dishes that people brought to share. We had people come from Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida this year. Our local priest came as he usually does to lead us in the prayers and bless the image of God the Father. This painting was commissioned by Saint Margaret d'Youville, a Canadian nun who lived in the 1700s. The idea for a feast day in honor of our Heavenly Father came from the Heavenly Father himself in messages given to an Italian nun, Mother Eugenia Ravasio, in the 1930s. These messages have been approved by the Church. Sadly, God the Father has often become "the forgotten Person of the Trinity" these days. It is our hope to remind people how much God the Father loves us and to rekindle devotion to Him, hopefully leading eventually to the Church's formal institution of a feast day in His honor.
My sister and Dad went to the EWTN Family Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama last month. They really enjoyed it. My sister got to meet Raymond Arroyo (for the second time) as well as Father Frank Pavone, Johnette Benkovic, Father Anthony and Father Mark. Both my Dad and sister got to meet Bishop Baker as he was coming in to say Mass. It's phenomenal how EWTN has grown in the last thirty years. When we started watching it in 1993, the network was reaching 18 million homes. Today it reaches 160 million homes through television alone and many millions more through radio (AM/FM, shortwave, Sirius) and the Internet, proclaiming the truth of the Catholic faith to the whole world.
Well, I better get going--I've got to rest, too. Good night!
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