Mr. Fred Carpenter 

Mr. Fred Carpenter an SS.CC. friend and benefactor of Sacred Hearts Retreat Center in Wareham, Mass., traveled with Fr. Bill Petrie, ss.cc., Provincial, to India  on the occasion of the Ordination of  Deacon Sudhir Christo Das Nayak ,ss.cc. 

ONE:  “We started out from Calcutta”

   We started out from Calcutta, and I got to meet Frs. Michael Shanahan and Ajith Kumar. Everything was so fast paced. In the beginning, I tried to keep a journal, but with all the coming and going, packing and moving, I gave up on that fairly quickly.

   There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t have Eucharist. Right away, I noticed that in India the Crucifix is turned around, so those presiding are facing it. Of course, every one is seated on low stools and mats; every bit of the Eucharistic experience is good. Never did I dream how dynamic traveling to India with Fr. Bill Petrie would be. It’s hard to put into words the love and respect that everyone had for him: phenomenal. With Fr. Bill as a mentor, the trip became more like a pilgrimage. The holiness that is there once you arrive is unbelievable. I couldn’t help but think how in the beginning, when Fr. Bill first got there over twenty-five years ago, he didn’t have anyone leading him by the hand the way that I did.>

   Fr. Bill knew everybody. One day we were out for dinner and Fr. Bill was sure he had seen a maitre’d he had known from the past at the restaurant. He asked the other waiters working there to look for him. Sure enough, out he came and the smile on his face when he saw Fr. Bill was indescribable.  Over the course of our stay, we saw many Missionaries of Charity and, of course, they all know Fr. Bill!

TWO: The Ordination was extraordinary

   To be anywhere more than two days was a long time. From Calcutta, we went to Bhubaneswar. Everyone there was so excited about setting out for Bro. Christodas Sudhir Nayak’s ordination, and before I knew it, I was one among the three groups of people heading for Balliguda, Orissa in the mountains. The trip was nearly seven hours long. The Ordination was extraordinary. We could see the people arriving and preparing for it.  The parade up to the Church with musicians stopped traffic. At the ordination there were at least 500 people. With three men being ordained, the place didn’t have an empty spot. The next day we traveled even deeper into the mountains for Bodangia, the village of the newly ordained priest’s First Mass. Many times we had to stop because the grade would be so steep with ditches filled with water. There were eight of us in the jeep that I rode in, and sometimes, the jeep’s chassis would bottom out; at times, I didn’t even think we were going to make it. The scenery was beautiful with deep valleys everywhere you looked. Close to the village you see the church that I would never have expected; it comes from out of nowhere.  In Calcutta, every morning I observed Fr. Michael doing his adoration, and  I began to grow in the understanding that Adoration was happening  in every other place that we journeyed to— only I didn’t see it.

Three: “part of the program”—Compassion

     I always knew the Congregation did good work in India, but I never imagined the conditions that SS.CC.’s  worked under. When the brothers say they try to live compassionately, there is no longer any doubt in my mind, none whatsoever. They do. It’s “part of the program.”  You get a sense of this by the way the people look up to SS.CC.’s  and show them respect and the admiration the people have for the members. Fr. Bill took me to Damien Social Development Institute.  To be honest, I have to admit that I cried when I saw so many people whose bodies were so deformed by leprosy, welcome Fr. Bill back with so much love. The men were on one side and the women on another; it was so hard for them to do even the simplest things. As we walked, they would hand us flowers and after awhile we couldn’t hold them all. It’s hard to describe so much of what I saw there.

    The Congregation gets involved in the peoples’ lives. In Fr. Ajith’s parish ministry, I could see all the energy he puts into programs for the children and how responsive they are. When I was there, he was sponsoring a music contest among a few of the youth groups. He and Sr. Rose Reeves, ss.cc., were the judges, and they asked me to present trophies to the winners. What impressed me so much was the amount of self sacrifice that Fr. Ajith poured  into his ministry.  I think seeing the way he put his all into it gave me a deeper understanding of the level of service the Congregation provides for the Church not only in India but here as well. But once you see India, you understand how greatly the Congregation is needed.  The community does such a good job of attracting new members. I have never seen so many young priests; the grace is so bountiful. I didn’t actually go with a personal motive to be changed, but before I left, my parish priest said that the experience would change me. I won’t ever forget the day Fr. Bill offered Mass at Bl. Mother Teresa’s Motherhouse. We had breakfast with Sr. Nirmala; after that he took me to the House of the Dying. The next day I had someone show me the way there, and I was able to volunteer.  I got lost coming back. As I asked people for directions, I was surprised by the number of people who didn’t know who Mother Teresa was. But with the help of three different policemen along the way, I got back to Damien Formation House on Rippon Street; what an experience!