There are certain things I cannot forget. I can still narrate conversations, which I have had with certain people years ago, or my first meeting with someone, or particular pages of some books or a scene of a film. I consider this particular memory as my way of showing love to someone or something. Let me share a simple but significant gesture, which I had experienced in my early days of Jesuit formation.
This must have been in December, 2000. I was in
Calcutta, doing Jesuit novitiate. After the Christmas, the province assembly of
the Calcutta Jesuits took place in the novitiate campus. We, novices had to
vacant our rooms in order to make place available for the Jesuits who would come
for the gathering. We, instead, went to the villages to have pastoral experience.
When I returned to the novitiate, I found on my table
a short place of folded paper with a pen. I opened the paper, which read: “this is a small gift of love for the
novice who lives in this room, from Fr …..” That was a big pleasant surprise
for me. I had heard the name of that particular Jesuit, but never met him in
person. I was touched by this simple gesture. Those days of my ‘innocence’ it
was a big thing for me. Many years I kept that particular pen with me as a remembrance.
That was a lesson for me that with a simple gesture we
can win the heart of others. Perhaps often we do not notice, ‘the simple thing’
of life. Can we give a try to notice the next ‘simple thing of life’?
