8/4/2019 Evening Prayer on Independence Day

1/2

Joe Xavier sj (Tertianship, Raia, Goa) 2011Evening Prayer on Independence Day

The theme of todays special Independence Day prayer is on The HAVEs and THE HAVE NOTs .

y What is our response to the attitude and the mind frame of the Independent and thepathetic plight of the dependent.

y By independent here we mean the people having all their material needs fulfilled,accumulated enormous amount of wealth, power and position.

y By dependent we mean those who find hard even to make both ends meet, more speciallythose who are deprived of their basic right to live a life of a human being on earth.

Here we are reminded of a note from Ecclesiastes 4:1 Then I looked again at all the injustice that

goes on in this world. The oppressed were crying and no one would help them. No one would

hep them because their oppressors had power on their side .

Dear friends, many are poor. Many live miserable lives not because it is the divine will of God, not

because the country India is poor, not because they are lazy, not because they are illiterate, but

because the powerful few unjustly keep for themselves what legitimately belongs to all. In other

words, the influential and the dominant group s have power over the lives of those who lack even

the basic needs.

The ruling class made up of business magnets, bankers, big landowners, bureaucrats,

industrialists, politicians exercise absolute economic and political power. Politically, they influence

elections, buy the candidates, and voters. With their power and authority in the legislative

assemblies they ensure that bills and laws that are passed are in their favour. They also make

effective use of the mass media, especially the popular TV channels and widespread newspapers.

These powerful groups cajole, frighten, demoralize, divide and confuse the oppressed. They even

sponsor violence among the oppressed.

They monopolise the economy of the country by hoarding the essential commodities and

by which creating artificial scarcity of such goods. The dominant group goes to the extent of

exploiting the ignorance and religious superstitions of the masses by feeding the people myths.

Because of this brain wash the affected people believe and think that their situation is permanent

and unalterable. Human rights, social justice, socialism and so on are becoming a big question

mark now.

So at this juncture, we shall reflect on our response to the current situation of India.

y As we are the bearers of Gods message what could be our effective mission among theHAVE NOTs?

y What are our plans to dismantle the unjust structures and build a new society?y In what concrete ways that we can challenge the structures that are operative against the

divine values?

To furnish our deep reflection we shall now watch a video clipping that comes with a very basic

question Amidst all these dark experiences - where are we? And what are we busy with?

8/4/2019 Evening Prayer on Independence Day

2/2

Joe Xavier sj (Tertianship, Raia, Goa) 2011You are my brother, and I love you; and love is justice with its full intensity and

dignity. If justice did not support my love for you, regardless of your tribe and

community, I would be a deceiver concealing the ugliness of selfishness behind the

outer garment of pure love.----

Khalil Gibran

Just as we can never be sure that we love God unless we love our fellowmen, so we

are now sure that we have love at all unless our love issues in work of justice. And I

do not mean works of justice in a merely individualistic sense. I mean three things:

First, a basic attitude of respect for all men which forbids us ever to use them

as instruments for our own profit.

Second, a firm resolve never to profit from, or allow ourselves to be suborned

by, positions of power deriving from privilege, for to do so, even passively, is equal

to active oppression. To be drugged by the comforts of privilege is to become

contributors to injustice as silent beneficiaries of the fruit of injustice.

Third, an attitude not simply refusal but of counter attack against injustice: a

decision to work with others towards the dismantling of unjust structures so that

the weak, the oppressed, the marginalised of the world may be free.

-----Pedro Arrupe sj., Address to the Tenth International Congress of Jesuit Alumni of

Europe, Valencia, Spain, July, 31 st 1973.