You are our Purohith..
Experiences as a Catholic Missionary
by Fr. Jose Sarpathil CSC
This is one experience that I will not easily forget in my life experience in the missions of Agartala, capital of Tripura. As I was appointed parish priest in the central Church in Agartala, I decided to find out all the villages and the people scattered all over the parish. So one fine morning I took a bus journey to a far flung area of Tripura. It was about 110 Kilometers away from the parish center. The bus ride took the whole day and finally at about 5 pm I had arrived at the market place of that region. Luckily for me there were some people waiting for me in the market (bazar). So we had to walk at least for an hour to reach their village. As a group of pilgrims, we began our trip to the village. The people in that village speak a language called Uchoi. I didn’t know a word of what they spoke. Half way between the village and the market there was a canal that we had to cross. There was no bridge neither any boat to cross it except by wading through it. I was waiting on the side to see how deep and how to get across it. The water was above waist line. So I decided to just walk across the canal with my pants on. As I was deciding to get into the water, suddenly someone came from behind me and put his head between my legs and in a second I was seated on his shoulders!! It was indeed very embracing for me. I requested him to put me on the ground. But then the leader of the group told me, “you are our PUROHITH, you should not walk through this muddy water, we will carry you across ! I protested and told him that I had no problem getting into the muddy water. But they didn’t allow me and that gentleman carried me all the way across the canal and put me down on the dry ground on the other side.
I was feeling shame and disappointed with that experience. Finally it dawned on to me that it was not Jose whom he carried, instead it was their purohith/ priest whom they respected so much. In fact it was a great honour that they had shown to the priest who came to them for the first time as their new pastor. I never forget this incident in all my priestly life, because they honoured not just an ordinary man, but a priest of theirs. They valued not me but the priesthood that I was anointed with.
