By Ripon Rozario SJ

The Ignatian year that we have just concluded has been a year of blessing for the Bangladesh Jesuit Mission. During this year, the Mission has entered into a new era, which in Biblical term we can refer to as ‘a moment of Kairos’. In BJM, one can easily see or feel a fresh air, dynamic blood bubbling with life and enthusiasm to get involved. During the Ignatian year, we met together a few times, spending time to listen to each other’s life stories and concerns. This created a bond among us, which St Ignatius would rightly call as, ‘friends in the Lord’. We have had open discussion, on the common good of the mission and planted our dreams for the Mission. This process was further strengthened by the visit of Fr Vernon D’Cunha, Father General’s Assistant for South Asia, who met every single Jesuit individually and visited all our communities. The visit of the Father Provincial along with his consultors was another ground-breaking moment for the mission. As a result of these meetings and visits, we plunged into new initiatives and began to execute them accordingly.

The talk has been going on starting a novitiate in Bangladesh ever since our novices were regularly denied visas for religious training in India. As an alternative location, the Srilanka novitiate was chosen and we did send there some novices. But, again the outbursts of Covid 19 and the political instability of Srilanka forced us to abandon the idea of sending there novices. Thus, arouse the need of the hour to start the novitiate in Bangladesh. After much prayer, reflection and discernment, a proposal was sent to Fr General who responded positively to our proposal. We began the novitiate on July 16, the feast of Our Lady of Carmel.

When the former Superior General, Fr Peter Hans Kolvenbach made his maiden visit to Bangladesh, a delegation of Bangladeshi Catholics requested him to start a Jesuit educational institution in Bangladesh. He responded positively by saying, “we will start one day when we have more local Jesuits.” Finally, ‘the red letter day’ arrived for BJM when we inaugurated the St Xavier’s International School on August 13, 2022 in the presence of the Archbishop of Dhaka and our Provincial.

Keeping in mind the first UAP: ‘to show the way to God’, the door of the Jesuit Residence in Dhaka was opened to the faithful as we began to celebrate the Eucharistic celebration in the hall room of the ground floor. With the permission of the local ecclesiastical authority, it was decided that we would celebrate Mass for the laity once a week in the evening. Plans are underway to arrange meditation, adoration and rosary for the laity occasionally for the faithful of our locality.

A grotto in honour of Mother Mary is being built in Bhobanipur, the only Jesuit Parish in Bangladesh. Fr. Rohit Mree, the newly appointed Parish Priest has taken some initiatives for the spiritual formation of the laity with a view of making it a true Jesuit Parish. Fr. Francis Dores, the newly appointed headmaster of the St Xavier’s primary school has brought regularity and introduced a new system of teaching and assessment in the school.

It was also a pressing need to start a newsletter of the Mission for the better communication among ourselves. We published our first newsletter on July 31, 2022 the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola. It will be published regularly.

While we are happy with the new initiatives, we plan to have some more initiatives for the further development of the Mission. We as ‘one Body of the Mission’ have decided to work for the following area in the coming days.

• Vocation Promotion and Formation is accepted as the priority of the Mission. A vocation promotion team led by Fr Eliash Sarkar have planned out the programme for vocation promotion for the coming months. We have now two formation houses namely the pre-novitiate and the novitiate. We plan to reopen our candidacy programme in our Dhaka Residence from this year.
• We have two schools - St Xavier’s International School at Kuchilabari and St Xavier’s Primary school at Bhobanipur. We plan to develop these schools and want to make sure that our students get an holistic education.
• Bhobanipur Parish has got four sub-stations among tribal people, who in Bangladesh are most neglected and deprived of their basic human rights. As these sub-stations are quite far from the main Parish, Jesuit Fathers visit these centres on a regular basis to address the various needs of the faithful along with the pastoral care. We want to further develop these centres in terms of spiritual formation and infrastructure development.
• One of the recent GC invites Jesuits to take community as a mission. We plan to have regular meetings and common programmes to enhance the community spirit among us.

Once a senior Jesuit of the province, while sharing his association with the Bangladesh Jesuit Mission categorically said, “Calcutta province’s apostolic endeavour into neighbouring country Bangladesh in 1994 could be envisioned as how God uses men for his mission.” BJM began when a few young men from Bangladesh, having heard and read on the heroic Jesuit missions and saints, had travelled to India as there was no Jesuit establishment in the country. They were missioned back to their motherland once their formation was completed along with other Calcutta Jesuits. Today we have 10 Bangladesh born Jesuit Priests, 11 scholastics and three novices. This number gives a promising hope and invites for a heuristic review that includes the apostolic expansion of the Mission.