A Great Teacher in Social Justice: Sister Nirmala Joshi, Missionaries of Charity

A Great Teacher in Social Justice: Sister Nirmala Joshi, Missionaries of Charity

Aditi m Sengupta

Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Continuing Medical Education, Post Graduate Association Member,

National Defense Forum of India

How do you hear things around you? What is pure sound?Come tune in and open your earlids to the exiting world of deep listening.

In this aspect of deep listening I want to mention the name of a Teacher who taught me what is silence. The name of such a person who made me stand face to face with social justice and society which did bring in me a great transformation in a world of competing international states and vast crowds where altruistic values are innate and dominate inherited instincts, a great moral adventure is a rare feat to achieve.

In this context a paragraph of great hope is:

“In a society where there is an unquestioned fact, justice would indeed demand that the allocation of the means for the satisfaction of human needs were effected according to some uniform principle such as merit or need......and that, where the principle adopted did not justify a difference , the shares of different individuals should be equal."

(The Mirage of Social Justice, 1976)

The tradition of social justice, an endangered species in a postmodern world got reinstated in me several times, by a great teacher and philosopher Sr. Nirmala Joshi, the successor of the Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

The first time her speech came in writing in my hand is 1998, since then without even understanding the meaning of the words, I could face ethical challenges where understandings disagree.She is the only person who taught me “Material equality among non equality” which can be determined by deliberate human decision.

As you think of the life one has led through Christian doctrines, it becomes evident that life is a vision, not a map.

And in this respect, a good teacher always advises:not to remain confined in the being but to "become" the one.

Sr. Joshi has always proclaimed this message through her mystique personality, which is only understood in the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

(Deciphered from a reading of Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill ; Mysticism was first published in 1911)

I from my personal accomplishments have always highly recommended Her Honorary Citizenship,as she has been a role model to me since  my early youth.

Her not being able to get this Honor till date is a Huge Loss in this generation of ours.

The Blessed Mother Teresa'a commanding work however did not stop, those who are in contact with the Missionaries of Charity know about the sketch of European Mysticism once more in this decade as Sr. Mary Prema took the path of being the Mother Superior, which is  paving the path of hope to the blessedness of the Unitive Life.

  (Mysticim by Evelyn Underhill published in 1961)

Copyrighted 2012