92: In 20 years’ time, how many fellow Catholics will there be?

Episode 92 Jaimin and Neena talk about becoming parents who want to ‘plant the seeds of faith’ in their child. Prayer, worship, the Word of God, and belonging to a faith-filled ministry community, all play a big part in their lives. Encountering the Lord has filled them with joy and purpose, and a sense of responsibility. They ask if they are doing enough to keep faith alive in Britain - and worry about whether their son will have the opportunity to attend daily Mass when he grows up. 

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Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro.  My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today.  Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good.  We are the times.  I hope you feel encouraged and affirmed and sometimes challenged as I am in these conversations.  Join our podcast community, get news and background information about the conversations and share your thoughts if you want to. You can get the newsletter and each episode straight to your inbox by going to allkindsofcatholic.substack.com and clicking on subscribe. It's free. That web address is in the episode notes too and I'd love you to draw closer to our community. Thank you.

This is just a reminder, listeners, before we get into today's conversation about our in-person gathering on Saturday 21st of March. I really hope you're thinking about being able to join us on that day. I'm looking forward to meeting some of you in person, listeners and guests together. And we can talk about these conversations in more detail and get to know each other a bit more. And I'll be making a live episode of the podcast right there and then with Helena Judd of Radio Maria England as the guest. So you can be part of sitting in on the audience for that conversation. We'll have a simple lunch and some prayer time together. I really hope the breadth of the church will be represented amongst the people who can be there on the day. Find the link in the episode notes with all the information. I look forward to seeing as many of you as can be there. Thanks so much. Let's get into today's conversation. 

Listeners, thanks for joining today. Today's one of those times where we've got two guests, actually. We've got Jaimin and Neena who are married and we're going to talk about where God is working in their life as they can see it. They come from the same community as Jose, who was a guest previously in Episode 33. You know, if you didn't listen to that one, you might want to go back and listen to that episode after we've heard from Jaimin and Neena today. So welcome both of you. 

Thank you. Thank you so much. 

So why don't we begin then? I know there's something a little bit different about the two of you in that you weren't both always Catholics. I was saying to you before that some listeners like to hear from people who weren't always Catholics. We're interested in how people came to the Church. So, Jaimin, maybe tell us a little bit about your background then and how you made the decision to become a Catholic. 

Yeah, sure, sure.  I belonged to Jacobite Christians and we are from India and that's where I'm born and brought up as. I mean, it is apostolic church, so everything is very much similar when you compare with liturgies - slightly different to Catholics. But we have Holy Mass, baptism, everything is there. And there's a lot of my family as well who were Catholics. For example, my aunt. I've seen my mum doing rosaries when we were young and it's a very, you know, natural thing. It didn't feel like a lot of change when I made that transition. The main reason was- so we met, I met Neena in 2012 and we got married in 2018. I think together it made sense for us to - because I was already with the Catholic ministry doing some work - it made sense for us to sit down together. Then we made that decision to join Syro-Malabar to be able to carry that forward. I thought we would help our kids as well, our family going forward, if you are both under the same denomination.  I still go back to Holy Mass at Jacobite Rites, from time to time, because it's been my childhood. This is in our language, Malayalam. But I still go back from time to time. Neena doesn't understand a lot of the Holy Mass. It's really, I mean, first of all, it's long.  The Holy Mass takes about two and a half hours. There's quite a lot of Syrian. There's a lot of Syrian words being used. If you don't know what they're talking about, you might feel a bit alien. 

Just a note, listeners I looked up the Jacobite Church after this conversation and it is a Syriac Orthodox Church, coming from the same part of the world as the Syro-Malabar tradition, but the language is a kind of Syrian and that's what Jaimin and Neena were talking about here. Let's go back to the conversation now, we're picking up about the Syro-Malabar Church. And you mentioned there the Syro-Malabar tradition, which is the Catholic tradition that you've become part of. Last note listeners, we've had two previous guests from the Syro-Malabar tradition, Josè already mentioned and Chantelle back in episode 23 if you want to look that up.  Tell us a little bit then Neena, that's the tradition you grew up in then. Yeah. And this is St. Thomas Christians, isn't it? Just tell us what that was like growing up in that tradition. So like Jaimin was saying, I was also born in India in Kerala and then I came over here when I was 12 years old. So I did have quite a lot of my religious background like in India. It was like something, something I had to follow. It's part of the culture. You do it automatically. No one's giving you an option. You know, it's just automatically there. I think from as soon as you start school, that's the time you start Sunday school, you have to go for that. You go for that, you have your catechism and then your Mass. So that was all quite normal. It's something you do every Sunday. I have nuns and priests in both sides of my -  father's side and my mom's side. So we always had nuns coming over to our house to see my grandma or always have priests coming over. So it was like a constant thing that it's very much there. Yeah, part of the daily life. I also went to  a convent school. So again, seeing nuns all the time and then in secondary school every first Friday during lunchtime. So we have a chapel there. So you're expected to go to chapel and then, we had Mass there, praise and worship, bit of adoration. So that was all strict there. At that moment, you know, when you're a child, you're like, Oh, I don't want to go to church. Just finish your lunch, go play with your friends. But now here since I came over, I think after I became a parent, I realised how important that was and it set faith in the background. And then, now bringing up Jonah, I wish Jonah had something like this. 

Okay, so becoming parents then, well for you anyway, becoming a mother, Neena, has made you think about your faith more, has made you think about making sure Jonah's got the same, growing up in the same faith as you did. 

Definitely, definitely. I feel like there isn't anybody to give him that  knowledge. Like I said, I used to have that in the background where you're constantly seeing nuns, priests, Sunday school, everything was there.  Everything was church based, whereas here he doesn't have that. So I think as parents, if we don't give that, if we don't push that faith in him at this stage, after a while it's going to be harder. And then he's going to be like, Well, I didn't go to church.  Like my friends don't go, why am I going? All the questions will arise. So I think it's very important to plant those seeds from a very young age. 

So you're feeling that responsibility now? 

Definitely.  We normally say, Jonah is God's gift, in the sense we are just looking after him on this earth. We said this in Instagram or something, five years ago, we received a gift from the Lord to say, Jaimin and Neena, look after him for us. So, you know, are we doing a good job? I mean, this is our responsibility. Education and everything else comes second. If we can give him, plant those seeds, as Neena said, I think it doesn't matter whether he's successful or not successful in life. Millionaire, billionaire, it doesn't matter. You know, rich or poor, as long as he has faith in him, we're happy parents. Because he might not follow, like he might not want to follow the faith when he's older, but at least like - everyone has crises, everyone has problems. When he does come across that, problems or crisis, he will sit down and think, Okay, you know, those moments, this will come out  in play and like, Okay, yeah, maybe I should go to church. Maybe I should sit down or - all that. It's there. In that moment, it will come out. Just planting those seeds now. Exactly. And on that point, he needs to have that encounter as well that we've had. That's only so much that we can do. But I feel that at some point, that's something we always pray for him as well, right? We hope you have that personal encounter with the God. That's where the relationship really becomes fruitful. 

That's a good point, Jamin, that you can teach your child about Jesus and about the presence of God in our lives  and that we're loved by God, but they need to have that encounter themselves. 

That's right. 

You can't do that for them. But we know that the Lord is calling them, all right? 

Absolutely, absolutely.

Before we began recording, you mentioned that you're both involved in a ministry. Tell us a bit more about the ministry and this is the same ministry that Jose, who was a guest previously, was telling us about, I think. But just tell us about how you are involved in that then. 

Yeah, sure. I think around 2011-12, I attended a retreat conducted by AFCM, which is Anointing Fire Catholic Ministries, which is based in Kerala, founded by a priest called Father Xavier. Xavier Khan Vattayil. The Charismatic Evangelisation Ministry, the aim is to spread the good news throughout the world. I attended a retreat - almost like forcefully sent by my parents or I remember, you know, not going there wholeheartedly, just went for the sake of it. That's when, similar to the encounter I mentioned earlier, that's when I had that initial encounter with the Lord and I felt that fullness. In the word of God, it says, In His presence, there's that fullness of happiness, fullness of joy, I think it says.  Yeah, I felt the joy that I've never had in my life, purpose for me. And so, yeah, I went there. I obviously met some of the people. There was a priest called Father Jomon who was doing the retreat. There was a few ministers that we'd just got in touch. And then I started helping with media, whether that's live streaming, camera works. And that's, by the grace of God, that's still going on. You know, I still help with the media. Nowadays, there's a ministry called Awakening, which is all around. You may or may not have heard of it. It's a retreat that happens every month in Birmingham. So we had a big one last month. We had around two and a half thousand Catholics who came. 

Wow. 

Yeah, yeah. It's actually led by Jose. See, I'm helping with Awakening. Our language ministry. There are lot of ministries that’ve been done for the Kerala people, almost mainly on the media side. I help out with the kids ministry.  Every second Saturday of the month we have the retreat in Malayalam, so we call it second Saturday. I used to go there, but I was never actually involved in the ministry, but I used to go attend and then come back. I think after I married, after having Jonah, I was like, How can I go and help out? think then he was around like three and a half or four years. So I would just take him in. And then he used to love it because it's not the same age, but they’re very similar. So he likes that because his cousins are like around that age as well. So he's like very comfortable with that. And then he loved what we do in kids ministry. So it's things like,  we tell them stories about saints, there might be some skits and action songs and dancing around, praise and worship, a little bit of the Eucharistic Adoration. because it was like all kids involved, he was interested in it. In the morning, I'm like Jonah, come on, let's go. We need to go for second Saturday. He will immediately open up his eyes and be ready to go. So he's excited about it. And then because we started going there, he grew up with all the other ministers’ kids as well. So he got loads of friends there. So he loves it. It's become part of his life as well. And it's easier because he's seeing kids with similar faith and also knowing what we're talking about. It's not just me telling him stories at home. Cause when he was attending nursery, I used to tell him all the stories from Bible. He was like, He doesn't know, my friend from nursery doesn't know any of this. They don't know anything about God. When I say to him, Come on, we need to do our prayer before we would go to sleep. He's like, Well, my friend doesn’t do prayer. He's in reception now and he goes to a Catholic school and he loves it. And because he can see, Okay, at least there's a cross in the building, prayers, they go to church. And sometimes when I try to teach him the sign of the cross, I'm like, Come on, Jonah, we're going to get this right. And then he went to school - in one week, he's like, In the name of the Father and of the Son. He's picking it up because he's doing it with his friends, seeing quite a lot of familiar things and he can talk about things. He's seeing what we talk about at home. Rather than being an alien when he went to nursery, he was like, nobody knows about this, nobody knows about Jesus. That helped him quite a lot, having that faith. So in school, he's got that Catholic background. When we go for ministries, he's seeing kids there and he sees them actually kneeling down and praying, praising. Everything is like, Okay, other kids are doing it and then he will do it too. So that all helps as well.

Of course, yeah, I think lots of listeners will understand that, you know, that it's really helpful when the children have the same message at school as at home and that they have friends who are brought up with the same practices. I think that is really helpful. 

Absolutely. Yeah. 

And I'm always really impressed with people from Kerala, Catholic people from Kerala. There's a big Kerala community here in Leicester where I live and you have such energy around the practice of your faith. It always looks to me, you know, that everybody is so full of life and so happy as Catholics. It's really good to see. And I know that previously when I was talking to one of my other guests, people were meeting at home as well with other Catholics during the week. I don't know if you're involved in any of that house ministry. 

We do our home missions and stuff. I went for one, a couple of months ago maybe or a month ago, where we went to Swindon and then we visited a few homes. It's not so much a fellowship gathering. It's almost like we go to people's houses and we pray for them and then we just talk about God. These are people with faith, but not so much.

 So you're encouraging people? 

We pray with them.  We pray for them for their needs and also ask them to come around for the events as well if they are free. So yeah, we've done home missions, but then we gather for fellowship meetings, which is quite important as a ministry, right? We pray together. I'm helping out with media, so all of us pray on every Wednesday at 8 o'clock for half an hour, 45 minutes every week. Then a lot of the children, Neena, for example, children’s ministry, they gather on Zoom as well every week. This ministry is basically doing Lord's work, so there's a lot of prayer involved, obviously. I think what I was trying to say was, I think because ministry is a big part of us, it helps us in a certain way in our faith as well because we're always involved, we're always doing this. Even if you're a little weak in our faith life at times, there's always someone there to bring us back up. You go to an event and you'd see a lot of zeal from people and then that energy, it sort of raises you up. Yeah, I think being in ministry definitely helps. 

So what about scripture and prayers and practices then? I often ask people about whether there's a bit of scripture that speaks to them that they keep coming back to maybe. I don't know whether there's anything for either of you. 

I'd normally say this to everyone. The one word of God, which is John 3:16, I don't think there's a more powerful word of God. This is just me saying it. But I mean, it says, God so loved the world that He gave us his only Son, Jesus, that who believes in Him, may not perish but have eternal life. So, this is... We are Christians, we are followers of Christ and I don't think there's a bigger message than this in the Bible. So, that's my favourite verse. I think over the last few years, there's this big wisdom that I feel like I've got to love the Word of God a lot more. You know, the importance of the Word of God. It says, right, Word of God is as important as Eucharist for us in theory.  You can't weigh one over the other. I think we neglect that often. I think we just don't do that Word of God part enough. It's not necessarily by heartening it. I think we made that conscious effort to read Word of God every day. At times we're just reading it because it became a practice and I'm not really getting it. But at times, whenever I need it, it comes back and speaks to me. 

So when you say you read the Word of God every day, are you going through the Bible in order or are just seeing what - are you looking at what the readings in Mass are that day or are you choosing something yourself? How do you choose? 

Yeah, I always look at the Mass readings for that particular day even though I don't get to attend Mass with my work schedules and stuff. That itself is there, so that's a good way to  - And then just randomly reading it, there's a lot of the Psalms that I say. Whenever we go out, we say Psalm 91 together. That's a big practice, a prayer of protection. Psalm 51, that’s my go-to prayer of asking for pardon and cleansing. I feel like I need that a lot. 

We all do, Jaimin, that's fine. 

There's a few Psalms and stuff we always visit. But then generally, it's a case of I feel like you open and read something from it.  Sometimes it touches you. Sometimes you wouldn't even know what I just read.  It's not always easy to understand. One thing which we started doing is we started doing a Bible Study. Again, this is founded in Kerala. We're not part of this at AFCM or anything. There are two classes every week and you can just watch it online. So the first 15 classes, it's like an hour long, it's all about the Word of God, the importance of the Word of God, what does the Word of God mean for us, how we should use it. And then you go to the history, we're only in the 22nd class or something, it's supposed to be like 80 classes. And I feel that that really helped us, ignited that love of God, love of the Word of God for us. You go to a church and you have Eucharist, but you have God's Word right here. I don't think we use this enough as Christians. 

Thank you. And Neena, is there something for you, a little bit of scripture that you come back to?  

It's John 14: 26 about the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit being a helper. It goes like this, But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. So a lot of the times I don't know what I'm doing. Holy Spirit, Please help me, tell me what I need to do. Again, I think all my experiences and examples are relating to Jonah. So I'm trying to teach that with Jonah as well. Sometimes we don't know what to do.  So we’ll just ask Holy Spirit for help. I think it's always been instilled in me through my parents because like whenever we sit down to study, my parents are like, Okay, just pray to Holy Spirit first so you understand what you're learning. So before you go do exams, pray to Holy Spirit. So it'll remind you what you need to write down. I think it's always been there in the background. Especially parenthood, Please guide us, we don't know what we're doing. 

Thank you, that's really good. I just remembered while you were speaking, Neena, that we didn't talk about how God brought the two of you together. Maybe we should cover that before we wind up our conversation. Did God play a part in the two of you finding each other and getting married? 

You will explain, you go. So we met, so Neena went to Keele University and I was in Staffordshire. So we met through a friend and then we started talking. There's no drama there. But I think because we had that prayer background, we used to pray together and then we used to go for Mass together. Holy Mass at Keele. Yeah, I think prayer and by this time, I had, by the grace of God, I had encountered, I had attended that retreat that I mentioned earlier. So, I was, I'd say, closer to God than I was before. Definitely, we used to pray together on Skype whenever we could for the Holy Masses. Yeah, that definitely helped. And we got married in 2018, so don't think - without prayer we would have gone through until then. I think you're working in that ministry and then coming together, working for the Lord through the ministry.  And then, Jonah being born. It guides us in a way, because sometimes, say you go for a retreat, yes, you're in spirit for the first few days and then afterwards you go back to your own place. And then you're lazy and you're like, you don't want to go, well, to do your prayers properly. And then you go for, there's always some kind of gathering or prayer, something going on. So you go for that and you're like rekindled again. So it helped us. Yeah. 

So it sounds like being two people who were practising your faith meant you had something in common when you met and something that you could do together then and that the practice of your faith continued to be important for your growing family, for the three of you now. 

Yes, yes.  It's quite important as Catholics that we pass on our faith to others and I'm sure God has a plan for everything. I worry a lot. If this trend is going up in 25 years’ time,  what would our churches be like?  How many people would be there?  How many churches would be there?  How many priests would be here? It affects me. I'm genuinely hurt. That's why, What can I do? I don't necessarily think I'm doing enough, but I say, Use me or use us, use our ministry, use all the ministries. But if you look at history, historically, right?  It's the normal people who pass their faith and that's how others got their faith. For example, St. Thomas in Kerala, he passed on the faith. And if you look at South Africa, African countries, there's a lot of evangelisation being done through either Protestants or Catholics and we need that sort of revival, right? For England, I feel. And I'm just wondering like for 20 years’ time when Jonah is big or our other kids, if we have them, how many churches? Are they going to have the opportunity to attend Holy Mass every day? I hope so. How many fellow Catholics there will be?  I feel like it's just very important we do something for tomorrow to pass on our faith. 

I'm glad you said that, Jaimin. I think that's really helpful.  I was speaking about how much energy there is among Keralan Catholics and the vibrancy, but there's serious responsibility you feel there too, to evangelise. That's really important, I think, for all of us to recognise.  I think it's a good example to us that you feel that responsibility yourself and that you're trying to do something about it. 

Absolutely. 

What more you can do and are you doing enough? I think that's a good challenge for myself and listeners. So thank you for saying that. 

We don't live too far from Dominic Barberi. Have you heard of Dominic Barberi?  

Yes. 

Blessed Dominic Barberi -  where he used to live after he came from Italy. So I think his mission, he had a deep thirst for England and its conversion and the Lord has done many things for him. So we pray to him for his intercession as well.

OK, so he's an inspiration to you too. Well, again, that will resonate with people because there's often a saint that means something to individual Catholics somewhere along the way and where you feel some sort of connection. So that's good to hear about too. 

I think it's just about kids. We've got to give our kids an opportunity to show them the faith, bring them up in the faith. Otherwise, don't know, like Jaimin was saying about in 20 years’ time, what it's going to be. So yeah, I'm really scared about that too. We have to pay that price now, right? Yeah, we have to because I think that's why we don't do enough.  We don't pay that price.  I think certain things we take it for granted until you don't have. 

Thank you for challenging us. Listen, thank you both for making some time after putting your son to bed to talk this evening. That's been really great. I think there's lots there that listeners will be really interested to hear about and will connect with and things you said that will resonate with people. And I think things you said that will challenge people and your great faith in the Lord and the way you want to bring up your child shines through and is a lovely thing to hear about and talk to you about. So thanks for spending that time. 

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us, Theresa.

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time.  I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday and you can follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms.  Rate and review to help others find it. You can also follow us on social media @KindsofCatholic. And remember if you connect with us on Substack, you can comment on episodes and share your thoughts and be part of the dialogue there.  Until the next time.