One of his priests, “Irrespective of his poor health, he was anxious about the poor on the street, that they are getting food daily or not. This morning, he is still in a hospital, on a ventilator, in critical condition.īut even that hasn’t stopped him. Three weeks ago, he was admitted to a hospital with a fever. One of them is Bishop Jacob Mar Barnabas. Hundreds of thousands are fighting for their lives. Government officials can’t even keep an accurate account of the dead and dying, there are so many of them. As I speak, COVID has brought India to its knees.įamilies have been wiped out. I don’t think he could have imagined what was coming. They find in our cathedral a place of consolation and comfort.” Day after day, the bishop met with them, talked with them, brought food to them, prayed with them.Īs he put it: “God has called me to radiate his love and care for these brothers and sisters without looking at their faith, caste, color, language. When they arrived, he got out of the Jeep and put on rubber gloves and a mask and gave out food and supplies and offered blessings.Ī year ago, as the pandemic was just beginning to spread, he wrote an essay describing the hundreds of people who were showing up every day outside his cathedral, waiting for help: old people, widows, families with children. This simple man with a long grey beard and flowing saffron robes climbed into a Jeep and traveled with workers to villages. He organized volunteers, priests and religious in his diocese to distribute food, hygiene kits, protective equipment, masks. He set up a kitchen to prepare hot meals for 1500 people a day. “We don’t have any place to go,” they said, “Please help us.”Īnd he did.
When COVID first struck India over a year ago, families naturally came to him, looking for help. When Mar Barnabas travels to visit missions in his diocese, he often sleeps on the floor.īut his enthusiasm is infectious-and so is his love for the poor. He runs his diocese on a small budget with almost no staff.
I had lunch with him a few years ago when was in New York. He is known as Mar Barnabas, and he is a bishop in New Delhi, India. There are even some I would call living saints. Working in the church, I’ve met some amazing men and women. In your charity, please, prayers for the repose of his soul and the comfort of those who mourn him and the people of India who continue to suffer as the Covid-19 pandemic rages there. By the time we were preparing this issue for publication, Bishop Mar Barnabas had died of Covid (August 26, 2021). At the time this was initially written, the Bishop was still hospitalized, though improving. I found it profoundly applicable to our issue on Missions, for every Catholic is called to mission every day of life, as life, and Bishop Mar Barnabas shows us how. Editor’s Note: Deacon Greg Kandra preached this homily on Ascension Thursday and previously published it on his blog, A Deacon’s Bench.
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