Swami Joseph Samarakone o.m.i.

Fr. Joseph is a member of the Oblates of Mary Immacculate and is the Acharya of Aanmodaya Ashram near Kanchipuram. He is a native of Sri Lanka but has lived in India since 1976.

Fr. Joseph

Fr. Joseph must be somewhere around 80, perhaps more. He is a portly man with flowing white hair and a luxurious beard to match I.  arrived at the ashram January 19. When I first arrived, rather later than I’d expected, he was lying back on his bed as he’d had a long appointment with a doctor earlier in the day for treatment to a nasty infection in a wound on his leg. He was immediately warmly hospitable. He laughed to hear me say that I’d expected the train journey from Pundicherry to last only three hours. He summoned a novice who led me to a large, clean simply furnished room where I began to unpack.

Fr. Joseph has long been involved in inter-religious dialogue and in the inculturation of the Church in India. For Fr. Joseph, “the ‘kingdom’ of Jesus’ vision embraces all peoples, all religions, all cultures, even people who have no religion and, therefore all ideologies and all life-realities of the people. Thus the kingdom is larger than the Church” (“My Adventure with Inter-religious Dialogue” in Traversing the Heart. Journeys of the Inter-religious Imagination eds. Richard Kearney and Eileen Rizo-Patron).

Temple at Aanmodaya

Arati at Morning Prayer

Rather like the chapel at Shantivanam ashram, the Aanmodaya chapel resembles a Tamil temple. Inside, the supporting pillars are decorated with the symbols of the world’s great religions and spiritual traditions, including secular ones. I was rather surprised to see a hammer and sickle adorning one of the pillars. Elements of traditional Indian piety, especially arati – honouring the fire, are incorporated into the liturgy here.

Interior

Symbols of various religions are found on the temple pillars

Temple Seating

The second reading at the Eucharist on Saturday morning was several verses from chapter six of the Bhagavad Gita. Fr. Joseph spoke simply and movingly on the verses, relating them to the gospels as well as to other religious traditions.

Fr. Joseph tells of his first encounter with Fr. Bede Griffiths in 1977 whom he recognized at once as an authentic Christian sannyasi of India. Fr. Bede asked Joseph to chant the Thiruvacagam of a great Tamil saint, Manickavacagar. Though he’d never chanted it before, Joseph did so that day as if he had been singing it for years. It still holds an important place in the worship at Aandamaya. It is dedicated to Shiva as a loving Divine Mother:

The mother’s thoughtful care her infant feeds: Thou deign’st

With greater love to visit sinful me, --

Melting my flesh, flooding my soul with inward light,

Unfailing rapture’s honeyed sweetness Thou

Bestowest, -- through my every part infusing joy!

My Wealth of bliss! O Civa—Peruman!

Close following Thee I’ve seized, and hold Thee fast!

Henceforth, ah, whither grace imparting would’st Thou rise?