Exactly 25 years back, on the 27th of May, Fr Cherian Nereveettil (Cheriachan) started his journey in the Jesus Youth movement as a deacon through the Fulltimers training. In these 25 years, Cheriachan took up many offices in the movement – He was the chaplain for the Fulltimers training for several years.. National Chaplain for two terms – 6 years; then the International Chaplain; currently, he was part of the team for the formation of clergy and seminarians in the movement. And now after 25 years, on the very same day, he left us to go back to his eternal home. In the last two decades, he has played a key role in the life, growth and mission of the movement.
All through the morning today, I never kept my phone down – I even shared with a few of our friends that Cheriachan was completing his journey on earth… but when I heard the news around 2.30 pm, the tears came rolling down.. even when I knew there was no need… for he had run his race… During all the calls over the next one hour, none of us could complete our calls because of our tears… This again shows us how deeply he has touched our hearts; influenced our lives. I am not writing this mail to talk about Cheriachan’s contributions to me personally or to the movement – but just to share a few fond thoughts about him.
The first image which comes to my mind about Father is that he was a man of integrity. He had deep convictions and he always stood by and lived his convictions. In every action, he had a balance of justice and mercy – even when he was insulted and humiliated because of his stance, he never responded; never got angry; never looked back or tried to compromise.. but accepted it with a smile. As the scripture says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven…” (Mathew 5: 10-12). He was truly a man of beatitudes !
Cheriachan was a good speaker and was well known for his meaningful, soul stirring very short homilies. He will be the one priest who has travelled to the most number of countries as a resource person in Jesus Youth. Normally, it is a regular custom after a programme, for the organising team to give him a small amount as an honorarium. He always accepted the money – but never touched it – He used to hand over cover containing the money even without opening it to the Jesus Youth office. On several occasions we insisted that it was money given to him and that he should take it – but he never accepted even a single rupee. When we had International trainings in Bangkok, there would be a day for outing – and all the team members would receive a small amount to buy something when they went shopping. Cheriachan would go out with the money, buy some local sweets for his young friends in his parish and in the Jesus Youth office and would return the rest of the money on the same day.
Some of you may know that he was reluctant in using WhatsApp saying that it would take up a lot of his time.. He used an ordinary phone with keys. When he became the International Chaplain, we forced him to start using WhatsApp since that was the main platform for communication. We gifted him a smart phone too – He used that phone only for WhatsApp and continued using his old phone for all other purposes. In the same week he completed his chaplaincy, he returned that phone to the office. Even though all of us tried our best to give it back to him, he refused to accept it and continued to use his old phone without WhatsApp. St Mathew says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” – Cheriacha, we know that you are with your Father now.
Dear Cheriacha,
we will miss you terribly. Your calm and beautiful smile, your ability to approach things from a totally different angle, your love for music, art and theatre, your creative ways of doing things, the small paper craft gifts you used to bring to us from your kidney mate (Hope you know that Cheriachan donated his kidney to a plus one student 7 years back and he used to call the person as his kidney mate), your beautiful homilies.. the way you found joy in small things.. the list goes on.. You have touched so many hearts and held them close to the heart of the Father.. We now rely upon your prayer