The Father Bala Story
November 24, 2024
Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
I was born in Pannur, a traditional Catholic village of about 750 families in northeast Tamil Nadu State, India, on December 17, 1965. Catholicism in this area goes back to Saint Thomas the Apostle, who came to India in 51 AD. He first landed in Karala and then he came to Chennai, the nearest metropolis to my village. Our Catholic Faith goes back to the Apostle; he is the founder of Christianity in India.
In Pannur, we had daily Mass in the church and Sundays were like feast days, everybody would come. And we had a lot of celebrations, for example, for Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, St. Anthony, Mary’s Birthday, and of course Christmas and Easter, each with its own festival. The parish is dedicated to Mother Mary as Our Lady of Good Health. We have that celebration on May 31st every year. For all these special feasts, the parish prepares a small chariot to carry the Mother Mary statue, and we go around the village in procession that would take about four to five hours. We do this several times a year in the evening, starting about 5:30pm, carrying candles, saying prayers, and having Mass about 9:30pm.
My parents were farmers. We had buffalo, cows, bulls, goats, and sheep, along with fields where we grew peanuts, rice, tomatoes and vegetables like red and green chilis. After school, I would go to the field with my father and mother and learned everything. I have an older brother and a younger sister. It was a nice childhood, but farming is a tough life.
The traditional Catholic faith of my village, my family, and the celebrations of the festivals all gave me the inspiration to want to be a priest. Everybody in the village (and surrounding area), including our parents, encouraged us, boys and girls, to become priests or nuns. There are many priests and religious from my village, about 55 priests and 150 nuns over the years. There are more than 25 priests currently serving in ministry. They go to the Salesians of Don Bosco, to the Jesuits, Franciscans, and many different congregations of men and women religious. Many also go to become diocesan priests, as I did. I had the idea in Fourth Grade, after I became an altar server. There were eight of us that chose to go to the Diocese of Nellore after 7th Grade, when I was 13 years old, so we went there to attend the minor seminary. All eight of us made it to ordination. Nellore is north of Chennai, in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. There are much fewer Catholics there, so it is considered a missionary diocese. I was motivated to spread the Catholic Faith. The Church should grow, and I wanted to do my part. I studied philosophy and theology at St. John’s Major Seminary in Hyderabad to prepare for ordination. In elementary school, English was one subject among others, but in college and advanced studies, all instruction was in English.
During my seminary formation, I did a pastoral year at an estate in a rural forest area. We saw a lot of snakes and wild animals and even had snakes come into our rooms. One time, I was bitten by a poisonous snake but was treated with “country medicine” including local medicinal leaves. We learned which plants were good for different applications, remembering where they grew in the area in case they were needed. Whatever the subject, the people expect the priest to have the answer!
Later, I had another break from studies, this time for a service period of about six months which I spent with Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. This was in 1991; I still have the photo with her. This was a very different, intense experience. I worked in the ICU of a leprosy hospital, washing patient’s wounds and giving them medication. Now we have medications to heal this very disfiguring disease, but it was not available at that time. (My diocese has three leper colonies in isolated forest areas, including schools for the children, all run by Catholic nuns.) I prayed a lot during that time to complete my service; I did well and eventually left with great satisfaction, having served Jesus in this way.
After the completion of my priestly studies, I was ordained on April 28, 1994 (30 years ago!), in my own village, to serve in the Diocese of Nellore. For my first two years after ordination, I worked as an associate parish priest in a remote village with 10-15 substations. This is a Hindu-dominated area with very few Catholics. Every day, we would talk to people. I would ride a motor bike to an area, the children would gather around, and we would walk to their homes and call the families about 5:30pm to come to Mass that night. They were mostly very poor, working as tenant farmers, but willing to come to the church, and we would teach them catechism, prayers, and hymns before a late Mass and then go home by about 10pm, often enjoying a late meal with a family. We would rotate to different substations on alternating days. We had a good response; sometimes anti-Christians would threaten us, but we would continue anyway. Over time, we knew each family and could call all the children by name.
In my diocese, each priest’s assignment is for a maximum of seven years. But you can also request transfers, and I preferred to rotate every three years so I could work in different parishes. I only had two assignments in urban parishes, where we would travel by bus. The rest were in remote, often forest areas, where travel was by motor bike on dirt roads. If there was heavy rain for a day or two, then we would not be able to go out. I have always been a missionary priest, including when I accepted positions in the in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City (2003 – 2007), the Diocese of Phoenix (2012 – 2016), and now the Archdiocese of Seattle. I have ministered in a variety of parishes and institutions, most recently as Director of the Premananda Orphanage Center and parish priest of Ethamukkala Parish.
My father died at the family farm while I was in seminary and my mother died soon after my ordination. After that, we leased our land and then eventually sold it because my brother was away in the army, and I was away in Nellore. When I do visit Pannur, I stay with my brother. He is retired from the Indian Army now and lives there with his wife, a retired teacher, and their two adult sons who are married and work from home as software engineers. My younger sister is a teacher in the neighboring village.
Society is changing in India. There is no scarcity of priests and religious, but vocations are decreasing because society is becoming more secular, more computerized. Most of the youth are pursuing technical educations and then they want to leave for a job. Many want to go out of the country, to Europe, Australia, Singapore, or Malaysia. Back in Pannur, and in other traditional Catholic villages, we still teach the Faith, but people still want to leave the small villages. For me to travel home to Pannur from Nellore, it takes about seven hours by bus and train. I would often visit for my home parish’s feast day on May 31st, when all the priests and nuns are home. But when I was in the US, I did not go to India, but used that unique chance to visit Jerusalem, Fatima, and Lourdes, because travel visas were much easier to get while in the US than from India. I don’t have any travel plans yet for next year, but some families in Phoenix have invited me to visit them, so that is possible, and I would like to visit Rome if I have the chance.
Many of the Indian priests are sent to Europe and to America for ministry because we can save our stipend. My bishop will be able to use some of it for the diocese and the rest I can keep to use during my next parish assignment in India. The people in remote missionary parishes rely on the priest to provide financial assistance (for education, food, and medicines) as well as pay for parish maintenance, funding festivals, and the priest’s basic needs. A typical priest’s stipend in India cannot cover those expenses.
I am grateful for how you have welcomed me this past month as I begin to learn my way around the area and slowly have the chance to meet and spend time with more of you. To keep myself spiritually strong, I enjoy (and recommend) a holy hour, Mass, and Bible reading. I want to help you all in any way I can, sharing good food for your souls and the love of Jesus for each of you.
God bless you forever,
Fr. Bala Nagineni
Parochial Vicar