Jeevan Dhara Spirituality Centre, Raiganj

The vision and mission of the centre is to promote ongoing renewal and faith formation of Priests, Religious, and Laity through retreats, Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Scripture, seminars on psycho-spiritual developments, Religious leadership, Inter-Religious harmony, socio-ecological issues and training in Small Christian Community.

Programmes: once in every month a residential retreat for laity. The participants come in the evening and stay for next full three days and go back on the fifth day morning after Mass and breakfast. The number of participants varies from month to month: from fifty to two hundred. Our experience shows that those who participate in the retreats grow in their faith and faith commitment and also they experience a lot of emotional, physical and spiritual healing.

In a year about ten 6 to 8 days retreats are conducted for Priests and Religious. Besides these twice a year on month (30 days) Ignatian Spiritual Exercises are given to those in formation both religious and diocesan seminarians. We also have outreaching programme for the Laity and Religious.

Fr Varkey Chenayakal SJ along with his two lay collaborators, Mr Barnabas Soren and Mr Manohar Soren preach about forty three day Santali retreats to parishioners in their own Parishes and village centers. Normally hundreds of people participate in these retreats. During the Lenten season in big parishes and at the deanery level retreats are conducted. Thousands of people attend these retreats. The Laity very eagerly wait for and attend these retreats preached in Santali. They are thirsty for the Word of God. Fr Varkey and team feels that retreat preaching is a joyful, enriching and transforming experience. Most of these retreats are conducted under temporary tents put up by the people in the open grounds. They also look after our basic needs of food and shelter. Praise the Lord!

Catechists’ Training Centre, Torai

In a land-mark meeting of 1972, Jesuit Missions among Santals in North-East India in the States of Assam, Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, held their first ever ‘Santal Colloquium’ at the shrine of Our Lady at Bandel, close to Calcutta. The gathered Bishops, priests, religious and lay catechists unanimously accepted a need to set up a catechists’ training centre to train the laity to be effective helpers of the pastors in building up the Santal catholic community.

The convention requested Bishop Leo of Dumka Diocese who turned to the Jesuit Regional Superior and requested that the Jesuits take up responsibility for this important matter. Within four years, on 15 September 1976, a Catechists’ Training Centre (CTC) at Torai, was solemnly blessed and inaugurated and Fr Paul Aquilina SJ was appointed its first Director. At the inauguration, 30 young men, from various dioceses began their training to qualify eventually as parish head-catechists.

The centre for Santal catechists has been conducting, yearly, a six-month long course, divided into three periods, for head-catechists and one-month courses for hundreds of village catechists, both men and women. Other courses like, the use of media, retreats, seminars for youth are also conducted at the Centre. With God’s grave the catechetical centre has been able to render fruitful service to the local Santal churches.