God the Father’s Love from an Orphan’s Perspective|Fr Baiju’s Journey to the Priesthood

How did growing up in an orphanage shape Fr Baiju's understanding of God as a father? In this article we explore God's fatherly love with Fr Baiju MGL as he shares about his childhood experience and his personal spiritual journey which ultimately led him to the priesthood.

What was it like growing up in an orphanage in India? Most of my life was in an orphanage.

I lived with my parents- I don’t have a very good memory of my dad - but I lived with my mum until I was seven years old and after that I was taken to this boys’ home run by the Vincentian Fathers, a Charismatic Catholic order, until I came to Australia. So most of my life was in that orphanage. I was surrounded by people all the time so I wouldn’t feel so much loneliness … at times I’d feel interiorly lonely ... but life was sort of survival of the fittest because you had to perform well among these 55 - 60 peers academically and in other ways you have to show you’re capable of things and so there was fear of competition there but at the same time the priests were very good to us. We had just one priest to look after us and one brother. The novitiates’ house was also in the same place so we could see the novices and the seminarians - that also shaped my spirituality and my decision to become a priest. Priests were living with us and when we played football they used to play with us .. so we didn’t just see the priest on the altar … and when we worked in the field they were working with us … so I could see both the human side and the sacramental side of the priesthood ... I was really taken in by that. And they were sort of my father figures. So I decided to become a priest. I joined the Seminary but after one year they said I can’t continue because of my history and background as an orphan. A candidate for the priesthood has to come from a properly functioning family. I didn’t live with my parents and my dad died when I was nearly three years old but before that they were separated, like unofficially separated, so the family was not well knit together. So I left the Seminary and came back to the orphanage. I started writing to different religious orders expressing my desire and none of them were willing to take me in. Initially I started losing hope. I was looking for religious communities in India but I got the same reply. So then I thought I will try a religious order in Australia and that’s how I came across the MGL brotherhood and I could see the similarity between the Vincentians and MGLs because of the charismatic spirituality. So I wrote to Fr Ken and he asked me to meet him and yeah … he took me in.

How did growing up in that place shape your understanding of God the Father?

I had two special events in my life … revelation kind of moments of God being my father. First of all a personal God - that was my first personal revelation. This was when I was preparing to receive first Holy Communion. Just before the ceremony was starting we were all forming the lines for the procession and the nuns who were preparing us, they found I was so sad because I was not smiling, the usual joyful face was not there, even wiping my tears, so this nun took me aside and asked why .. they knew of course because the other candidates had their parents or some siblings or relatives around them and I was standing alone without my relatives or parents so I was so sad, so I told this nun this is the reason. And she told me, “God of the Bible is God of orphans and widows, and he’s your God first and then our God.” So that really stood with me. From that time on, when I said, ‘My God,’ I started meaning it because he was a personal God - I could call him my God. The second private revelation was when I had a similar kind of experience of that loneliness and pain of being an orphan when I was in year 8 or 9. I was given a big award from my school for writing an essay but when I received the certificate and was coming home, we all had a trunk box - every student has a trunk box they keep all their stuff in - and when I was putting that there I realised that when I visit my friends’ houses they all show their awards in the showcase on the wall whereas I’m keeping mine in a trunk box and there was no-one there to celebrate it. I mean the priests say congratulations .. that’s the maximum they could do … and distributed some sweets, but thinking of your parents if they had been there they would have been really happy and give you a special hug and special congratulatory acts and all those things, so I was very sad again. This time the brother of the orphanage took me aside. I expressed my sorrow and my orphanhood and feeling that loneliness, and he gave me a very small book about St Francis. One of the chapters really started speaking to me because when St Francis declared he was no longer the son of his father and gave all his wealth and clothes to the poor, from that moment on he could then call God ‘my father’ with freedom. He chose to be an orphan to be a special son of the Father in Heaven .. and then I thought ... I kind of defined my orphanhood as a privilege to call God ‘my Father’ with freedom. And ever since when I say, ‘Our Father’ I really own him ... like my Father. And I always enjoy being that special son of God. So I experienced two moments of God’s love. And those moments were really concrete they were really speaking to my heart really concretely. So when I look back now I think there is a reason that I became an orphan.

What encouragement would you like to leave for people who have had a difficult childhood? Everyone who came into existence is loved into existence so God’s love is there but at times there are struggles and sufferings that could blind us against it. That reality of God’s love is there and he will communicate that somehow. That’s what I learned from my life that all that happened in my life was within the love of God, not outside the love of God, within his loving plan. It’s never outside. Whatever happened, whatever is happening and whatever is going to happen is within the context of his love and never outside the boundary of it.