Joaquim Magalhães de Castro
When Father João de Brito arrived in a community, he faced intense work: he received hundreds of people whose confessions he heard, to whom he gave advice or taught doctrine.
Strict in selection, João de Brito did not very quickly baptize those who asked him for the sacrament, for he wanted to be sure of the conviction of the neophytes.
His body didn’t get much rest, and he ate little more than boiled rice.
Being responsible for scattered communities, João had the support of a group of catechists; some replaced him in the spiritual assistance of Christians, others accompanied him on his wanderings.
Despite the unfavorable conditions, Christianity spread slowly. It is important to remember that this tireless activity was carried out in an almost always torrid heat. In this regard, Albert Nevett points out that “the normal effect of continuous and excessive heat is to leave a person feeling drained, exhausted and unwilling to do anything. Intellectual work especially becomes very difficult. In the summer months the heat is like a physical presence, pressing and surrounding on all sides, chasing everything, without being able to escape it. (…) Nowadays, except for the poorest of the poor, no one travels to India in the warmer months, yet João made many such trips, at the end of which, instead of taking a refreshing bath and enjoying a prolonged rest, he had to receive and listen to those who sought him, those who did not leave him until late at night.”
Another factor that conditioned the missionaries’ action in the region was political instability; wars followed one another and generated an endemic conflict that made travel difficult and affected the life of the Christian communities that flourished here and there.
On May 9, 1684, Father João de Brito described the situation as follows: “(…) because the whole kingdom divided against itself will be destroyed, this kingdom of Maduré is now completely ruined. Everywhere we witness degradation, tyranny and betrayal; for nothing people throw themselves at each other; punishment for vice and reward for virtue do not exist; or, to put it bluntly, there is no virtue that deserves a prize.” All these constraints probably contributed to the fact that the Madurai mission was always understaffed.
Follow
