Father Arakal goes the way of all flesh

Father Jacob Arakal, SJ, has passed away. He breathed his last, last night. I’ve just got the news from Father C J John, a former Principal of Andhra Loyola College (ALC). The funeral will be held at Loyola Academy, Secunderabad, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow (13 March 2020).

I’m sure that everyone who was acquainted with this wise and lovely priest in his 96-year-long life has a story to tell. Here’s my own story.

It was my first day at ALC. The moment I stepped on to the campus, I gasped in wonderment at the lofty luxuriance that lay before me. Not that I was unused to the lushness of nature: there was a lavish display of nature’s bounty on the campus of Madras Christian College where I had studied for five years. But the Loyola landscape had something mystical about it. The “wild secluded scene,” as Wordsworth would have described it, seemed to fill the mind with thoughts of deep seclusion. As I walked further down reflecting that the place was redolent of the peace and quiet of a hermitage, a hermit-like figure came cycling along. When the cycle came closer, the “hermit” peered over his spectacles for a moment, gave a faint smile through his grey beard, and rode on. And I took an instant liking to him. About a month later, when I joined ALC as a lecturer, I ran into the “hermit” again. He asked me to stay in a guest room in his hostel where I led almost a cloistered life for more than two years.

Father Jacob Arakal was that “hermit.” I have since been acquainted with scores of Jesuits. I have admired some of them, hero-worshipped one or two of them, and been indifferent to many of them. But I have always regarded that “hermit” on the bicycle, the first ever Jesuit in my life, as a special person. I have even said in an interview to a Jesuit magazine that Father Arakal, a priest of indisputable excellence, is a kind of touchstone that could be applied to other Jesuits to assess their priestly merits.

Simple, sincere, austere – it is easy to describe Father Arakal. These trite expressions, mindlessly bandied about on occasions such as this, acquire a rare elegance and a ring of authenticity when used with reference to priests like Douglas Gordon (1912-1994), Joseph Kuriakose (1925-1994) and Jacob Arakal (1924-2020). There was nothing contrived about their practice of these great virtues because it was a part of their vocation. It is said that the test of a vocation is the love of drudgery it involves. The Jesuit administrative system is of necessity sheer drudgery: unless the Jesuits who operate the system are devoted to a life of humdrum chores, they cannot ensure the smooth functioning of the system. By accepting the drudgery that the operation of the system involved with the greatest willingness and interest, Father Arakal has contributed significantly to the smooth functioning of the system.

Let me conclude my humble tribute to this great Jesuit with a prayer I put together, after Holland’s ‘God, give us men!’ when Fr Arakal celebrated his diamond jubilee as a Jesuit in 2005:

God, give us men like Jacob Arakal:
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honour: Men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking.

Rest in peace, Fr Arakal!