On 20 October we celebrate two anniversaries of the Jesuit Father Ante Gabrić - his departure for his second homeland, India, in 1938, and his departure for the house of the heavenly Father exactly 33 years ago.

The Servant of God Father Ante Gabrić was a guardian and teacher of many young and old Indians. I still have very vivid memories of the time when, as a child, I listened to his talks in the church of St Elijah. He described his experiences and reflections so vividly and convincingly that all of us children answered, back then, that we wanted to go with him to India, that land of longing.  As a teacher, this life role of his prompts me to wonder whether he could still be an educator today. Are his educational methods and attitudes still acceptable today, more than 30 years after he left us?  I believe they are, and if you doubt it, I will try to convince you of it too.

Who was Father Ante Gabrić?

Father Ante Gabrić was a Jesuit and missionary, a great and holy man. He was born in Metković on 28 February 1915. His parents, Petar Gabrić and Katarina (née Antićević), raised their Ante, his four brothers and his four sisters in faith and love.

He became an altar server early on. At that time the parish priest in Metković was Fr Leonardo Bajić, and the sacristan Jakov Petrov prepared Father Ante to be an altar server. Serving at the altar, he watched Fr Leonardo and "envied" him his good fortune to hold Jesus in his hands and give him to others. Even then he firmly resolved: "I too shall be a Fr Leonardo."

He dreamed that, like the parish priest in his own parish, he would become a Franciscan, but something happened that changed his decision forever and shaped the course of his life. On one occasion the Jesuits missed their ship and decided to spend the night in Metković, in the very house of Father Ante Gabrić. That evening the eleven-year-old Ante listened to fascinating stories about the work of missionaries in unknown and distant lands. The stories thrilled him, and the desire arose in him to become a Jesuit. Instead of in Sinj, he continued his schooling in Travnik, Zagreb and Italy. While still a student, he sent a request to be allowed to go to the missions in India. His request was approved on 21 July 1938, and it is said that when he heard the news, he turned a somersault in the air out of sheer joy.

On 20 October 1938 he boarded the ship Victoria in Genoa and sailed for India. He completed his theological studies in Kurseong, where he was also ordained a priest on 21 November 1943. He spent the following two years in Moropai and Ranchi before finally arriving in Bosonti, where he spent the next 16 years. Of the Indian people, Father Ante said: "After my own Croatian people, they are my dearest people in the world."

In the harsh living conditions of one of the poorest regions of India, our renowned missionary managed to do a great deal of good. In the most difficult moments he sought and received help from Croats both at home and abroad, and from various international aid organisations. Interestingly, in the small chapels he built in the outlying villages, Holy Mass was celebrated on Sundays and feast days, while on other days they served as local schools. His greatest concern was for the sick, and on his rounds he always carried a bag of medicines with him. He was happiest when he was bringing people the Good News and introducing them to Jesus.

His work did not differ greatly from what he had done in Bosonti. In the autumn of 1970 a great flood struck the Moropai area. Father Ante made sure that help reached all the impoverished families. But the following year more than nine million refugees poured into Moropai from the other side of the Ganges, driven out by the fanatical Pakistani army. For their sake he organised Food-for-work projects, through which the local people and refugees, by their labour of repairing embankments and roads, earned basic provisions for life.

The last place where Father Ante lived was Maria Polli (from 1975 to 1988). There he served as parish priest. Interestingly, Father Ante changed the name of the village from Kumrokhali to Maria Polli (meaning Mary's Village). An old hut served him as a parish house, and a tent as his cathedral. Shortly after founding the new parish, he wrote for Mali koncil - MAK, a monthly religious magazine for children, that he was already building an orphanage, a dispensary for lepers, and a convent where the daughters of the Missionaries of Charity (Mother Teresa's sisters) would live. The sisters looked after the children and the lepers, and examined around 2,000 patients a day. He placed great importance on schooling and education. Father Ante Gabrić's schools were the most highly regarded in Bengal. Holders of their certificates found every door open to them and could find employment immediately. He also started a "cooperative society" - a solidarity fund into which each member contributed one rupee a month, and from which help could later be obtained by anyone in need. For the homeless who had been impoverished by flood or cyclone, he organised the building of huts, and even of entire villages. The parish flourished wonderfully, and religious vocations blossomed.

Together with Mother Teresa he worked with the Bata shoe factory and opened the first plant in Maria Polli, and later another in Đišu Polli. The village of Đišu Polli (meaning Jesus' Village) lies 30 km east of Maria Polli. Father Ante had by then grown old, but this did not stop him from continuing his work. He loved children dearly, and did the most for them. He built shelters for them, treated their illnesses, clothed them, shod them, opened schools, workshops and small seminaries, and taught them catechism. It is said that he fed over 22,600 children, and he always kept some sweets for them in his pocket or his bag. As a true son of the Neretva, he taught them to weave fish traps and to fish. He never grew tired of working and spreading God's message; indeed, he felt he had too little time to accomplish everything he had set out to do.

It is little known that it was on the initiative of Croatian Jesuits that Mother Teresa went to India as a missionary, and that Father Ante Gabrić became a great friend of hers there. From the time they met in Calcutta, their meetings, correspondence and collaboration continued until the end of Father Ante's life. They tended the sick, comforted the dying, built and constructed both spiritually and materially, and spread the Good News in the poorest part of the world. Both were renowned for their remarkable care for the people of Bengal, regardless of their religion. Most of what is known about their work comes from the column "Co-workers of Mother Teresa and Fr Ante Gabrić", which appeared for about a decade in Mali koncil. Through their     dedication and care for the sick and the poor, both Father Ante and Mother Teresa earned the respect of people of every faith and nationality.

Father Ante had long been in poor health, but he was an exceptionally zealous priest and did not heed his doctors' advice. His weakened body was especially worn down by an infection from spoiled meat, since he had no refrigerator in which to keep it. After exactly fifty years of mission, after exactly fifty years of the tireless work of a holy man who, from the Neretva to Bengal, gave his help to those most in need, on 20 October 1988 Jesus called him to himself. His final moments are witnessed to by the Reverend Sylvester, to whom, in one of his last conversations, he said with a smile on his face: "Jesus is calling. The time has come." At his own wish, he was buried beneath a palm tree in Maria Polli, near the church he had built and near the grotto of Our Lady. He was dressed for burial in a white cassock. It was sewn for him by the poor whom he had educated, since he had nothing in his own wardrobe. At his wish, a clod of Neretva earth and a small bottle of the Adriatic Sea were placed in the grave with him. His grave is visited today by many pilgrims, who pray to Father Ante, and it is known that many prayers have been answered and healings have occurred through his intercession.

On his 100th birthday, 28 February 2015, in the offices of the Archdiocesan Curia on Zagreb's Kaptol, at a session opened by the Archbishop of Zagreb, Cardinal Josip Bozanić, the diocesan process for the beatification of the Servant of God Fr Ante Gabrić, SJ, was officially opened.

Love for the Homeland

Father Ante used to say that he had two homelands: Croatia and India. On the back of one photograph, in which he is walking through mud, he wrote: "Through fine, rich Bengali mud... Worse than in Koševo!" Your Ante. He used every occasion to express this love of his  for his native region, right up to the last moment, when he wished to be buried with a clod of Neretva earth and a small bottle of the Adriatic Sea in his second homeland. Can this love be an example to today's teachers and young people of how to love their own country with all its features, rather than always looking for something negative? Is something foreign really more beautiful than what we already have? What is foreign is an unknown behind which all manner of things can be hidden. It is easy to find fault and to judge, but let us try to love what has been given to us and what is our own. Like Father Ante, we can always do something to make the space and the people around us better.

Love for Parents

Father Ante left his parents at the age of 11. He never had his fill of their attention, and so all his life he longed for them, especially for his mother, whom he no longer found alive when he returned from India. In Solin in 1976, in a speech, he addressed mothers directly with the words:  "Mothers, be mothers to us; save our people and our homeland with your motherly love." Do today's young people have this kind of love and respect for their parents, or do they take them for granted? Are today's parents aware of the strength and importance they hold, or have they "pushed it" into the background, weighed down by obligations imposed on them or chosen by themselves? I think we must all become aware of the importance of every conversation, embrace or kiss with any person dear to us, as though it were the last, for as Father Ante said of his mother after her death:   "...her love held me, still holds me, and will hold me to the end..."

Father Ante's Media Literacy

Father Ante was known for the many letters he wrote (8000 letters!). In them he shared his thoughts with family and friends, but also his gratitude to his many benefactors. Just imagine if the internet and social media had existed in his time! How many more benefactors might he have reached, and how much more help for the Indian people might he then have received?  We should bring media literacy closer to children and young people in this same way, explaining to them all the possibilities these tools offer them, of which they are often unaware, since they were born into them. I propose that when Father Ante is one day declared a saint, he should become the patron of media literacy, since he was certainly its pioneer.

Missionary Work

Father Ante's whole life was in keeping with this saying of his: "One must burn and be consumed … yet we merely smoulder! And why should I merely smoulder, I ask you?! I would want nothing else than to be a sacrifice. Burn, brother, and be utterly consumed! … To give one's life for others, that is love. To have a life only for oneself, that life means nothing… Everything is sweeter when it is shared, when it is given. Both gifts and life! It is sweetest when you can give everything." He certainly did not merely smoulder; he burned and gave himself in every way, right up to the last minute of his life. He was one great  act of giving, whether it was the sweets he always kept in his pocket in case some child came along, or the spiritual giving of the last kind, which he showed to single mothers before his death. Not all of us can burn in his way, but each of us, in our own small roles in life, whether family or professional, can always give our utmost. Father Ante used to say, and repeat, that life is simple, and that we human beings are the ones who complicate it, since it is evidently very complicated to be simple.

 "I am leaving yet I remain, you are staying yet you are coming with me."

The last image I have of Father Ante is still remarkably "vivid" in my memory. He was standing at the bottom of the steps below his family home, looking around the place of his childhood. I don't know what he was thinking, but he seemed wistful, as though he knew this was his last visit. And now, though 33 years have passed since then, I have the feeling that he has stayed with us. Although he has gone, he continues to lead all of us who remain after him, still guiding us by his wonderful example.

PRAYER

for the beatification  

of the Servant of God Fr Ante Gabrić

 

Heavenly Father,

in your Servant Ante Gabrić, missionary,

you gave us a heroic example

of how your kingdom is spread through mercy and love.

We ask you for the grace

that in the faith of the Church he may soon be declared blessed,

and so become closer still to all who turn to him in their needs.

Confident that he was pleasing to you by his life and his apostolic zeal,

grant us, through his intercession, the grace for which we now pray…..

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen

 

Source: Our Father Ante Gabrić, 2015, Stjepan Radić Elementary School, Metković

Photographs: Zvonimir Atletić and from family albums