One of the privileges a Jesuit can claim to have had is of a Novice Master who has left a lasting unforgettable beneficent influence on him. One such person is undoubtedly Fr Apoline D’Souza, as many of his novices would testify. He had initiated many a novice of Karnataka, Kerala, Sri Lanka and several other Provinces of the Assistancy into the Jesuit way of life for eleven years. Here are the testimonies of some of his novices.
“Come i…nn; commme and si...ttt.” Every novice of Fr Apoline will remember these words uttered in a shrill sharp voice by his novice master. ..Fr Apoline took pride in his novices. Nobody asked us, who was your novice master? as we often tend to do today, in later years of our formation when someone went astray. Everyone knew who it was. He took pride especially in his first batch of 13 and the last batch of 14.” He had consented to direct the retreat of the eight of the latter batch who would be completing 25 years of their priesthood the following year. But God took him to himself before that day should arrive.
When he was leaving MSJ to embark upon the new venture at Bellary in 1968, Frank Sequeira one of the novices, rendered music to a lyric of a Kannada poet, Theraluvira, theraluvira. Nammannu agali teraluvira. It was the first week of May, masses of pre-Pentecost theme, like” I will not leave you orphans, I am going to prepare a place for you, etc.” Those words must have flashed back to his novices’ minds on 23 February 2005.
“Fr Apoline matured and slowly became a saint. That was his modus operandi. He matured and mellowed as a novice master, when others shouted after Vatican II, `change yes, confusion, no.’. Fr Apoline kept his cool, adapted himself to the situation and went on with the aggiornamento. Whatever he did, he did with a touch of grace.”(Fr Hector D’Souza)
“He was an untrained novice master, but it was his person that made the difference to us. Lack of training did not matter, but he made an effort to understand each of us and give us personal guidance. He was an ascetic, but did not impose his asceticism on us. He encouraged us while being extremely strict with us and our formation. Being with him helped us to be strict with ourselves and be disciplined and at the same time be open to discern changes and the call of God in new developments. His has been one of the most beneficent influences in my life and I thank God for it. I was his novice in 1957, and when I met him again as regent in 1968, he told me still a scholastic, that the post-Vatican changes needed a new novice master. I thank God for Fr Apoline.”(Fr Walter Fernandes)
Apoline was born on 1 December 1914 in Kirem parish of Mangalore diocese. From his earliest teens he used to attend Mass along with his elder brother, Sylvester and was a member of the altar servers’ sodality. Though the desire to become a priest was there in him early in life, he did not reveal it to anyone. After completing his Hr. Elementary School at Kirem, he was admitted to St Aloysius’ as a boarder where he joined also the Junior Sodality of our Lady.
Fr Denis Albuquerque who was the vocation promoter at that time, came to know through Sylvester Monteiro that Apoline desired to become a priest, and he drew him to the Society. On 27 June 1935 Apoline travelled to Calicut along with Fr Ranzani to join the novitiate at Christ Hall. When Fr Ranzani, Superior of the Jesuit Calicut Mission, mountain of a man, gave amplexus to the shy skinny boy Apoline, the latter would later recall how he was completely perplexed.
In the novitiate, Cyril Silva who joined from the Seminary a little later was Apoline’s co-novice, whereas Bertram Rebello, James Coelho, Justin Saldanha, Edwin Fernandes and Kuruvilla were their seniors. There was not a single vocation for the Calicut Mission the following year, and there was a rumour that the novitiate might be closed down. Fr Bernard Gonsalvez, the Goa Mission Superior, happened to visit Calicut then. He came to their rescue in the nick of time. His novices who were then at Shembaganur, were finding the cold unbearable, and so he decided to send them to Christ Hall. After that Christ Hall had many novices every year.
After 16 years of Jesuit formation ending with the tertianship, Fr Apoline was sent to St Michael’s, Cannanore, where he was given several portfolios one after the other: spiritual father, treasurer, minister and then superior, and finally in August 1956 Headmaster of the school. Hardly four months had elapsed, when he got marching orders to go to Christ Hall as Socius, and then on 1 May 1957 he was made Novice Master. In 1959 the novitiate was shifted to Bangalore and he continued as NM till 1968. After a short stint of a year and a half being in charge of the Scholastics in Dharwad, he was sent to take up St John’s School of Bellary diocese where there was also a boarding house for the Catholic boys and a hostel for others. After four years he suffered a heart attack, and he was sent to Mount St Joseph for 6 months of full rest.
In January 1975 he was appointed teacher and spiritual father of the Junior seminarians in Mangalore, where he had his longest innings of 18 years. With prudence and kindness he guided them, with enough humour to encourage them. After this, he was appointed chaplain to St Philomena’s Hospital and St Stanislaus Convent; here his apostolate came to an abrupt end with a fall in the sacristy: he suffered a multiple fracture of the right femur and the hip bone. After 6 months of traction and another six of treatment, he was sent to be the first occupant of Pratiksha, the new Province Infirmary. Here he was till he got the final call on 23 February 2005.
‘Fr Apoline was novice master for 11 long years, training 100+ novices at difficult times’, writes Fr Hector. ‘Those years 'raw' boys like me joined straight from PUC or SSLC from the villages. His was a difficult task but he did it with much love, forming his first big batch of 13 (Walter, Ronnie, Albert, Gomes, Michael John, Sunith, Peter ...) to his last batch of 14 (Prashanth, Willie, Jerome, Jayanth, Scotus, Walter Andrade, Guntipilly, Hector ...). There were several in between, including the Brothers. Though some left later during college studies, regency, etc. Then with no fuss, he walked into the missions of Bellary with ease and grace. We loved him and he loved us that should be reason enough that he should be there (included among the restless…)”.
`What do I remember of what Fr Apoline taught us in the novitiate?’ asks himself Fr Ronnie Prabhu. `Time and again he would come back to the most basic principle of our life: the personal attachment and loyalty to Christ. That was his forte. Another of his frequently repeated dictums was Age quod agis: do well whatever you do. Fr Apoline did not like shoddy work! He also instilled in us a great reverence for God, the kind of reverence St Ignatius recommends when we enter into prayer.
I still remember the retreat talk he gave us where he repeated several times in different contexts the words of the psalmist: `Come, in. Let us bow, let us bend low, and let us kneel before the God who made us.’ I also found him very sensitive to our needs and personalities: he once spoke to us novices about a special devotion to our blessed Mother – the Filiatio Mariana, which involved faithfully saying some extra prayers etc. And when I told him I wanted to be part of it, he told me that that was not for me. He spontaneously knew I would not be able to be faithful to many extra prayers and devotions. Age quod agis, he said.
In a certain sense Fr Apoline was not known for any outstanding achievement. He didn’t write any bestsellers, nor did he address national or international conferences. His was a simple life. He did not put up any buildings; but he built up persons: He guided eleven batches of novices before moving to Bellary for 5 years. The next 18 years were in St Joseph’s Seminary, teaching spirituality to the Juniors before he moved to St Philomena’s as chaplain. Some of those then Juniors in the Seminary, today themselves formators, recall with gratitude the formative influence Apoline had on them, perhaps the best preparation to be a formator. Apoline had a fine and delicate sense of justice and fairness to people, another of his forte. In situations or treatments that he perceived as unfair, he intervened quietly but effectively to redress the grievance without creating ill will or resentment.
No eye-catching fantastic achievement in all this, but still Fr Apoline was outstanding as a person. There are very few for whom I have such great admiration as for him. What I noticed particularly in the last few years was his utter selflessness; there was no ego in Apoline; he had overcome self-love, self-will and self-interest, to use Ignatius’ words. He was never bitter, carried no grievances, and as Fr Freddie said in his homily, he was a man with all graves opened and enjoyed the resurrection. I remember the time when he was bed-ridden in St Philomena’s with his hipbone fractured. I had not gone to see him for a long time, and I felt guilty about it and when I did go, I expected he would express a sense of neglect. No, not he; he never entertained the expectation that others should visit him; and this is because his attitude was one of the servant in the Gospel, who would not expect that the master should serve him, but rather that he should serve the master. Fr Apoline was like that: he never complained, and never spoke ill of anyone. He had no ill will against anyone.
That is why Fr Apoline was always cheerful. You never found him depressed. Only on two occasions in many years, for a maximum period of a day each time, he was difficult to deal with, because his pain was so agonizing that he was, in a sense, out of his mind. Otherwise he was always so cheerful and happy and even singing to himself. Every day he would spend about half an hour talking to his infirmary companion, Br Anthon. They spoke the same thing every day, day after day; and he was not bored, because his interest was not the content of the conversation, but the person he was conversing with!
In the last few years of his life, in the true Indian tradition he had gone into a spiritual sannyas. He was busy with only spiritual things –either praying before the Blessed Sacrament or reading spiritual books, apart from listening to the daily news on his little radio and his daily walk. He did read many books, especially those meant for ordinary Christians and drew much spiritual fruit from them and passed on that fruit as much as possible to the faithful through conferences and homilies. That is why his homilies and conferences were simple yet rich with insights. The books he read never remained with him; they passed hands.
It was fascinating to see Fr Apoline’s way of gracefully retiring from active life, more and more into the spirit of contemplation. But even here there was nothing showy, nothing sanctimonious, and nothing preachy; he did not criticize anyone, not even the government or even the changing trends in the Society.
Fr Apoline will be remembered as a selfless, humble man, a saint. The words of Tagore quoted at his funeral very well express the last thoughts of Apoline.
When I go from hence, let this be my parting word, that what I have seen is unsurpassable.
I have tasted of the hidden honey of this lotus that expands on the ocean of light, and thus I am blessed – let this be my parting word.
In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play and here have I caught sight of him that is formless. My whole body and my limbs have thrilled with his touch who is beyond touch, and if the end comes here, let it come – let this be my parting word. (Gitanjali)
That was Fr Apoline restless to be like Christ and his being Christ-like did come across
- by Fr Richard Sequeira, SJ
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