FR EMMANUEL COELHO, SJ (1873-1951)

Fr Emmanuel Coelho, SJ

Biography has been defined by Carlyle as 'a heroic poem'. Quite obviously he has in mind the biographies of great men, men whose deeds have won them immortality and whose names will be inscribed for all to see in the world's hall of fame. In a biographical sketch, however, not every detail of even the most heroic life can be included. The aim is rather to project the most salient features on the canvas and thus to convey to the reader the mould in which the great subject was cast and the proportions he attained through a life dedicated to God and mankind. This is the aim of the life-sketch which follows.

Rev Fr Emmanuel Nicholas Coelho (popularly Manu Coelho) was the grandson of Antony John Coelho, the talented Munsiff of Bantwal whose long and able service in his village earned him the sobriguet of Bantwalgar. A man of outstanding intellect and attainments, he was the author of some of the most touching hymns in Konkani notably the hymn "Sargin Thaun" describing Christ's birth, life. passion and death. He was a linguist with a knowledge of English, Latin, French, Portuguese and Italian, and a musician who set his own hymns to music. His son Ignatius Marcel (Fr Manu Coelho's father) married Ignatia Isabella Coelho of the Karwar-Falnir Coelho clan, a woman of rare gifts and charm, known for her piety and simplicity. Ignatius Marcel fast rose to be Deputy Collector of Koondapur, making a name for himself by his uprightness and sense of justice.

Emmanuel was born at Codialbail, Mangalore, on the 28th of October 1873, the second son and eighth child of Marcel and Ignatia. The scion of an illustrious stock, and the offspring of intelligent, God-fearing parents noted for their love of the poor, Emmanuel imbibed early in life a deep piety and altruism, which was to shine forth into his latest years. For his elementary schooling he was sent to Rosario School, and did his later school and College studies at St Aloysius, passing the Matriculation examination in Dec. 1890, the F. A. in Dec. 1892 and the B. A. in January 1895. He was a brilliant student throughout and about the numerous book prizes he won, it is said his brothers had to help him carry them home on Prize Distribution Day. Many and varied were the awards received at different points in his school and College career, until after the B. A. which he passed in the first class, he left St Aloysius to join the Jesuit Novitiate at Trichinopoly. The Collector of Mangalore, an Englishman, offered him a high post in Government Service, but he had set his heart on the Ministry of Christ Himself, and nothing less could satisfy him.

Manu was 22 when he announced his decision to join the Society. His father had died; and leaving his widowed mother seemed a hard thing to do, especially as his elder brother was in the lower ranks of government service, and younger brothers still in school. Brilliant, good-looking Manu, noted for his fine acting and singing was the pick of the bunch. Must he go? He met with opposition; but an understanding Aunt, Mrs Juliana Coelho a power in the family-helped him overcome it. And so, Manu took the courageous step and departed.

Every applicant for admission to the Society those days had to undergo a few crucial tests. One of these was begging. A cousin of Manu's, Miss Martha Coelho, relates how Manu went to his own sister's house to beg. She doled out rice as was the practice in those days. Manu took it with a smile, pocketed it and walked away. When his brother-in-law who was inside, came out and found that Manu had gone off, he asked what had happened, apologised and bringing him back to the house, offered him all the expenses of the journey. In another house, Manu's Uncle abused him roundly for deserting his mother, but the young aspirent took it in his stride. One might have anticipated a different reaction perhaps from the son of a Tahsildar who, it is related, when bidden by a raw I.C.S. to hold his horses reins to help him dismount, turned away contemptuously, went home and sent in his resignation. Manu knew that the value of the present occasion was the lesson of humility it was intended to inculcate. Where principle was concerned, he would perhaps have been as unbending as his father though with a difference one is led to believe.

In March, 1895, Manu left Mangalore to the Jesuit Novitiate at Trichinopoly. During this period besides laying strong foundations of spiritual life, he also learnt Tamil and French, well enough to preach a practice sermon in both the languages. After his first vows, March, 14, 1897 he was back in Mangalore for his studies in Rhetoric at the St Joseph's Seminary which he completed at Shembaganur where the Novitiate and Juniorate had been transferred. Then after a break of three years of Regency at St Aloysius College, Mangalore, he returned to Shambaganur for his Philosophy. Again, after a year of teaching work at St Aloysius, Mangalore, in 1906 we find him in Kandy in Ceylon, for his theology as St Mary's Kurseong, the Jesuit Theologate in the Himalayas was too cold for Manu's frail health. He was ordained at Kandy on 20th December, 1908.

Could anything have been sadder at this moment than to learn, as he was vesting for his first Mass, of his mother's death. Deeply grieved but resigned he proceeded to the altar to offer the mass for the simple, God-fearing soul from whom he had imbibed his trustful piety. Her passing on to her reward at this sublime moment has a piguant symbolism about it not to be missed. She who had prized other worldly gain above earthly prosperity was to view her priest-son from heaven saying his first Mass for her. All is fair in God's design, however inscrutable.

In June 1910 the young priest sailed for Europe with his scholastic brother Aloysuis and Bro Thomas Gonsalves. He did his tertianship at Florence under the saintly Fr Friedle. Returning in October 1912 to Mangalore, he took up an assignment at St Joseph's School, Calicut for 3 years. It was after this that he started out on his career as lecturer in English to College classes at St Aloysuis, Mangalore, a position which he held from June 1914 to April 1940.

From May 1940 to 1943 Fr Coelho was Novice-master to the Olivet Brothers, a new order which Bp. V. R. Fernandes had started for the benefit the simpler, not so-scholarly young men aspiring to religious celibacy. In Nov. and Dec. 1941, he was appointed Visitor of the Mission. He returned to St Aloysius College in 1943 and had hardly spent a year in the old place when he had to be rushed to Madras General Hospital for a serious operation. On Aug. 21, 1944 he was given Extreme Unction but surviving the ordeal, was admitted in Dec. at Fr Muller's Mangalore, and discharged after a few months. March 12, 1945 was a landmark- Fr Coelho's golden Jubilee in the Society. It was kept up on 5th April at St Aloysius. From 1946 on Fr. Coelho was the spiritual Father of the College.

The part of his life best known to the community and longest in duration of all his assignments was his lectureship in English, Batch after batch of students was regaled by the brilliant young priest who himself had been deeply influenced teacher, language, silvery voice which later sallies humour, Chair Oxford. never equally magnificent sermons. instead, contemporaries have remarked pass very decent rubricist (observer mass) never relating recreation the mistakes

Some men sodalists, now their seventies, recall sermon Manu preached on eternity. The simile employed was that great mountain an eagle visited once annually and whetted its beak on its tip, draw the beak just once, from left right and back from right left. then flew away. How long would take, for the mountain rubbed out by the eagle? This unusual simile caught the fancy the more poetic in the audience. however, just one many of Fr Manu's splendid flights imagination.

His wise cracks were numerous. There was a sparkle about each, we see his "Bastian" series to which reference has yet be made. For instance, one of his colleagues, relates, Fr Manu said he would advise powers and principalities who have to listen patiently to endless eulogies on their festive days: "Just take the cube-root of what was When it was officially announced that his brother Fr Aloysius Coelho had been appointed Superior Regular of the Mission, Fr Manu facetiously asked the announcer whether Aloysius was not mistake for Manuel.

Bastian has earned himself and his creator a unique place in the annals of the Jesuits in Mangalore. The Fr Emmanuel Coelho Centenary issue of the "Mangalore" carried a fine selection of excerpts from the "Bastian" series of articles which had once been the delight of the readers of the "Mangalore Magazine", "Konkani Dirven" "Rakno" and the "Mangalore" itself. For sheer humour of the typical Mangalorean variety, they are hardly to be beaten. Bastian and his aunt Esperanza are canned fun, calculated to drive away the blues. Amidst the variety of interesting situations in which Bastian continually finds himself, two interwoven strands of thought playfully run in and out-the service of the poor and needy and the simple values enshrined in Mangalore Catholic culture. "Bastian in Fetters the last series of articles dictated by the author in the Madras General Hospital has the pathos of a swan song.

And talking of Fr Manu's prolonged siege at Fr Muller's it seems appropriate to dwell for a moment on an incident or two with the typical "Manuvian" touch about it. A cousin of his relates the story about him in hospital.

"He never allowed a service to himself or to his different organizations to go unrepaid. When Christmas came, he would give some gift or other to his helpers. When in hospital I asked him what he would like to have, he said, "some sweets as one grows older one likes sweets". I gave him a tin, the best of its kind only to find a couple of days later that he had distributed the sweets to his attendants".

Titled "A Beautiful Salutation" by the Editor of the Centenary issue of the Mangalore" is a perceptive piece of literary appreciation by Bastian woven into the warp and weft of hospital life.

"Some thirty years ago, Italian Patriots conceived the luminous idea of finding out from their distinguished country men abroad what was the best loved line from the Divina Commedia of Dante (Dante, you know, is to Italy what Shakespeare is to England or Kalidasa to ourselves) Bishop Perini was one of those written to. I do not know the Bishop's reply. But it occurs to me that if Mathew Arnold, poet and critic, had been asked, he would unhesitatingly have quoted the line in which Beatrice explains to Dante why, inspite of the varied degrees of glory the saints enjoy in heaven, there is perfect happiness among them without the slightest trace of jealousy - In la sua volontade e nostra pace.

"He is so much taken up with what he calls the "accent" of this verse that he considers it as one of the best in the whole range of the world's poetry. And yet the man who said so did not believe in God and sometimes said things about religion for which his father, the famous Dr Arnold of Ruby would have flogged him.

I tried the effect of this line on the Italian Sister who visits my sick room every day. It acted like magic on her. She said she preferred it to her own favourite saying "Volonta di Dio Paradiso mio' "Well, then Sister" said I, would you, instead of asking me day by day that drab dreary question "How are you," and my replying with the equally drab and dreary "a little better" (God knows how far it is so), greet me with this beautiful line from Dante?" "Certainly." says the Sister. And ever since then at her daily entrance into my room it resounds with the glorious antiphon In sua volontade, and with infinite joy there goes out to her my response E nostra pace.

All in all Fr Coelho's attitude to suffering can be summed up in the verse he quotes in Bastian".

Life has thorns and roses, brother
Both to man are wisely gain

Take the one, and take the other In the measure dealt by heaven.

And so, the shadows fell, and it seemed time to go. Calling a Jesuit, he gave him the key of the little chest in which he kept the money received for his charities, "lest there be trouble if I die unexpectedly". Cheerful to the last, dictating his memoirs to an amaneunsis or softly singing hymns, he completed the last lap of his earthly race. At 10 a m. on the 13th November came the end. The funeral took place at 5 p.m. the same day. The Jesuits in Mangalore had lost a treasure, and the community an altruist restless for Christ. Did he cast a last, longing, lingering look behind?- at his achievements as a scholar, teacher, preacher or man of God? at his apostolate of the poor whom he had befriended all his life? at what he might have been in another age: another clime? One hardly thinks so. But the void he left in the Mangalore Community was tremendous. His voice rings down the decades, reading Shakespeare, Keats and Lamb, exhorting a congregation to piety, or inspiring charity as his mite-box in the Catholic Club did, with its attractive jingle:

"passer-by  

Drop a pie

And to digress for a moment, Fr Manu possessed a rare originality which gave his little schemes for the poor a tinge of local humour. When paper grew scarce during World War II every scrap had to be saved. Fr Manu managed to find a market for his turned over packs of plain, used envelopes by wittily calling them Portillo Brand". A student of this who was habitually late to class was referred to by Fr Manu as he walked in one morning as the late Mr. C". He joked without a smile on his lips: but everyone who heard him full guffawed.

Of the many aspects of his varied versatile personality, none, perhaps entitles him to as warm a corner in the hearts of people as his works of charity. The Poor Boys' Meal Fund, intended chiefly for boys from indigent homes who walked long distances to school, kept many a young boy from going hungry through a hard day's study. The poor Girls Marriage Aid Fund for young domestics, patterned along Provident Fund lines, enabled scores of them to collect a dowry and find a husband. The fund was a rare innovation as none so far had shown an interest in this category of young women. Next was started a new Order of nuns, the Little Sisters of the Poor. They belonged to the house-maid class and the only qualification required was a negative one- no money, no brains, no beauty. The order was founded with Miss Martha Coelho as Directress of Nazareth Home, Codialbail and has now been merged with the Franciscan servants of Mary who run Nazareth Convent, located long since at Balmatta. A Beggar Relief Fund was started and flourished for several years. The Prisoner's Aid Society proved a tremendous spiritual and psychological boon to its a lowly beneficiaries. It brought comfort to many a burdened soul through advice and the confessional. Fr Manu loved to quote Lovelace's couplet.

Two men looked out of prison bars

One saw mud, the other stars.

For some reason known to none, the prison authorities stopped the apostolate; but Fr Manu knew there were many others outside prison bars who needed similar assistance and turned his attention in that direction. The Damien Leper Home for burnt out leprosy cases, and the St Vincent de Paul Society both started by Fr Coelho, have continued to evoke support and bid fair to go on doing their good work. Among the last organizations to be founded by Fr Coelho was the St Joseph's Federation of Catholic Charities. This was intended to help the needy all over the town supplementing the work of the St Vincent de Paul Society. The Federation however, and its off-shoot an Employment Exchange Scheme, coming towards the end of Fr Coelho's life, died out early- one for want of finance and enthusiasm and the other because of the Employment Exchange started by Government. As director of the Catholic Club, he put up a platform to serve as a stage, devised a contrivance for the screen which later bore the motto Viriliter Age" and adorned the wall with the pictures of notabilities, honoured by Church or State. He also introduced a change in the rules. So, if the Catholic Club today rents its hall for various purposes, it is due to the practice started by Fr Coelho of permitting wedding receptions in it to prevent the enormous expenditure on pandals.

As a spiritual benefactor, Fr Coelho was difficult to surpass. The Gentlemen's Sodality will for a long time remember him with esteem. His discourses were superb both in content and rhetoric, his voice at once guttural and silvery, his delivery masterful. He commanded attention. None but were enthused and uplifted by his thoughts put across in his own inimitable style. A lasting memorial to his spiritual fervour is Fatima Retreat House. Though planned by Fr Adrien Le Tellier, and built after Fr Coelho's death, the idea of the closed retreat originated with him, and has survived both him and Fr Le Tellier. Few Retreat Masters in India have rivalled Fr Coelho in their ability to reach a faltering soul.

A word about the Temperance movement should not be out of place, inspite of its having died out after not too long-lived an experiment, But young men-now old-roped into the effort of giving up alcohol, will remember how solemnly they took the pledge, and how lustily they intoned the Temperance hymn:

Oh let me drink as Adam drank

Before from thee he fell

Oh, let me drink as thou dear Lord

When faint by Sichar's well"

Starting with the Men's Sodality, Fr Coelho soon invaded the young men's, and worked near-miracles. The Temperance movement has unfortunately died out and the A. A's have come in to fill the blank. From his heavenly abode, Fr Coelho must wish them well.

Fr Manu Coelhos life is remmiscent not of the life of one particular saint, but of many. He owed much of his solid foundation in virtue to the stalwart Jesuits, who directed his Scholasticate- Frs........and Faisandier. Friedle, he owed his exquisite English and oratory to Fr Quinn and Fr Willy, his Professors of English. He drew copiously from the lives of the saints-Ignatius not least. But all said and done he was a man cast by the Creator in a mould all his own, a composite of numerous gifts and virtues, a gem of rare quality. Fr Manu is a legend. Mangalore salutes him.

The Biographical Sketch on Fr Emmanuel Coelho, S.J., is by Dr (Miss) Mary Agnes Saldanha. The Editors of 'Restless for Christ' are grateful to her for her fine pen-picture of Fr Manu Coelho- a long life succinctly expressed in a few words.

This above material is taken from the book "Restless for Christ - Lives of Select Jesuits who toiled in the Karnataka Province" Series - IV