A missionary during his work at an orphanage.

October 5, 2010. Calcutta, India. This past August, a group of Italian Regnum Christi members and Mission Youth participants from the province of Caserta traveled to Calcutta, India for their second mission assisting Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. Legionary priests Fr Miguel Cavallé and Arquímedes Sánchez accompanied the group.

Calcutta, located in the Bengala region, is one of the poorest and most overpopulated cities in the world.

Mass, then mission

The missionaries began their day at 4:55 a.m. with Mass at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity, along with about 100 volunteers and 150 sisters from the community. The fervor of the religious sisters and the volunteers showed the deeply Christian and supernatural spirit moving them to give themselves to the poorest of the poor.

After breakfast, the missionaries and volunteers prayed together and went out to the centers where they offered a helping hand. The Mission Youth volunteers worked in three

	The missionaries organize an activity at the Nalanda Vidyapeeth orphanage.

places: Daya Dan, Kalighat, and Nabo Jibon.

Daya Dan is a center run by the sisters that hosts about 50 boys and girls with mental and physical disabilities. There, the volunteers cleaned the house and washed clothing, made beds, fed the children, and organized the games.

Another group helped in Nabo Jibon, also directed by the Missionaries of Charity. This center was for adults, youth, and children with serious physical and mental disabilities. Thanks to a donation that the missionaries offered to the sisters, they were able to hand out clothing and food for the 100 poorest people in a city close to Calcutta.

A third group of missionaries worked in Kalighat, where the sisters take in the sick and dying from the streets of Calcutta. The missionaries also helped this center with money they had fundraised in their activities held throughout the year.

Fueling up on prayer

After their morning of

	Fr Miguel Cavallé, LC, with Fr Xavier Raj, the founder of the Nalanda Vidyapeeth orphanage.

work, the missionaries returned to their residence at 12:30 p.m. In the afternoons, they had an hour of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament in the Mother House, followed by Eucharistic benediction. Every day, they prayed and entrusted their apostolic work at Mother Teresa’s tomb.

The missionaries dedicated half of their afternoons to helping in the Nalanda Vidyapeeth orphanage, located on the outskirts of Calcutta. This orphanage, directed by Fr Xavier Raj, an Indian priest from the congregation of the Missionaries of the Word, holds about 350 boys and girls. It is divided into four houses, and other buildings are currently under construction for the handicapped and for the professional formation of adolescents. The missionaries helped organize games and recreational activities, and also offered a donation for the construction of a well and a water purifier in one of the orphanage houses. The money had been fundraised for this purpose during a concert organized in the Villaggio dei Ragazzi (Boys’ Town) this past May.

The missionaries were also able to attend a Mass in the Mother House chapel where Mother Teresa’s tomb is located. In the city of Delhi, they visited a center for handicapped adults and orphaned children, directed by Fr Ravindrajain, founder of a young congregation called Compassionate Missionaries. The Mission Youth volunteers committed themselves to fundraising for the formation of this congregation’s seminarians.

After this moving experience, the youth confirmed their decision to continue organizing annual missions to India. They also committed to continue fundraising during the year so that they can keep supporting the various apostolic projects underway in India, at the service of the poorest of the poor.