CALLED TO BREAK BREAD| KAIROS GLOBAL | OCTOBER 2020

Author: Agnes Thomas

Intro: Agnes Santhosh Thomas was active in JY during the 90s. The spiritual and community-life formation she received laid the foundation for her life. Here, she speaks about the values, discipline and principles that continue to influence her and the organisation she leads.

Like trees have roots, every story has a beginning. We, as people also have an initial story that wields continuous influence on our current journey and choices as adults. So, when approached to pen a piece for Kairos, on how my early days in Jesus Youth and my time at Asha Niketan/ L’arche* influenced my leadership style and journey, I couldn’t decline. My roots are deeply planted in those formative years.

It wasn’t until college that I was introduced to Jesus Youth. During a Campus Meet in 1992, the words of Isaiah chapter 6 verse 8 spoke to me personally, bringing about a breakthrough that set me on my journey: 

…I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ Then said I, ‘Here am I; send me.’ (Isaiah 6:8) 

The youngsters I met, the music, and the way of life I was exposed to at Emmaus in Cochin, South India, motivated me to follow the movement. Concurrently, various campus initiatives including the idea of full-timership – where graduates dedicate a year as full-time missionaries, were launched at that time. This further kindled my enthusiasm for missionary life, though unaware of what it really meant. A year later, though not as a full-timer, I joined the community of Asha Niketan, Bangalore, India, as a volunteer. My desire was to spend my hours in service there and live the gospel as best as I could.  

I am aware the movement has evolved considerably in the past three decades, hence my experience is from my early days as a Jesus Youth. Fast forward two decades later, I can see how my everyday life and choices were shaped by that formative period and the people therein. People who were part of my journey became my friends, teachers, and more. Their influence remains profound to this day. I would like to share some daily practices, core values, and beliefs imbibed during those early years that influence my leadership style and work in general.

Jesus Youth enabled my life’s journey to be founded on strong spiritual discipline. At Emmaus, in the early 1990s, I was introduced to discipleship and the way of a pilgrim. From there, I learned to begin my day with personal prayer, scriptures as the main source of discernment and fellowship as a way to grow in life. I’m often asked how I find the energy to do all the things I do regularly. My answer is simple: it starts with my time of prayer, meditation, and the strength I receive from the sacraments. 

I am blessed to be able to fraternise with people from all walks of life, nations, cultures, religions and backgrounds. In these interactions, my approach is based on my discipleship experience in Jesus Youth and Larche: “I am called to break bread with you”. This also allows me to be non-judgmental of where people come from and how they choose to live their everyday life. I am in their lives to break bread, sometimes to invite them to join my journey, other times to join in theirs. In either situation, I am learning and growing with a communion experience; and in my simple way, am witness to the light I received while experiencing their enlightenment.  

While Jesus Youth shaped my journey as a young Christian woman, the community of L’arche made me aware of my responsibility as a social being and as an individual part of a wider community. Truth be told, I went to serve/help others, but instead learned it was I being served, helped, and transformed in the community. Community life was not easy by any means, some days were unbearable. It was easier to preach but to live what I preached every day was difficult as there was despair, loneliness, misunderstandings, and conflict. Yet, through it all, I was blessed to discover relationships as the key to community life and that there is no straight path to it. You earn relationship in community as you journey with each person, sometimes in their moments of pain and agony, amidst community prayer, in the garden planting, or while assisting a core-member* with their routine. I also learned you have to choose to do it every day; to invest time and energy, to love again and again. It is a call to constant learning, letting go, seeking, and giving forgiveness. 

There are five principles that I have learned and adopted from my time in the L’arche community and have applied to the organisation I lead, to guide all aspects of work: 

• First and foremost, people are more important than a task; 

• Human dignity is to be respected and revered. Treating people with dignity is foundational in all aspects of our life especially in community work; 

• Personal well-being: if you are not well, you cannot take care of the other, self-care is important to be vital and to be present in a true way;

• Trust and honor the transforming power of the spirit that is beyond our human intellect. No matter how difficult and hard one’s life has been, there is always hope and there is always a possibility for transformation and to experience life in its fullest. I had the privilege to witness this time and again at work and in the community.

The fifth principle is the belief that our need for community and communion is an essential element to a richer life. I have been privileged to experience this time and again during the time I spent in L’arche with people. Some community members who never talked or walked started to do just that and participated in a way that was impossible to comprehend from a human standpoint. Some people started living or participating in the community events freely after spending many years, sometimes all of their adult life in closed quarters or the confines of an institution. Thus, it was a miracle to watch and to believe their power to participate in community and relationship, to heal, to help someone walk away from darkness to light, to invite someone to live in communion and in harmony. In my humble experience, one cannot participate in the community without going through self-transformation which is a true gift from God. 

Just as I have learned and adopted the 12 steps to discipleship in the early 1990s, I now have a culmination of values that represents those steps, times, and people that directed my path. I am sharing them here with you: 

Life of Gratitude: Every day is a gift, live each moment with gratitude for the gift of our life. 

Courage: Life is not always easy. There are times when the only way you move forward and make it through your day is by being courageous and making the choice to get up and walk even if everything looks dark and gloomy. 

Consistency: Show consistency in life with words and actions. It is easier to follow/ trust a person who shows reliability especially when you are trying to create a community with people.

Commitment: If you are to lead and make difference in the world, you need to be committed, like the scripture reminds us, Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters (Col 3: 23). 

Creativity: Sometimes, it is not the lack of resources but rather the lack of creativity that hinders us from doing things that will make a difference in another person’s life. Creativity brings newness to situations, encourages people to try out new things, provide solutions rather than compound problems, and it changes the way we look at life in general. 

Hope: The life-changing value I hold dear to my heart as a person of faith. I learned over time and from shared stories of others that having hope can be the difference between life and death. It is the determining factor in how a person survives an ordeal or not, and how someone holds onto the last straw even when everything else tells them there is nothing to look forward to. A person who has hope finds joy in suffering and trials as they see light beyond the darkness.

In, summary, the passion, and zeal I have experienced during those years extended beyond the small JY circles and still inspires me to do what otherwise would’ve been impossible. Jesus Youth and L’arche played significant roles in shaping the person I am and the leader I am called to be, providing me the opportunity to deepen my relationship with Christ, tools for a lifetime of discipleship, and the courage to invite others to join the journey. 

*L’arche- is an international community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live, work, learn, and grow together.

*Core Members are individuals with disabilities who form the heart of a community at Larche. This is a term of respect that indicates the person’s place of honor within the community (www.larche.ca).

Agnes is the Executive Director of Catholic Crosscultural Services, non-profit organisation that provides programs and services assisting in the settlement and integration of immigrants and refugees. A leading community development practitioner and academic, she has been a long-time advocate for the rights of marginalised groups, both locally and internationally, championing the rights of immigrants, women, children, and people with in/visible disabilities or those in precarious employment situations.

She has served in the not-for-profit sector for more than two decades locally and internationally in various capacities, including at various L’Arche communities around the world, the Yonge Street Mission and the Jane/Finch Family and Community Centre in Toronto. She is also a Research Associate with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto and serves on a number of not-for-profit boards in Toronto. She has also appeared frequently as a guest lecturer and conference presenter, and has an extensive body of research and published work.

In her leadership role, Dr. Thomas is committed to working with various partners to address issues of marginality to bring about transformational change in our communities by investing in people, shifting organisational cultures and diversifying partnerships. Her areas of expertise include immigration and settlement issues, community organising, governance, policy, strategic planning, community-based research, training, micro-enterprise, and the creation of tools for transformative learning initiatives for organisations and community leaders alike.

Her passion for advocating for the rights of marginalised groups led her to do her Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community Development with an award-winning thesis from OISE, University Of Toronto. She has a Masters of Arts in Critical Disability Studies from York University, a Diploma in Social Development from the Coady International Institute, St. Francis Xavier University.

Agnes enjoys teaching, training, coaching, mentoring, volunteering, writing, and photography. She lives in Scarborough, Canada with her husband and three children