ChaiWithPriya A Bishop for Gibraltar

For the past three days, I have overheard and also participated in endless conversations about one of the biggest events this year when Monsignor Charles Azzopardi was ordained as Bishop of Gibraltar on Sunday.

And while I didn’t make it to the ceremony in the Victoria Stadium, I did watch every second of the live coverage on GBC.

I found myself shedding tears of joy a number of times, especially so when he walked among the 3,000 attendees to bless them, and you could see he was thanking everyone.

At a birthday breakfast on Monday morning, one of my friends said it perfectly when she said: “It’s nice to see good things happening to good people.”

And while the announcement that Bishop Azzopardi was to become the ninth Bishop of Gibraltar was welcomed by devout churchgoers and the Catholic community on the Rock, as a Hindu I was elated to hear the news.

That Friday morning in September, I was sat at a café in Main Street with my niece who was visiting from the UK and we saw a number of people walk past the church and step forward to congratulate him.

Through every interaction I saw Bishop Azzopardi stood by the Cathedral doors with a big smile on his face, and shaking hands, hugging or receiving the well-wishers with the biggest smile on his face.

While I may not know him personally, I have always associated Bishop Azzopardi with the good he does in the community, with his work at St Theresa’s Church, the soup kitchen he has run for many years and the hampers he would arrange for many families across Gibraltar enabling them to have a better Christmas.

In my mind, Bishop Azzopardi was the embodiment of my interpretation of the church’s teachings I learnt at school and I was just so happy to see him recognised for his work.

I was also very curious to see the celebrations of an episcopal ordination being held in Gibraltar.

I have always been fascinated with rituals and ceremony.

From start to finish, each step of a Hindu ceremony represents something different, so much of it embedded in deep Hindu spirituality and astrology.

But the Catholic Church has a lot of its own rituals and ceremony as well.

All Hindu prayers start with the drawing of a swastika, the symbol of Lord Ganesha who removes all obstacles and grants happiness and prosperity.

I have also seen the laying of the nine planets, the Navagraha, the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu which is the north node of the moon, and Ketu which is the south node of the moon, which determine so much and influence our day-to-day lives.

The altar at which prayers are held also include offerings to God, the use of uncooked rice, incense, a lamp lit using ghee, and so much more.

Priests carry out the prayers in Sanskrit, chanting fast and hard, often without an explanation for what is happening and what it means.

It means that I sit there and watch what is happening until the prayers are over and then comes the time to mingle and eat.

Growing up in the 80s and 90s, my experience with religion is very similar to many of my friends - we were Hindu but we were also very exposed to Catholicism in school.

In my home we were taught to embrace and respect all religions, but both Hinduism and Catholicism went hand-in-hand for us.

We learnt how to make the sign of the Cross with our hands, but we also knew how to receive blessings when the prayer lamp was presented before us and touch our eyes.

My temple at home had statues of Lord Ganesha, Lord Krishna and Goddess Laxmi, but there was also a statues and pictures of Mother Mary and Jesus Christ.

Mondays and Thursdays were vegetarian in my household in reverence to Lord Shiva and Sai Baba but, on Wednesdays, my mum would take us to the Cathedral of St Mary’s the Crowned to light a candle and say a prayer.

Like many generations of Hindus who have grown up on the Rock, I also learnt how to sing songs of praise in English, Spanish, Hindi and Sindhi, depending on where I was and what was being celebrated.

On Sunday afternoon, I spoke to a customer who attended the Ordination ceremony who was taken by surprise when I said I had wished I could have been there.

At the time, my only explanation was that it was such a big occasion not just for Bishop Azzopardi, but for Gibraltar as a whole.

But when I came to think of it, it was so much more.

It is a lifetime of carving out a path of spirituality for myself where both the teachings of Hinduism and Catholicism go together, where ultimately the message of all religions is to do good and to be good.

And ultimately it was about celebrating the appointment of Bishop Azzopardi, who for many in the community will always lovingly be known as Father Charlie.