It's all for Him

IT’S ALL FOR HIM

Dr Rohan D’Souza, a young obstetrician from Bombay, India, currently working in South London, reflects on how the Holy Spirit brought him back to the practice of his faith, through being confronted about performing abortions

Dr Rohan I come from a Catholic family in Bombay and always went to church as a youngster. It was about 1995 that I started to feel a real hunger for the Lord and found I wasn’t satisfied with what I found in the Catholic Church at the time. I was searching for the truth and this quest led me to lots of different churches – Evangelical, Pentecostal and other Protestant denominations. Although I had a relationship with Jesus, somehow I didn’t find peace of mind anywhere and got so confused that I began to think that maybe God didn’t exist at all, and for a while I even became an atheist.

It was at the point that I was asked by a Christian friend of mine who is a professional singer if I would be interested in auditioning for a Don Moen album in Hindi. It was the album “Give Thanks” and was going to be released in 144 languages, so it was a wonderful opportunity. My voice wasn’t trained and my Hindi accent was not good, so I was amazed when the producers told me that they had selected me for the album. When I asked them why they said that they saw a blinding passion for the Lord in my voice and could tell that I loved him passionately. Ironically at this stage it wasn’t true at all, as by this stage I had almost lost all my Christian faith and long stopped going to church.

But in the process of doing the album I realised that I was still in love with the Lord and I asked the producer of the album what he believed in. It turned out he was a Lefebrevist and a follower of this schismatic Catholic rite. I was very impressed by him as a person, however, and the way he lived his faith and when he invited me to attend a retreat that January I did.

A murderer?

It was all very strange, however, and led by some Scottish Redemptorist priests all dressed in black. Their preaching was very different from the rather lax Catholic faith I had grown up with. Even so there was something about it that attracted me to keep going. Towards the end of the retreat I decided to go to confession as I hadn’t been for a long time. In the course of this I told the priest that I had assisted some Family Planning Procedures and performed some abortions. In fact I had probably done hundreds over the previous two years. I said it all in a very matter-of-fact way. I don’t even know why I confessed it because it wasn’t something I even felt bad about. I think it was just that I didn’t have many sins to confess and I felt this was something to say. You can thus imagine my shock when the priest told me that he couldn’t absolve me and that this was murder! I was used to people telling me what a wonderful doctor I was, not that I was a murderer!

Abortion part of NFP in India

Abortion in India in recent years has become an accepted part of the National Family Planning policy to try and help deal with our population problem. It used to be that abortions were only granted on eugenic or therapeutic grounds or if a rape had been involved, but more recently “failure of contraceptive method” has also been added, which means in effect, abortion on demand. To be honest I had never really thought about it. When I started studying gynaecology and obstetrics in 1999, learning to carry out abortions was part of the training and I never questioned it. In fact I was proud of my skill. I had won a gold medal in my Family Planning diploma which included abortion techniques and I prided myself that no-one that I had ever operated on had developed complications, which can happen, as abortions can be very tricky operations to perform.

When I spoke privately to the priest he told me that abortion was such a serious sin that it needed the absolution of the bishop, and then on the condition that I wouldn’t ever do it again. I told him I would have to wait to see the bishop until the end of January as I hadn’t finished my course and I had two more theatre lists to complete before then. The priest just couldn’t believe my answer. “You mean you intend to still go back and perform more abortions?” I tried to explain that I was the chief resident doctor and there was no way I couldn’t fulfil my responsibilities. To be honest, I felt it was my Christian duty to do these abortions as a responsible person and doctor. People had booked in for their operations and I didn’t want to let them down.

The following day, however, I started feeling terribly guilty. I just couldn’t get the priest’s words out of my head. In fact when I did go to the hospital I chose not to do the two lists waiting for me over the next two weeks. I started feeling very tearful, which was unusual for me as I’m always smiling. Then on 29th January I suddenly fell terribly ill. My temperature soared and all I could do was cry. The fever continued for 21 days and I was treated for everything under the sun. But they couldn’t find anything wrong with me and my fever continued unabated.

As a doctor myself I realised how serious my condition was and I felt I should prepare for death. Thus I started conversing with God again. I was delirious a lot of the time, but at the same time during this period it seemed as if God was also speaking to me loud and clear. I got the most amazing images and pictures and profound spiritual and philosophical insights about life, which I would hasten to write down in my lucid moments.

On the 11th February, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I started to feel I was getting better and I dedicated my life to Our lady and her son, Jesus. I got out of bed for the first time and I gradually started to improve. I realised that somehow this strange illness was part of my repentance process. I was such a self righteous, hard nut to crack that I needed something very extreme and dramatic to get through to me, which God in his providence had done in the most amazing way, first through the priest, then through this illness.

At the end of the 22 days I was a completely new person. All of a sudden I began to feel that there was truth in everything about the Catholic Church and what she taught. I was somehow given the grace to understand and accept all the things that before had been a problem for me. I realised it was enough to know it is God’s Church and I should be obedient even when I don’t understand the fullness of her mystery. On the invitation of the prioress of a Carmelite convent , I ended up going on retreat to a Carmelite monastery a few miles away. Here I had a profound experience of St Therese of Lisieux. Before this, it had always been St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila that I had admired, for the profundity and depth of their writings and I had found the writings of the Little Flower superficial and sentimental and not my cup of tea. But one day as I was praying I found myself in front of her statue at the bottom of the chapel.

Like every other statue of St. Therese, there were a number of flowers in her hand and a few at her feet. Not knowing how to initiate a conversation, I said, half jokingly to her, “Can I take one of these flowers?” And it seemed as if she said to me, “no”. “Why not?” I asked. “They are all for him.” she replied. “Don’t you want to give me anything to take away when I go back home?” I asked again looking at some petals at her feet. “These belong to him too,” she said. “Everything that I am and everything I have is His,” I went back to sit in my pew but her voice continued in my ear. “I know you are not terribly fond of me, but if you want, I can come back with you to Bombay.” “Thank you very much,” I said.

Therese taught me to love Jesus

St Tehrese The next day when I went back to the little church close to the hospital where I worked, I realised there was a large frame of St Therese that I had never seen before, and it seemed to be a confirmation of her promise that she had indeed come back with me. And Little Therese did teach me to love Jesus as I have never known before. Her teaching and insights which I had read before, suddenly all began to make sense. Inspired by this I wrote a song “I have seen your face”. As a result of her intercession I broke with the Lefebrevist group and returned with passion to the practice of my Catholic faith. I never did another abortion again. Now I had completed my training and was no longer working for a government hospital I didn’t have to. All the same I knew I was causing a lot of inconvenience to the consultant surgeon in the private practice I was working in. I did think of becoming a priest and joining the Carmelites, but somehow it never worked out and I began to think that maybe God had a different plan for me.

Many opportunities to witness

I wasn’t very happy with the work I was doing and I wanted to pursue a career in research and teaching, while simultaneously making time for sacred music that has always been my passion; so when an opportunity arose to come to the UK on the Highly Skilled Migrant programme, I applied, and to my amazement I was accepted. Very soon I managed to become a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and was offered a job as a Specialist Registrar at an NHS hospital in South London. Within a year, I also managed to get a research position towards a PHD in obstetrics studying the effects of pre-eclampsia on infants. In addition to my main job as a doctor, I also was able to pursue a side-career as a musician and I have been able to balance both fairly well.

It is amazing how many opportunities the Lord gives me to witness to my faith. It seems very few in the NHS or outside, that I have come across believe in God, but before long, we seem to be talking about Jesus and faith. I don’t even have to bring up the subject myself. I think people are amazed that someone who is sane and clever and in my position wants to go to church and believes in God. I now don’t worry about the future and I simply trust the Lord. He has worked wonders in my life and I know He is leading me on to something, even though at the moment I don’t know what. The Little Flower continues to be a source of inspiration. Her’s is a simple way to go to God that everyone can follow. It is all about focussing on Jesus and loving Him. As she would tell those around her, “My God is a God of Mercy.”

The Christian life is not about living in fear and guilt but about loving him. You can’t do anything wrong if you love God and neighbour.

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I come from a Catholic family in Bombay and always went to church as a youngster. It was about 1995 that I started to feel a real hunger for the Lord and found I wasn’t satisfied with what I found in the Catholic Church at the time. I was searching for the truth and this quest led me to lots of different churches – Evangelical, Pentecostal and other Protestant denominations. Although I had a relationship with Jesus, somehow I didn’t find peace of mind anywhere and got so confused that I began to think that maybe God didn’t exist at all, and for a while I even became an atheist. It was at the point that I was asked by a Christian friend of mine who is a professional singer if I would be interested in auditioning for a Don Moen album in Hindi. It was the album “Give Thanks” and was going to be released in 144 languages, so it was a wonderful opportunity. My voice wasn’t trained and my Hindi accent was not good, so I was amazed when the producers told me that they had selected me for the album. When I asked them why they said that they saw a blinding passion for the Lord in my voice and could tell that I loved him passionately. Ironically at this stage it wasn’t true at all, as by this stage I had almost lost all my Christian faith and long stopped going to church. But in the process of doing the album I realised that I was still in love with the Lord and I asked the producer of the album what he believed in. It turned out he was a Lefebrevist and a follower of this schismatic Catholic rite. I was very impressed by him as a person, however, and the way he lived his faith and when he invited me to attend a retreat that January I did. A murderer? It was all very strange, however, and led by some Scottish Redemptorist priests all dressed in black. Their preaching was very different from the rather lax Catholic faith I had grown up with. Even so there was something about it that attracted me to keep going. Towards the end of the retreat I decided to go to confession as I hadn’t been for a long time. In the course of this I told the priest that I had assisted some Family Planning Procedures and performed some abortions. In fact I had probably done hundreds over the previous two years. I said it all in a very matter-of-fact way. I don’t even know why I confessed it because it wasn’t something I even felt bad about. I think it was just that I didn’t have many sins to confess and I felt this was something to say. You can thus imagine my shock when the priest told me that he couldn’t absolve me and that this was murder! I was used to people telling me what a wonderful doctor I was, not that I was a murderer! Abortion part of NFP in India Abortion in India in recent years has become an accepted part of the National Family Planning policy to try and help deal with our population problem. It used to be that abortions were only granted on eugenic or therapeutic grounds or if a rape had been involved, but more recently “failure of contraceptive method” has also been added, which means in effect, abortion on demand. To be honest I had never really thought about it. When I started studying gynaecology and obstetrics in 1999, learning to carry out abortions was part of the training and I never questioned it. In fact I was proud of my skill. I had won a gold medal in my Family Planning diploma which included abortion techniques and I prided myself that no-one that I had ever operated on had developed complications, which can happen, as abortions can be very tricky operations to perform. When I spoke privately to the priest he told me that abortion was such a serious sin that it needed the absolution of the bishop, and then on the condition that I wouldn’t ever do it again. I told him I would have to wait to see the bishop until the end of January as I hadn’t finished my course and I had two more theatre lists to complete before then. The priest just couldn’t believe my answer. “You mean you intend to still go back and perform more abortions?” I tried to explain that I was the chief resident doctor and there was no way I couldn’t fulfil my responsibilities. To be honest, I felt it was my Christian duty to do these abortions as a responsible person and doctor. People had booked in for their operations and I didn’t want to let them down. The following day, however, I started feeling terribly guilty. I just couldn’t get the priest’s words out of my head. In fact when I did go to the hospital I chose not to do the two lists waiting for me over the next two weeks. I started feeling very tearful, which was unusual for me as I’m always smiling. Then on 29th January I suddenly fell terribly ill. My temperature soared and all I could do was cry. The fever continued for 21 days and I was treated for everything under the sun. But they couldn’t find anything wrong with me and my fever continued unabated. As a doctor myself I realised how serious my condition was and I felt I should prepare for death. Thus I started conversing with God again. I was delirious a lot of the time, but at the same time during this period it seemed as if God was also speaking to me loud and clear. I got the most amazing images and pictures and profound spiritual and philosophical insights about life, which I would hasten to write down in my lucid moments. On the 11th February, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, I started to feel I was getting better and I dedicated my life to Our lady and her son, Jesus. I got out of bed for the first time and I gradually started to improve. I realised that somehow this strange illness was part of my repentance process. I was such a self righteous, hard nut to crack that I needed something very extreme and dramatic to get through to me, which God in his providence had done in the most amazing way, first through the priest, then through this illness. At the end of the 22 days I was a completely new person. All of a sudden I began to feel that there was truth in everything about the Catholic Church and what she taught. I was somehow given the grace to understand and accept all the things that before had been a problem for me. I realised it was enough to know it is God’s Church and I should be obedient even when I don’t understand the fullness of her mystery. On the invitation of the prioress of a Carmelite convent , I ended up going on retreat to a Carmelite monastery a few miles away. Here I had a profound experience of St Therese of Lisieux. Before this, it had always been St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila that I had admired, for the profundity and depth of their writings and I had found the writings of the Little Flower superficial and sentimental and not my cup of tea. But one day as I was praying I found myself in front of her statue at the bottom of the chapel. Like every other statue of St. Therese, there were a number of flowers in her hand and a few at her feet. Not knowing how to initiate a conversation, I said, half jokingly to her, “Can I take one of these flowers?” And it seemed as if she said to me, “no”. “Why not?” I asked. “They are all for him.” she replied. “Don’t you want to give me anything to take away when I go back home?” I asked again looking at some petals at her feet. “These belong to him too,” she said. “Everything that I am and everything I have is His,” I went back to sit in my pew but her voice continued in my ear. “I know you are not terribly fond of me, but if you want, I can come back with you to Bombay.” “Thank you very much,” I said. Therese taught me to love Jesus The next day when I went back to the little church close to the hospital where I worked, I realised there was a large frame of St Therese that I had never seen before, and it seemed to be a confirmation of her promise that she had indeed come back with me. And Little Therese did teach me to love Jesus as I have never known before. Her teaching and insights which I had read before, suddenly all began to make sense. Inspired by this I wrote a song “I have seen your face”. As a result of her intercession I broke with the Lefebrevist group and returned with passion to the practice of my Catholic faith. I never did another abortion again. Now I had completed my training and was no longer working for a government hospital I didn’t have to. All the same I knew I was causing a lot of inconvenience to the consultant surgeon in the private practice I was working in. I did think of becoming a priest and joining the Carmelites, but somehow it never worked out and I began to think that maybe God had a different plan for me. Many opportunities to witness I wasn’t very happy with the work I was doing and I wanted to pursue a career in research and teaching, while simultaneously making time for sacred music that has always been my passion; so when an opportunity arose to come to the UK on the Highly Skilled Migrant programme, I applied, and to my amazement I was accepted. Very soon I managed to become a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and was offered a job as a Specialist Registrar at an NHS hospital in South London. Within a year, I also managed to get a research position towards a PHD in obstetrics studying the effects of pre-eclampsia on infants. In addition to my main job as a doctor, I also was able to pursue a side-career as a musician and I have been able to balance both fairly well. It is amazing how many opportunities the Lord gives me to witness to my faith. It seems very few in the NHS or outside, that I have come across believe in God, but before long, we seem to be talking about Jesus and faith. I don’t even have to bring up the subject myself. I think people are amazed that someone who is sane and clever and in my position wants to go to church and believes in God. I now don’t worry about the future and I simply trust the Lord. He has worked wonders in my life and I know He is leading me on to something, even though at the moment I don’t know what. The Little Flower continues to be a source of inspiration. Her’s is a simple way to go to God that everyone can follow. It is all about focussing on Jesus and loving Him. As she would tell those around her, “My God is a God of Mercy.” The Christian life is not about living in fear and guilt but about loving him. You can’t do anything wrong if you love God and neighbour. << Top Home >>