Christ the King Church, Jhalod

VISION

To share God’s unconditional and merciful Love with all, by transforming the hearts of people into the likeness of the Heart of Christ.

MISSION:

Inspired by the Person of Jesus we proclaim His message and Values to all the Humankinds. We shall also strive to work for the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized and commit ourselves to foster justice, unity, peace and solidarity, and the preservation of the Environment.

OBJECTIVE:

• To proclaim the word of God to all.
• To spread the message and Values of Christ to all.
• To prepare the people to participate in all the sacraments.
• To strengthen the faith of the children.
• To Help the people to discern the will of God
• Promoting St. Arnold’s spirituality among the faithful.
• Respect for other religion and value the other traditions.
• To make the people aware of their responsibility towards the environment.
• To introduce sustainable environmental programmes which would lead to sustainable income to the people.

How it all started:

Jhalod is a small tribal town situated in the North East of Panchmahal District of Gujarat which has states of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh as its boundaries, which has mission belonging to the Diocese of Baroda. The surroundings of Jhalod Mission are hilly and mountainous regions. Most of the lands are stony and remains barren and unutilized. Only a small portion of the land is cultivated and utilized. Due to lack of irrigational facilities even that small portion of land does not produce much. So the people have to migrate to cities for their survival and for their daily bread.

This region has 93% of Tribal Population and these people are called ‘BHILS’, the second largest Tribal community in India. They are mostly small farmers and daily wage earners. They mostly depend upon monsoon for their cultivation which fails often. Due to these their economic condition is so bad and they struggle throughout the year for their daily bread and for their basic needs. Economic standard is below the poverty line. Most of the Tribal of this area are illiterate.

Keeping in mind the SVD Charism, ‘To Preach the Word wherever it is not preached or insufficiently preached’ Divine word Missionaries: Fr. Clement Moolamkuzhiyil SVD, and Fr. Joseph Panthalatty SVD ventured into Jhalod Mission in the year 1974 and prepared necessary ground work. Before this time the Church of North India and Salvation Army had already reached most of the villages of Jhalod and had began their evangelization. They had sowed the seed of Faith among the people. They had good number of followers. But it was felt that the people did not have sufficient knowledge of the Word of God and Jesus. This insufficiency gave an opportunity and way to our SVD Missionaries who came to Jhalod, rented a house in Sarvodaya Society and later shifted to Javahar Society and began to look for a piece of land. In the year 1976 land was bought, registered in 1978 and thereafter the mission activities began in full swing. Missionaries reached out to the people through CRS and medical help, which assisted in the Catholic Faith formation. Most of our early Catholics were from the members of CNI, Salvation Army and other denominations who came to our fold. Within a short span of time around 50 villages were covered. During that time the missionary approach and method was ‘Charity based’ so large number of people came to the Church, some of them with mixed motive. The ‘Charity Model’ of Evangelization brought the people to the Church, but Faith did not take root in them, so as the CRS and Medical help was withdrawn, the people who had mixed motives gradually started distancing themselves from the Church. And those who had real and strong Faith continue to be with us till today. Charity Model Evangelization was the need of the initial stage of the mission. But the same can’t be applied to the modern and present situation. Reading the signs of the time, demand of the place and people, now Charity Model Evangelization is replaced by ‘Education, Empowerment and Development Model’. In which the total development of Bhil tribal community, highest priority for education, religious, socio-economic, medical and developmental activities are undertaken. Today Jhalod Mission has 2500 baptized Catholics and Catechumens, spread over more than 51 villages. We keep frequent contact with the people through these activities for better evangelization. At present we have eight Mass Centers. The Catholics of nearby villages gather at these centers to participate in the Holy Eucharistic celebration. Nearly 40 to 100 people gather at each station to participate in the mass. Besides this, house visits, house blessings, blessing of the sick, Bhajan Mandalis, Audio-Visual, etc are some of the means used in the spreading the good news among the Tribals. We are getting a lot of good responses active participation in our pastoral approach. Initiating the faithful in gradual faith formation and the church’s sacramental life is a challenge and a prime need for the station. It requires frequent visits to each village for catechesis by fathers, sisters and catechists.

Jhalod Mission as we see today is the hard work of so many dedicated and committed Divine Word Missionaries. These are the Missionaries who tirelessly worked in this Mission.

Confreres who worked so far