Mathew Uzhunnalil, 73, is the elder brother of Fr Tom. He was reached in his home place by Anto Akkara, correspondent of the National Catholic Register. Earlier this month, when the news spread of the kidnapping of Fr Tom, Mathew returned to Ramapuram from Vadodara, in the state of Gujarat in northwest India,
He keeps the television and radio switched off most of the time so he seems to be barely aware of the great chaos created by unfounded rumours circulated recently in the social networks and on the media. He accepts the situation facing the Uzhunnalil family with trust in the will of God. "I spend all my time reading these [religious] books. I have been doing that for years," he says while pointing to the book The Poem of the Man God by the Italian mystic Maria Valtorta. When asked how he spent the last three weeks alone in the family home, he opened the prayer book on the table and began to look for some of his favourite songs that have always inspired him. He says he has copies of these books here in the Ramapuram house and also in the house in Vadodara.
Ramapuram is a city with an amazing flowering of vocations, with about 1,000 religious and priestly vocations from 2,000 Catholic families. Mathew is now the only member of his family there. His three brothers and a younger sister, all married, are living in the USA. Another sister still lives in India, but about 200 km away. Fr Tom was there in in September 2014 when their mother Thresia died.
"He has always been a relaxed and quiet person,” Mathew says, “even once when he showed us a picture of some buildings hit by bullets, not far from where he lived."
Meanwhile, the parish community in the family place of origin, in the parish dedicated to St. Augustine, accompanies Fr Tom and his loved ones, and has organized several prayer meetings for his release.
Source: National Catholic Register
