(This incident took place at Archbishop’s House, Nagpur at 11.50am on 5th February 1965, at the parlor)
Sr. Jeanne: (a demure figure, prim & proper) May I meet Fr. John (Archbishop Raymond Said to meet him).
Fr. John: (Just Entering, face flushed wiping forehead with a dirty kerchief) Yes, I ‘m Fr. John. Sit down; what can I do for you?
Sr. Jeanne: I have come to see about Youth work and the Archbishop said that you are the right person to contact.
Fr. John: Sister, I’ve just come in from fighting with one sister about the youth, and now you come to talk about Youth!. She has just complained about me..! What is your complaint?
Sr. Jeanne: Complaint! Er… I have no complaint. I’m sorry you had a fight about the youth. That is what I have come about to find someone who can take up their cause and lead them. I am interested in the Young Christian Students Movement. I have just come from Jabalpur by Bus, where Bishop Leobard promised to get one priest to look after the same. Here, I have just one cyclostyled sheet with me. You may try this sheet with a few students. As soon as I get back to Madras, I will send you some more. I have to catch a train now to Madras.
Fr. John: Sister, the train to Madras leaves us within half-an-hour. You are going by that train. Have you a ticket?
Sr. Jeanne: No...err.. I will get one
Fr. John: What.. You’ll get one, now And reservation!
Sr. Jeanne: (calmly) I will get one !
That is Sr. Jeanne Devos ever since ‘Jeanne’ as she is popularly called, has ‘GOT’ many a ticket and reservations to places distant, unknown and isolated, crowded and dangerous, where even some priests would not dare to go alone, without making proper prior arrangements.
I will never forget those words I’ll get one and she got many an animator, priest, nun, layperson, young and old, to take interest in the youth at the high school, college, drop-outs and struggling levels of life. I’ll get one – and she got many a cell and unit set up throughout the length and breadth of the country. I recall the moment she dropped into Navjoti Niketan, Patna to start the centre there. She was coming from Ranchi to Patna by train. At 9.00 am Fr. Bob Gris SJ had all the students ready to greet Jeanne when she walked into announce that her baggage had been borrowed by some thief and would be someone kind enough to lend her a tube of toothpaste! Those were the ‘teething’ days of YCS/YSM in the County.
I’ll Get One- And she got many a heart and home to work out the SEE-JUDGE-ACT Cardijn Methodology- the way of the Review of Life through South Asia, South East Asia and East always searching, probing, encouraging youth and youthful animators and full timers to live out the vision of the true dignity of man and women in the Midst of Exploitation and Oppression.
I’ll Get One- And she got the National Domestic Workers Movement going throughout the country together with the Movement for Children in Domestic Work. Nothing could stop Jeanne- not even great and devastating fall she had at Nesbit Road, Bombay, right through the terrace of the building which laid her low.
I’ll get One- Yes Jeanne You Got It! We are tremendously thrilled and overjoyed with the Prize and Doctorate Award offered to you at leuven, Belgium. The forty years of struggle and research done not in the corridors of any college or university, but walked, bussed and worked through the corridors of Human Slums, and living situations of Children, Youth and Domestic Workers throughout the towns and cities and rural corridors of India and Asia, bear witness that you deserve this honour. We are happy and truly honored with you and for you. We congratulate you. I remember the session you took at St. Joseph’s Coonor in the Summer of 1968 when you explained that a person was a human being and not a human bean.
Fr. Johnny Monteiro
Former National Chaplain