Guest guest Posted February 27, 2005 Report Share Posted February 27, 2005 Lovin Sai Hearts Personally I met Fr Cyril Axelrod when he came to Australia on his mission years ago. Have your hanky ready with you. Namaste Betty THE REMARKABLE STORY OF A DEAF BLIND PRIEST Father Cyril Axelrod's life story was broadcast on BBC See Hear program in England. It is worthwhile for his Australian friends to read this story. In May 2001, Redemptorist missionary, Cyril Axelrod received an honorary doctorate in law from Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the only university in the world specificity founded for deaf persons. The citation recognition recognised his service to deaf people in his native South Africa and in Southeast Asia. Father Axelrod later described this moving experience. This purple collar with yellow stripes was placed on my shoulders and the certificate and the citation were presented to me. Then the president took my left hand and raised it up to a great ovation from the audience, given by stamping on the floor instead of waving or clapping their hands. I felt very moved by the great vibration of happiness and joy that I felt through the floor. My poor eyes could not see significantly, but my heart heard their shouts of support and joy. Few in the audience knew that Father Axelrod had just passed through a personal crisis. A progressive eye diseased called retinitis pigmentosa had recently plunged him into near darkness. At age of fifty eight years old, he had been forced to resign from his job, leave his friends and his community, and move to an unfamiliar country. "It was the starting point of going through my identity crisis," he said, "From my childhood, I grew up in the deaf community and enjoyed fulfilling my potential as a sighted deaf person. As I neared sixty years of age, I found it unspeakably hard to think of going into another community, the deaf-blind community. It was just like the end of the road in my life." But with the support of his spiritual counsellor, new friends, and deaf-blind UK which offers support to deaf-blind adults. Father Alexrod has made a fresh start. He walks by faith, encouraging others who are faltering in the face of loss or disability to trust God. In an interview with Liguorian, interpreted by Simon Chan, of Hong Kong, he installed joy and warmth as he spoke of his spiritual and physical journey. "I have great hope and courage to go through this most important next step, to gain a sense of fulfilment, and to act as a model for deaf-blind people." Father Alexrod said, "God used my deafness to bring His Love to people. Maybe He can use my blindness, too." Early life, conversion Cyril Bernhard Alexrod was born profoundly deaf in Johannesburg, South Africa, on February 24, 1942, he only child of an Orthodox Jewish couple. His father died as a young age, but Cyril and his widowed mother were nurtured by a close-knit extended family. From age to nineteen he attended St Vincent School for the Deaf, staffed by German Dominican nuns, where he moved and formed lasting bonds with teachers and classmates. His social life revolved around school, synagogue, and the Jewish Deaf Social Club in Johannesburg. After graduation he accepted a position as an accounting clerk for a local business and enrolled in a book-keeping certificate program. Quite unexpectedly, Cyril began to entertain thoughts of converting to the Catholic Faith. This was not, as some suspected, because the Dominican Sisters had proselytized him. On the contrary, they initially discouraged him because they knew his conversion would divide his family and devaluate his mother. After a wrenching spiritual journey, the young orthodox Jew who had once dreamt of becoming a rabbi resolved instead to become a Catholic and a priest. He was baptized on August 14, 1965, at age of twenty three years old a former schoolmate stood beside him as his godparent. The absence of family members at this important ceremony made for a bittersweet memory, but Cyril was eager to begin his new journey, "I felt God was calling me to bring His Love to deaf people, to give them spiritual help." Father Axelrod explained, "There were no deaf priests in South Africa at that time, and the deaf community was very fragmented because of the spiritual regime, so the need was great." To prepare for the priesthood, Cyril studied philosophy and psychology in the United States at Gallaudet University and the Catholic University of America, then returned to South Africa for four years of theology studies at St John Vianney Seminary. His ordination on November 28, 1970, was memorable for several reasons. Long time friend and fellow Redemptorist Larry Kaufmann recalls, "At the time Cyril was the only deaf born person n the world to be ordained. But most remarkable was that Cyril's mother attended the event. Most of us would take that for granted. But as a strict Orthodox Jewess, Cyril's mother had decided that she could not be present at the Christian ordination of her only child, having struggled enough as it was to accept his conversion from Judaism, Cyril did not expect to see her sitting in the front pew as the procession entered the sanctuary." Father Axelrod remembers, "It was most specular and emotional when my mother took courage to walk up with me to the altar, where the bishop sat. He received me and thanked my mother for presenting me to the altar. Then he spoke about Hannah offering her only son, Samuel, to the temple. While listening to his sermon, my mother beamed with a gentle smile. She felt honoured to be like Hannah, offering her only son, Cyril to the temple." Ministry in South Africa Father Axelrod's first mission field was the vast and chaotic territory of South Africa during apartheid. Repressive laws ensured the domination of the white minority, while Blacks, Indians and so-called "Coloureds," or people of mixed race, were systemically isolated, marginalized, and humiliated. "I travelled the tarred and sandy rods all over the country and visited the deaf people in scattered areas." He said, "Because of apartheid, these groups were prevented from meeting together or sharing a common language. My ministry was to build bridges of communication and to stand for solidarity with them in their plight." Father Axelrod's days were brutal, and the road was often lonely. After five years as a diocesan priest, he realised that he needed spiritual companionship and joined the Redemptorist congregation, an international community of priests and Brothers whose mission is to preach the gospel to the abandoned poor. Encouraged by his confreres, he began preaching mission and giving retreats to deaf persons in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States, but South Africa remained his priority. Two years after joining the Redemptorists, Father Alexrod founded the first South African day school for the deaf. "It was the first school for the deaf that accepted English as a medium for instruction," He said. "This greatly increased their appointments for employment and communication with others. Normally the government did not allow non-white children to be educated in English." The little classroom in North Sowero grew into a large complex of educational and technical schools. Today it has more than five hundred students. The day school was followed by the construction of a home just outside Pretoria for black working deaf adults and the foundation of a faith community for deaf people in Cape Town. The first was significant because it directly challenged apartheid's "influx control policy," a regulation that prevented non-resident blacks from working in white townships. The second was revolutionary because it enabled South Africans of all races to socialise and to work together as our community. "It was a liberating experience for deaf people of al different ethnic groups," Father Axelrod explained. The community now has more than one thousand members and is self-sufficient, governed and supported entirely by all members. Father Axelrod's vision deteriorates Immersed in his ministry, Father Alexrod was not prepared for the chilling moment in 1990 when he experienced a disturbing change in his vision. "I was in the U.S. giving a preached mission to deaf people. One morning I stepped down the stairs and stumbled to the bottom. I looked up and noticed something like curtains of both sides of a panoramic window, but the curtains were not actually there. An uncomfortable feeling stirred my heart, and I took a deep breath." The next day the ophthalmologist who examined Father Axelrod diagnosed his disease and explained that his vision would deteriorate until he was completely blind. "Inside, it was like an explosion." He recalls. With a heavy heart, Father Alexrod returned to South Africa, where he began making lifestyle adjustments. The most difficult he says, was giving up driving, which he had done extensively to make pastoral visits. His confidence wavered and his patience was tried by the inconvenience of public transportation, but he was determined to stay active in ministry. Friends and confreres who witnessed his struggle were awed by his spirit. "Cyril is an extraordinary man," writes Father Larry Kaufmann. "I have known him for thirty years and he has been one of the greatest inspirations in my life." Ministry in China In 1988, the superior General of the Redemptorist congregation visited Father Axelrod's community in South Africa and spoke about a new mission in China. Afterward, he approached Father Axelrod personally and invited him to go to China to minister to the deaf. Father Alexrod protested that he could not go because of the problem with his eyes. The superior general replied evenly, "That is not your problem, it is God's problem." A few months later Father Axelrod was on his way to Hong Kong to study Cantonese, and the following year he moved to Macau, a densely populated city near Hong Kong where he ministered for twelve years. According to Father Axelrod, social and educational services for deaf people were practically nonexistent when he arrived in Macau. Parents of deaf children, taught by society to be ashamed of their "defective" offspring, would typically hide them indoors, where they had no social contact of formal education. As adults, these abandoned individuals were considered fortunate if they found jobs as street sweepers, window washers, or "human fans," waving palm leaves over the rich,. Father Axelrod founded an association in Macau that eventually provided an array of services for deaf people outreach for young children isolated in their homes, vocational-training programs and sports programs for youth, speech classes and social services, and a day centre for elderly people who are deaf. He also helped to develop Chinese tactile sign language for the deaf blind community. Father Axelrod's vision deteriorated steadily, but not as quickly, as the doctors had first predicated, allowing him to adjust to new methods of communication and mobility. "Thank goodness for my red and white cane, as it managed to open the way for me to walk through the dense crowd without bumping into people. Many friends who came to visit me in Macau enjoyed walking quite comfortably behind me, like the people following Moses triumphantly through the Red Sea." Father Axelrod said, "Incidentally" - he added merrily - "the deaf blind person led the sighted people to the places of interest." Total blindness, move to England By March 2000, Father Axelrod's vision had deteriorated to the point that he had to make dramatic changes in his life. He resigned "with a distraught heart" from his position as Executive Director of the Macau Association for the Deaf. Then he moved to Peterborough, England, to immerse himself in a training program offered by Deaf Blind U.K. He studied Braille and switched from British and American Sign Language to hands on sign language and manual finger spelling. He also learnt how to use a computer for the blind and was trained in independent living skills. "I faced a tremendous struggle of adapting to the life and culture." He confessed. Part of Father Axelrod's new mission is to increase public awareness and understanding of deaf-blindness. He quotes the American deaf-blind author Helen Keller. "The blind are cut off from things and the deaf are cut off from people." Few nondisabled people realise that 95 percent of their information about the world comes to them through two sense hearing and sight. But for th4e deaf-blind, touch is the primary gateway to the world. "Deaf-Blind people live in a small world," Father Axelrod explained. "It is difficult to imagine this world if you have not experienced it. When I preach to deaf-blind people, I do not stand in front of a group. One by one, I sign a homely into an outstretched hand. They cannot see or hear, but they feel God's Love through touch. At the moment of connection, I guide their hands to the chalice and host to help them know and feel God's Love signing into their hands, "This is the life of God." Today Father Axelrod's life revolves around Deaf/Blind UK, where he serves as pastoral support coordinator, "My role is to develop a wide range of contacts in Christian and non-Christian organisations in order to promote awareness of deaf-blindness and to offer our service to the deaf-blind." He is about to launch a new training program for personal professionals that will teach them how to guide and communicate with the deaf-blind so that they will be able to participate fully in religious services. It has not been an easy transition but Father Axelrod is upbeat. "I found it very difficult when I lost my vision I felt cut off from God but I go to a counsellor, a Catholic woman and she has helped me to be positive. She has helped me to see my blindness as a gift of God's Hand, reminding me that God can see me to bring His Love to a new people - the deaf-blind. I believe this. I believe that God will use me. My blindness is for them, so I can tell them, God is here." Alicia von Stamwic is a writer and author on the staff of Liguorium article reprinted from the Liguorim magazine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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