Sacred Profession

Priesthood is sacred profession. Priests are special people chosen by God to serve others. A priest lives in faith and leads with love, guiding souls to God above in Heaven. It takes a great amount of devotion and sacrifice and long 10yrs of training to become a priest. My brother Fr. Tom had the perfect nature of selflessness and service mind to follow Jesus and serve people as a missionary and as a pastor in his 37 years of priesthood. ‘A TRIBUTE’ is his biography and how he touched other people’s lives and made a difference as a priest.

My Brother and my hero

The Grieving Process

Everyone grieves differently when a loved one passes away. It seems easier for some and hard for others. When I lost my brother ‘Fr. Tom’ it was very hard for me accept it and move on. I didn’t feel like I could move on.

He was my strength and I knew I could count on him for anything. When he passed away suddenly I felt helpless and alone. However, by the help of God’s Grace I realized that God is my strength and He revealed it to me that I should focus more on what my brother’s strengths even though my brother is no longer with me.

How bravely and courageously he faced everything in his life. If my brother were alive today, he would want me to be strong and move forward courageously.

About a week after Tom passed I had a dream that reminded me of this picture

When Tom passed away I had immeasurable desire to preserve his memory in writing. I didn’t want the world to forget about my caring, loving brother and the wonderful things he did for others.

I even had a dream about a month after his death showing a book with lot of pictures in it. In my dream I saw the pages were flipping fast with pictures and it stopped on a page with a picture of him holding these animals in his arm and shoulder. Then I knew I had to write this book and he wanted pictures in it. Anyway “A TRIBUTE” is product of that. Writing this book helped me a great deal with the grieving process.

The importance of a Christian life

An introduction to “A Tribute”

It’s interesting how little we consider the lives of others until our lives, with theirs, are no longer intertwined. Perhaps we acknowledge their existence, give them their due of our company, but it’s only after their deaths, or amidst that pivotal awareness of detachment between our two lives, that we even begin to contemplate that other life and the richness with which it was fulfilled.

I write this book as a story of a priest who loved unconditionally, but more importantly as the story of my brother, whose life I contemplated myself, mere days upon the realization that he was no longer with us. Within the week of his death, on a lonely flight to India, it was in those moments that memories, the product of such reflections, rested heavily on my mind. The product of those memories was this book, with the stubborn persistence that I harbored that such memories must never dissolve away.

My brother and my hero, Father Tom

My brother Fr. Thomas Plathottam had a special gift from God to understand and interact with people of diverse backgrounds. It’s the story of a missionary who made a difference in people’s lives through his work and touched their lives in a unique way. He was a true follower of Jesus. I decided to write this book because in his life story, I saw how nothing is impossible with the Holy Spirit.

I hope this book will inspire others, especially seminarians, priests, missionaries, laypeople and other Christians from all over the world, as my brother’s life inspired me.