“We are called to a community of love.” (Introduction, CMI Constitution). Wherever the members of the CMI Fraternity engage in effective and intense mission works, it is quite intrinsic to their nature to live and be rooted in the cultural area and concrete context of activities for the purposes of inculturation and acclimatization.  Since 2009, the year in which we began our mission in Periyakulam, our members started to stay here, though for a short time Fr. Issac was commuting from our Mary Matha School at Theni. Eventually and gradually our initial members stayed at the principal’s residence. This is a small house designed for the then JC College Principal’s residence. The CMIs have not changed their residence as well.

The members who have been working here continue to stay in the same facility except for the fact that we changed its name to Anbakam, which comes from the Tamil words Anbu and Akam, which etymologically frames as Anbakam – House of Love. We, the CMIs try our maximum to be inmates of the house of love through our loving care and cordial teamwork. Starting from our age traditions, we try to be hospitable to everybody who comes to our Anbakam.

The gradual growth of our MMC college has an impact on the gradual growth of Anbakam as well. Our presence here started with one person in the beginning. Gradually there were two CMIs living here in our Centre. As college got bigger and larger more and more CMIs were also required to stay and serve the society here. Moreover, our province has been sending CMI brothers to their degree studies here at MMC as well. If we see the different phases of the growth of Anbakam, it may look like the following:

• Beginning Stage: Only one priest stayed and administered the then JCC Campus
• Growing Stage: More and more priests joined the Community
• Scholastic Stage: CMI Congregation started sending scholastics for their degree studies
• North-Indian Presence stage: From 2020 onwards there have been two brothers from the Jagdalpur CMI mission, who began to do their college studies here.
• Present Stage: There are four priests and five brothers in the Anbakam Family.

Evolution of a Centre to a House:

As per the Constitution of the CMI Congregation, there are four kinds of presences of CMI members in a place: 1. Centre, 2. Residence, 3. House, 4. Monastery. The process of raising the status of a place depends on the number of CMI members, financial self-reliance and the viability of the status. Recently, the provincial has sent the necessary documents to raise this Centre to the status of the House. Interestingly, CMI Centre is going to be raised to the status of House without being raised to the stage of a Residence. Now the Prefect of the house will be elevated to the status of a Superior. Hence, Anbakam will be a CMI House in the near future.