Doha: Our Lady of Rosary Church Celebrates Christmas

by Alexis Castelino
Daijiworld Media Network—Doha (CN)

Doha, Dec 21: The Church of our Lady of Rosary, Qatar, held its Christmas celebrations recently at the church grounds.  It was a celebration in which all the communities of the church took an active part by engaging themselves in different activities organized to mark the festival. More than 3,000 people participated in the event.

Parish priest Fr Peter welcomed the gathering and gave his wonderful Christmas message to the gathering.  Christmas carols were sung by various choir groups in their mother tongue representing the various communities of the church.  There were cultural programs performed either through a skit, song, or a dance by the Tamilian, Malayali, Konkani, African, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, Filipino, and Catechism groups.

The priests of the church gave a surprise to the gathering through their carol singing with Fr Anand on the key board, and Fr Peter, Fr Selvaraj, and Fr Zakki as the singers.
 
A tall, beautiful, Christmas tree was decorated and put up by the youth of the parish. The little children welcomed Santa Claus to the gathering by singing ‘Jingle Bells’ and crowded around to collect sweets and gifts.
 
The evening was compered by Aaron Fernandes and Pan, two young, energetic, youth of the parish.
 
There was a community-wise star competition held on the premises and the first prize was bagged by the Malayali community with second prize going to the Konkani community led by William Lobo Kemmanu. Third place went to the Tamilian community and the fourth place was won by Divine Mercy.  Prizes were distributed to the winners by Fr Peter, vice-president Boulus Shaddad, and prayer group head Roy Pascal.

Food stalls were put up by all the communities and this was a feast for the gathering to taste home-cooked food from different regions. Parish Eucharist ministers were in charge of the coupons’ distribution.
 
Boulus Shaddad was the overall conveyor and Vivian D’Souza Bondel from the Konkani community, known as the ‘Gurkaram’, was in charge of the food stalls and other activities.
 
Towards the end, a game of Bingo was conducted by Vivian with attractive prizes sponsored by Vodafone. This was followed by the vote of thanks by Shelton D’Costa.

On the previous day, a diplomatic dinner was hosted by the parish priest for the ambassadors of various countries in Qatar and the celebration was attended by the Bishop of our Vicariate He Paul Hinder.

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