Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mumbai (VM)

Mumbai, Sep 8: The nativity feast of Mary was celebrated at St Joseph Church, Meera road (East) here on Saturday September 8.

Fr Dominic Vaz, parish priest celebrated the festal mass and delivered the sermon. He also blessed the new grains and vegetables.

Fr Vaz in his sermon said that Mother Mary is the creator of all miracles and she fullfils the wishes of the devotees. Her birthday is celebrated in a natural and cultural way as she is the trusted guardian of the catholic Christians.

This feast is celebrated together by all the members of the family . The specialty of this feast is family have their lunch together with new grain. Inorder to honor her as her children, we need to indulge among ourselves the quality of purity, tolerance, simply living and other values that Mary followed throughout her life.

We have to fight against women discrimination in the society, especially girl child abortion should not be practiced. By living with all these values, we also need to express greatfulness to god and thus celebrated this feast in a meaningful way.

Fr Michael Moras, Fr Ivan R D’Souza, Fr Arvin Tauro, Fr Ivo Dais, Fr Agnello Rebello were present including the guest priests namely Fr Ajay Nazareth, Fr Rajesh D’Souza, Fr Melwyn D’Cunha, Fr Joe D’Souza helped in the prayer service.

Br John Pinto, Br Nithesh Rodrigues, Br Kaushik Parmar, Br Daniel Christian, Br Canute Cardoza, B Sandeep Goveas, Br Pawan Saldanha were part of the religious rituals.

After the festal mass, the decorated idol of Vailankani was taken around in a procession across the city to spread the message and wishes to all.

Under the guidance of Fr Dominic, director of Konkani Welfare Association, John Crasta, president of association, Violet Mascarenhas, vice president, Sophie D’Sa, secretary, Lawrence Mathias, treasurer, Gaigo Rodrigues, joint secretary, Arun Noronha, joint treasurer, other office bearers and the members of Karnataka coastal area Konkani Catholic community joined in the prayer service as per the traditions.