Annual Feast of Infant Jesus Shrine Celebrated with Zeal
Stanly Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
Mangalore, Jan 14: The annual feast of the Infant Jesus Shrine Bikarnakatte here was celebrated on Friday January 14 at Carmel Hill with pomp and gaiety. Archbishop of Delhi Vincent Concessao presided over the solemn festal Eucharistic celebration along with more than 50 priests.
Fr Clifford Fernandes, spiritual director, St Joseph’s inter diocesan seminary here preached the homily. Fr Clifford in his well developed homily appealed the packed congregation to fill with zeal to proclaim the Resurrected Christ. He cited various personalities from the Old and the New Testaments who were filled with zeal and gave witness to God.
"We should make efforts to experience Jesus and live a life fitting to our call; once we experience Jesus our life will be changed,” he said. He also said that meeting and experiencing Jesus Christ will help us to worship one God, to do the will of God, to be pure in heart, to forgive, to be just, to serve and be generous, to proclaim the Gospel, and to have intimacy with God. Bro Prakash D’Cunha animated the Liturgy while Fr George Santhumayor OCD, superior proposed the vote of thanks.
Representatives of the youth associations of the various deaneries were involved in the liturgy.
The other masses of the day were presided over by Fr Stephen Pereira OCD (Konkani), Fr Biju (Malayalam), Fr John Sequeira OCD, director, Ryshivana (Konkani) and Fr Archibald Gonsalves OCD, provincial, Karnataka-Goa Province of the Carmelites Order (English), Fr Alban D’Souza , parish priest, Pakshikeri Church (Konkani mass for the sick), Fr William Martis (Konkani) and Fr S Abbu D’Souza, SVD (Kannada ).
Around 25,000 devotees of Infant Jesus participated in the Eucharistic celebration which were held throughout the day. About 12,000 thousand were present for the evening festal mass alone.
Over the last nine days of novena, themes like zeal to honour God, zeal to do the will of God and zeal, to repent and reconcile, zeal to be pure in heart, zeal to be just, zeal to evangelise, zeal to have intimacy with God were reflected upon by different preachers. Each day was dedicated to different groups like family, benefactors, professionals, children, workers, missionaries etc.
The last day of the novena was dedicated to the youth.