Goan-origin bishops to meet at St Joseph Vaz celebration - Sept.26

Mangalore Today News Network

Panaji, Sep 24, 2015: Most Indian bishops who have Goan origins are invited to the celebrations honoring St Joseph Vaz, the patron of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman on September 26.

 

The celebration, first in Goa after the canonization of the saint in Sri Lanka this January, is organized as the Church could celebrate this great spiritual moment of the sainthood, said Aleixo Menezes, convener of the celebration committee.

The program was planned as Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao of Goa wanted to honor this great saint, a Goan, with a meaningful celebration, Father Menezes said, according to a report in the Herald.

“We expect about 20 bishops. We had been expecting a larger number, but as the day is approaching many have communicated that they can’t make it,” said Father Menezes, who is also the Rector of the Patriarchal Seminary at Rachol.

Besides the Goan-origin bishops, the other bishops expected to celebrate the mass are from the Western Region as the Goa Archdiocese belongs to this region, bishops of Karnataka as St Joseph Vaz worked there and the Bishop of Kandy, Sri Lanka, Joseph Vianney Fernando.

The main celebrant will be Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, while the homily will be preached by Bishop Fernando of Kandy, where St Joseph Vaz worked and died. The Rachol seminary choir will accompany the mass.

Besides the solemn Eucharistic celebration, there will also be the release of an academic book on the life and mission of St Joseph Vaz, and an exhibition of canvas portraits on some aspects of the saint’s life and mission.