GROTTO PICTURES - 4 FEBRUARY 2009

Here are some more pictures of the grotto. The common consensus is that it looks really beautiful. We praise God for this gift.

PARISH NOTICES - SUNDAY, 1 FEBRUARY 2009

• Today is the Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.
• On Monday 2 February we keep the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lord and it is also the Day of Consecrated Life. Our parish is blessed to count among its members so many consecrated persons and those preparing for a life of religious consecration. We thank all the religious in our parish for the witness they bear and ask God to grant them a dynamic fidelity to their call.
• The next parish council meeting will be held on Sunday 1 February at 10 am. All parish council members are requested to attend. Also on Sunday 1 February - STI is staging a three-act comedy “Paradise Villa” at 6:30 pm in the Divyadaan auditorium. All of you are invited. Hence, the evening mass next Sunday will be at 5 pm.
• 6 February is the First Friday of the month. There will be a mass at 7:30 am for the students of Don Bosco School. Parishioners who wish to join the mass are most welcome. In the evening at 6:30 pm we will have Eucharistic adoration and it will be followed by mass at 7 pm.
• On Saturday 7 February we will have a parish family get-together after the evening mass with games and dinner. The charges will be Rs. 70/- for adults, and, Rs. 35/- for children 12 years and below. Please hurry and collect your passes from your zone leaders.
• We have just concluded the celebration of our parish novena and feast and it is time to say a big thank you to all those who collaborated in making this a time of prayer, reflection and collaboration. May God our Heavenly Father through the intercession of our patron St. John Bosco continue to bless all of us in the parish – our families, our friends and relatives abundantly.
• Our retired bishop Thomas Bhalerao celebrates his birthday on 1 February. We raise a prayer for his good health and continued fulfillment in ministry.
• Regular scripture classes will resume on Monday 9th February.
• We have begun collecting Church support through volunteers who sit outside the parish office after the Saturday evening mass and the Sunday evening mass. Please collect your cards after the mass.

BLESSING OUR GROTTO - 31 JANUARY 2009

Yes folks here it is - the good news is that our grotto was blessed on Don Bosco's Feast 2009. Since our bishop could not make it - the task fell to the parish priest Fr. Matthew to do the honours. After a small prayer of blessing, the sprinkling of the grotto, the lighting of 7 candles and the blessing of Mary Help of Christians, we had time to celebrate and savour this moment...A picture is surely worth a thousand words...

We raise a prayer of praise and thanks to God; to our benefactors - parishioners and other donors, some of other faiths; the architect; the construction crew, and the grotto committee - Messrs. Robin Susainathan, Wilson Pereira, Norbert DeSouza and Claude Noronha who coordinated the planning and building of the grotto. They gave of their time and talents, looking at plans, considering the aesthetics and the various elements that have gone into making our grotto a place where we can raise our hearts and minds to God through the intercession of Mary our blessed Mother.

31 JANUARY 2009

We have just celebrated a lovely day - the Eucharist was well-animated and we had about 18 concelebrants. We had set up about 400 chairs and all of them were filled. The main celebrant was Rev. Fr. Peter D'Souza - Procurator of our Diocese. Our bishop Felix Machado could not make it as he was attending the mass of suffrage for his recently departed dad. Here are a couple of pictures from the mass.

And soon after the mass came the moment many of us were looking forward to for some years now...Well check out the next post to find that out...

CELEBRATING DON BOSCO - 30 JANUARY 2009

We had a great feast of our father and founder, Don Bosco after a novena of reflection and prayer. The attendance was good at the novena and the animation by the different zones and communities were prayerful. On 30 January we had the traditional academy and once again it was a touching moment to pay homage to the Father of Youth. This year special note must be made of our Sunday School children who enacted scenes from the life of Don Bosco.

The smallest among them provided the chorus to link the various scenes enacted. Here is a photograph of that...

And another of the older children enacting the dream at the age of nine...

GROTTO - 29 JANUARY 2009

The blessing of the grotto is scheduled for our parish feast - 31 January - on the day our Archbishop is in our midst and celebrates the mass. We are nearly there. Here are some final pictures of the grotto. The next we post will be of the blessing on the Feast Day.

GROTTO - 24 JANUARY 2009

We are arriving at the finish....this should be done a few days from now. Thank you Mother Mary...