-Brian Mendonça
Come September, the devotion to Our Lady begins. The
statue of Saibinn Mai is venerated in all Catholic households that
care to keep her - for a day, that is.
The ‘pilgrimage’ is ushered in right from the 8th
of September which is the birthday of Mother Mary. (The church where I went
even sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’ after the Mass.)
Yes, I would not miss the service for the world.
Ever since I knelt at the foot of Mary Help of Christians in the shrine of Don
Bosco High School, Matunga, Mumbai as a kid, I feel that she has a special
place in her heart for me. After all, wasn’t it there that I met Queenie, my
beloved wife, for the first time? And was I not instructed (somewhat
imperiously) by my sister-in-law to pray to Mary, that the meeting would go
well?
Mary has blessed us manifold. It has been a smooth
transition to Our Lady of Carmel who is my current protectress. Her scapular
never fails to keep us safe.
So it is with a profound sense of gratitude that I
go for the daily rosary followed by the litany in English held at 6 p.m. in the
assigned house for the day. We go as a family. (My son is most relieved that he
does not have to labour through the rosary when bedtime is nigh at 9.)
It is an occasion to pray as one big family of the
society. It is also an opportunity to meet and mingle with people who one would
never know otherwise. The activity is organized by the Small Christian
Community of the society.
Indeed, we spend so little time in prayer unmindful
of the fact that, ‘None of us lives for
himself, nor dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die
we die for the Lord. Either in death or in life we belong to the Lord.’ (Romans
14: 7-9)
As each member of the household leads a part of
the devotion starting with the Angelus, I think of how we used to be ushered in
the twilight, to say it in my grandmother’s big house in Gaunsavaddo, Mapusa.
When the litany begins and the words fall like an eternal chant to the divine,
I hear my mother, eyes closed, enunciating the words for the family prayer,
‘Virgin Most pure’ and the refrain ‘Pray for us.’ Hymns mark the end of each decade of the
rosary. Some families will thrust forth their budding musicians to accompany
the hymns on the organ or on a guitar.
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Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on Sunday, 24 September 2017. Picture courtesy Haver Vaz and Martina DaCosta.
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