Abu Dhabi: The St Joseph’s Konkani Community (SJKC), Abu Dhabi celebrated “Monthi Fest”, the birthday of Mother Mary, on September 5, 2020, at the St Joseph Church.
The celebration was streamed online for the faithful who could not attend the event in person due to the pandemic.
Portuguese conquered Goa in 1510 and founded their empire in India. Since then, the name Monte Mariano, which literally means “Mount Mary” has occupied special place in the annals of Catholic history in Mangalore.
The ’Monthi Fest’ is a family feast for all Konkani speaking community members and it is traditionally celebrated as a harvest festival by the community in the west coast of India.
Konkani community in Abu Dhabi celebrated this feast with grandeur, thanking God for the fruit of the earth, for nature and for farmers who toil to give bread to the world.
Due to the pandemic, this year the SJKC community prepared nine days online Novena, focusing on special themes for the family preaching namely, Mother Mary is the model for our family life, faith, humility, acceptance, family as a domestic church, let go of the things, kids follow parents footsteps, role of a grandparent in the family and relation between a child and a mother.
This wonderful preaching is done by Rev. Fr. Darick Paul D’Souza OFM cap selecting a wonderful liturgy. After the novena, priest offered flowers on behalf of all, while family members offered the flowers in their respective homes singing, “Moriyek Hogolsiyam” remembering the memories of the past where we all parishioners of different age took part in honouring Mother Mary.
The Festal celebrations began at 10.30 am.
First, the new corn was blessed by the Vicariate Chancellor Fr Valerian Fernandes and then the solemn festive mass, which was presided over by Rev Fr, Rathan Nicolas Almeida, Moderator of the Office of Christian Formation, began. Fr. Darick Paul D’Souza delivered his homily on the theme “True Joy is More Contagious than the Virus”, in which he illustrated in the life of Mother Mary and spoke on inner joy in this pandemic vs the external happiness’ impact on our daily life.
There were limited participants for the mass due to the restrictions, yet there was an ocean of faithful who participated in the live telecast of the liturgy with great devotion from their homes.
At the end, Fr Darick thanked all those who helped conduct the celebration and specially thanked those who contributed to the “one-month food” programme initiated by the community during the lockdown, where 3100 bags of provisions were provided to families having food and financial difficulties.
At the end blessed corn was distributed to the faithful.
