PANAJI
Don Bosco’s Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima at Panaji will celebrate the Feast of its Patron, Our Lady of Fatima on October 19.
The solemn concelebrated Mass will be celebrated at 9 am. Fr Kenneth Telles, Episcopal Vicar for South Goa, will be the main celebrant who will also deliver the homily. The other Masses will be celebrated at 6 am, 8 am in Konkani; 7 am, and 6 pm in English.
The highlight of this year’s feast is the presence of the Pilgrim Virgin of Fatima from Fatima, Portugal. The Statue of the Pilgrim Virgin and the sacred relics of the Fatima Saints, St Francisco Marto and St Jacinta Marto will arrive at the Panaji Shrine on October 18 at 10 am and will be open to devotees for veneration.
The relics and the Statue of the Pilgrim Virgin will be in the Shrine, on October 19. The feast will conclude with the Mass at 6 pm, followed by the recitation of the Holy Rosary.
Lester Melo, Chairman of the World Apostolate of Fatima in the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, stated that the statue of the Pilgrim Virgin was presented by the Bishop of Fatima to the World Apostolate of Fatima, India, of which the Goa Archdiocesan Division is the National Centre.
The Feast was preceded by a Novena that commenced on October 10. This feast is celebrated annually on the Sunday following October 13, the day of the First Apparition of Our Lady at Fatima, Portugal to 3 children, (1917). This Novena was dedicated to a better understanding of the Apparitions and Messages of Our Lady at Fatima.
Lucia dos Santos, Francisco, and Jacinta Marto were, respectively, 10, 9, and 7 years old, at the time of the Apparitions in 1917. Pope Francis canonised St Francisco and St Jacinta on May 13, 2017, the centennial of the first apparition. Sister Lucy dos Santos, the lone surviving seer of Fatima, died in her Carmelite Convent in Coimbra on February 13, 2005. Francisco, Jacinta and Lucy now lie buried side by side in the Great Basilica of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal.
