The feast of Our Lord Redeemer, normally
held on the third Sunday of November, this year on November 16, is celebrated
with deep religious fervour by all the inhabitants of the island, irrespective
of their religious affiliation. This year’s theme call is, ‘To build families
of love. Jesus the Redeemer is our strength’. For this day, all the members who
have otherwise migrated to other places, return to their ancestral homes on the
island. A festive lunch is normally hosted for the villagers and the visitors
by the celebrant(s) of the feast – this year they being the Aguiar brethren.
The history of the arrival of this statue
is obscure. While there are versions of this legend which are more reliable, I
shall give my version on the subject, a country version confirmed as an
authentic legend by those still surviving 90. There once was a villager named
Caetano Ferrao whose house was the same premises where today this Chapel
stands. He worked for a sculpting firm in Sicily. After 27 years of service, he
was to return home for good. He had made up his mind to take home one of the
products of his own making and worked on his personal masterpiece whenever he
had time. When it was time to leave and his boss was settling his account, he
requested him to let him take his statue in lieu of his settlement. His boss,
having been satisfied with his service, let him have the statue as well as the
pension amount.
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However, when he reached the docks of
Sicily, at the Customs, he had to pay luggage fare proportionate to the weight
of the article. But as the officials weighed the statue, it appeared so heavy
that they didn’t have enough weights to match it. Caetano was puzzled as the
statue could not exceed 30 kgs. With tears in his eyes, he knelt down and
beseeched the statue not to permit him leave Sicily without it. As the box was
weighted again on his request, the first thing they noticed now was that the
box had gone so light that even without weights, the pan stayed up in the air.
The customs officials were frightened. There was a fellow female traveller who
was wearing a hair flower-lace. In their desperation, a custom official
requested the lady for a flower and put it in the pawn of the weights. The
fulcrum came to rest. The weight of the box Caetano was carrying came to tally
with the weight of an ‘abolem’. He was exempted from paying a single Lira as customs
and luggage duty.
Once back home, he kept this miracle a
secret. One night he found the door of his house open and the statue missing.
Caetano got upset and would not sleep. He kept awake praying, and after a while
he saw a tall gentleman, exactly a replica of the statue, with a big mast in
his hand, led by a small white puppy carrying a lantern in his mouth, enter the
house back again. Many saw the living statue walking around the ward so our
Caetano named this ward as Bairro Sao Caetano, though now it is known as Saiba
Vaddo. The statue continues to look over its people.
The author, Matias Xavier Vás, is Prof.
& H.O.D. (Port.), Sacred Heart College, Vellore. His ancestral house is
near the Chapel of Our Lord Redeemer, Piedade, Divar.
