Team Herald
VASCO: The Lenten season observation which is usually done in community gathering and with religious fervour was affected due to lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
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In view of the lockdown, the Archdiocese of Goa, among other guidelines, has directed all churches and chapels not to hold any gathering of the faithful for masses, processions, Way of the Cross or any other religious gatherings like retreats, parishioners were asked to pray and observe Palm Sunday at home.
Speaking to Herald, St Andrews Church (Vasco) Parish Priest Fr Gabriel Coutinho informed that due to COVID19, they would not have any religious gathering of the people. “But we had prayers and those prayers were live streamed in the morning as well as in the evening time on Sunday,” he said.
Further, Fr Coutinho said that there was no gathering of the people for masses and all. The Church asked parishioners to stay at home and pray.
In few churches priests blessed the palm fronds by strictly maintaining distance. Many churches did live streaming whereby people could watch the mass at home through different channels of social media; some local TV channels showed mass live; the Mass by the Archbishop was a favourite local TV channels. Masses recorded on cell phones were passed around on social media.
Senior citizens who normally attend mass every day were seen watching the live masses on TV or on their cell phones or home computers. The main part which they missed was the receiving of communion. Even before the lockdown was announced churches had immediately stopped the placing of the Holy Eucharist on the tongue and asked the faithful to receive it on their palms.
Priests usually visit the homes of the aged and bed ridden to give them Holy Communion, but the lockdown has prevented them from doing so. Confessions, which form an important part of the Christian life, are also stopped. The observation of the Way of the Cross in churches and also in the areas of the parishes, the Lenten retreats, the Lenten processions and Lenten dramas are also stopped.
Confrarias (confraternities) of churches which are very active during Lent in displaying the various holy steps of Jesus Christ are left without enacting any such acts.
The Vasco church which observed Santos Passos (Holy Steps of Jesus) on Sunday, with mass and a procession with a life size statue of Jesus carrying the cross, could not hold the procession which moved from Vasco church to Mangor hill chapel of Our Lady of Piety.
The parishioners of Vasco church are making themselves content with the live streaming of the mass on social media. The Candelaria church at Baina could not observe their annual “Way of the cross” procession in their parish last Friday. This year’s Lent is something that has never been seen in the history of the Archdiocese of Goa.
