OLD GOA: The Cathedral Chapter at Se Cathedral will celebrate a special Thanksgiving Mass at the Se Cathedral on January 14 at 8 am, acknowledging the sainthood to Fr Joseph Vaz.
The canons have invited the people to attend the mass. It will also be a rare opportunity for the people to witness the pealing of all five bells of the Se Cathedral, as requested to by the Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao, in his recent circular.
“Only two bells were functioning as the three other bells were being repaired. All five bells were recently repaired and they have the distinct sound of Do, Re, Me, Fa, Sol,” Canon Saturnino Dias, president of the Cathedral Chapter, told Herald.
Fr Dias sought to emphasise the key role of the Cathedral Chapter in influencing Fr Joseph Vaz to go to Sri Lanka.
“Incidentally, it was at the Se Cathedral in Old Goa that the young Fr Joseph Vaz had first heard about the sad plight of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, through a Canon of the Goa Cathedral Chapter,” Canon Saturnino Dias, president of the Cathedral Chapter, told Herald.
“The Canon had accidentally landed at Colombo while returning from a visit to Macau and had experienced the spiritual hunger and thirst of the Lankan Catholics to be fed by the Word of God and by the Sacraments of which they had been deprived for over 30 years. This was because the ruling Dutch Calvinist government had expelled all the Catholic priests from the island.”
“Fr Joseph Vaz’s heart was afire and he decided to go and help the Catholics of the island,” Fr Dias added.
