TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: It’s going to be a Wednesday like no other for the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. The pealing of church bells across the State at around 9 am will be just a minor manifestation of the enormity of what is occurring. There may not be a festive lunch on the table or a holiday mood in the air. The celebrations will be more spiritual – masses and prayers. It will be a moment when the hearts of many Goans will skip a beat as Pope Francis declares Bl Joseph Vaz a Saint at Colombo.
Parish priest of Porvorim, Fr Tomas Lobo said, “To me, it is a matter of great pride and joy that we are getting our first Goan Saint and that too, from our beloved Pope Francis. His missionary dynamism is truly exceptional and inspirational. God bless our church in the present times with such courageous, dynamic and joyful missionaries.”
That the event is happening in Sri Lanka, does not reduce its import. Bl Joseph Vaz is the first Goan to be raised to the altar of the Universal Church and the Goa Archdiocese has been waiting for this for centuries.
“Canonization would project the Patron of our Archdiocese as a saint for the whole Church, with Catholics everywhere invoking him as Saint Joseph Vaz. This remains our dream to this day,” wrote Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao in August last year, asking for prayers for the canonization. The prayers were answered and that dream is being fulfilled.
A few hundreds of Goans – clerics and laity – from across the world have travelled to Colombo for the Canonization. Besides Archbishop Ferrao, there are other bishops of Goan origin including Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Bombay, Archbishop Anil Couto of Delhi, Bishop Allwyn Barreto of Sindhudurg, Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas auxiliary bishop of Ranchi and other priests and religions.
Fr Romualdo Robin Rodrigues, parish priest of Candolim who was earlier the Vice-Postulator for the cause is also in Colombo. He said, “This trip to Sri Lanka is a pilgrimage, not a tour. We will live the humble life of Bl Joseph Vaz. We will visit the places, including the place where he landed in Mannar on the beach – tired and exhausted – where he began his ministry after leaving Goa as a coolie.”
Goa will now have an intercessor of its own in heaven, its patron saint who is also its son. Later on Wednesday, after the rite of Canonization is completed, Catholics across the world will be able to pray to St Joseph Vaz and Churches anywhere can be dedicated to him. As long as he remained ‘Blessed’ there could be devotion to him only in the dioceses where he lived and worked. From Wednesday, the Universal Church can invoke the Goan Saint’s name in their prayers.
Devotion to the Saint in Goa has increased in the past few years and since the announcement of his canonization, it has grown faster. Sancoale, his village and where the Sanctuary dedicated to him is located, draws a large number of people and the Church plans include a Basilica dedicated to Goa’s own Saint in the village.
“Sancoale has been the epicentre of the devotion of Bl Joseph Vaz since there exists the oratory room of his paternal house, the shrine and also the façade of the old Church of Sancoale where he surrendered his life to Mother Mary. Since there is no land available to develop the place around the existing shrine to cater to the growing numbers of devotees, executing any plans at the present shrine are out of question as things stand now,” Fr Eremito Rebello the Vice-Postulator for the Cause of Canonization said.
St Joseph Vaz is described as a man much ahead of his times, introducing inculturation centuries before the Vatican would begin to promote it after its Second Council in the 1960s. “When studying in the Seminary, I came to know of the Second Vatican Council and its teachings on inculturation. This council gave a new vision, but it gives me pride that St Joseph Vaz, a man from our land, who lived more than two hundred years before the Second Vatican Council had already implemented what the council thought,” said Fr Nelson Sequeira, Professor at Rachol Seminary.
