Blessing and the dedication of St. Catherine of Siena Church
at Karimaddela Village, India
Dear friends,
After spending couple of weeks in India, I returned to our St. Catherine family on Feb. 8, 2020. During my stay in India, along with five of our parishioners, I visited Kolkata on Dec. 29 - 30, celebrated the Holy Eucharist at St. Mother Teresa’s tomb and prayed for all our faith community. On Jan. 3, 2020, we all visited the Karimaddela faith community to see the progress of the church construction. Our friends received a grand welcome with fresh flower garlands and were taken on streets in processions with music (band) and dance. At that time, the church work was still in progress. We doubted whether the work would be complete by the planned dedication on January 20. Thanks to the pastor Praveen, contractors Prem, Janardhan and all the workers who toiled day and night, it was completed by January 17. As the part of the celebration, the pastor even organized a three day prayer convention just before the dedication of the church.
January 20th turned out to be a very big day for all of the faithful. They invited their relatives and friends from all the neighboring villages for the celebration. Bishop Poola and myself were given a warm welcome with a solemn procession on the village streets. The faithful arranged a well-decorated vehicle, and had the Bishop and me seated for almost two hours as they danced and played the Indian instruments in front of the vehicle.
After reaching the Church, we all vested and as part of Indian custom, we broke the coconuts and the Bishop unveiled the plaque, blessed and dedicated the church and celebrated the Holy Eucharist. During his homily, the Bishop thanked our St. Catherine family for the generous support towards the construction of the beautiful Church in Karimaddela village and insisted the faithful make use of the Church for all their spiritual celebrations.
After the Holy Eucharist, the faithful felicitated the Bishop, all the priests and the contractors with shawls and garlands. The faithful also prepared and served delicious Indian dishes to all those who participated in the celebration. More than 1,500 people joined for the festive meal.
As I was leaving, the village elders and pastor expressed their sincere thanks to all of us. May our patron St. Catherine of Siena intercede for all our brothers and sisters of Karimaddela faith community. I sincerely thank all our St. Catherine of Siena Church family, especially our beloved pastor Fr. Pat for all his initiative to actualize the dream of these 45 poor and simple Catholic families on the other side of the world.
Sincerely,
Fr. Ray Pothireddy