Rupesh Samant
Old Goa: The Church is contemplating the possibility of making one of state’s most revered festival celebrating St Francis Xavier to be made eco-friendly banning the use of plastic or bio-degradable material during the event to be held on December 4.
The feast of St Francis Xavier at Old Goa, where his relics are preserved, would be held on December 4 while Novenas will begin from November 25 onwards which would be participated by thousands of pilgrims.
Fr Patricio Fernandes, Rector of Basilica of Bom Jesus where the relics are housed, said that the decision to ban plastic or bio-degradable items is in sync with the call given by Pop Francis to shun them.
“To begin with, we will avoid using flex and decoration made up of thermacol to deck up the stage set up for the mass. This is a hard decision and we have been already been talking about it,” he said.
He said without flex or thermacol decoration “probably the set might not look glamourous as there will not be paintings and things like that.”
The Priest said that the Church Authorities are still thinking how to minimize or negate the use of environmental hazardous material during the celebration.
He said that the backdrop will have to be either of ‘canvass or cloth.’ “
Fr Fernandes said that as people are used to plastic or thermacol it will be a bit difficult task but the people will have to retract back. The use of these non-environment friendly material had began a decade back to deck up the stage of the mass.
Meanwhile, the feast of St Francis Xavier, who is a patron saint of the coastal state, will be participated by people across the country specially from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
“Many of them walk the distance between their homes to the Church,” he said adding that the group of pilgrims from places like Karwar, Belgaum, Sawantwadi, Azra and Malvan usually arrive on their foot.
Amongst the pilgrims that would be attending the feast also includes the devotees from Portugal, Italy and other countries.
“On the daily basis we have big crowd in the early morning and then evening when Novenas begin. On Saturday and Sunday to keep the crowd, a slim we have mass at 5 a.m.,” he said.
This year, on the feast day, the masses will start at 4 a.m. as big crowd of the people are camping in the night near the Basilica. About 15,000-20,000 people will participate for the main mass which is at 10.30 a.m.
The main mass would be celebrated by Bishop of Udupi Fr Gerald Lobo this year.
Fr Fernandes said that the masses will be in several languages. “The main mass will be in Konkani and evening the mass would be in English. But there are other masses like we have French mass on November 28, we have Italian mass on December 01 and Portuguese and Marathi mass on December 02. We have kannada mass on December 03,” he added.
“Feast day will have Spanish mass at 3 p.m.,” he said.
