By Verghese V Joseph –
Amidst the suffering and the challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic this year, the Latin Catholic church in India comprising 132 dioceses, religious communities and institutions and parishes will observe November 29 (first Sunday of Advent) as Communio India Sunday.
A Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) circular to this affect, signed by Most Rev Filipe Neri Ferrão, President, Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, Archbishop of Goa and Daman; Most Rev George Antonysamy, Vice President, CCBI, Archbishop of Madras-Mylapore and Most Rev Anil Joseph Thomas Couto, Secretary General, CCBI, Archbishop of Delhi, has been shared to all archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons, religious, catechists and lay faithful of the Latin Catholic Church in India.
This is in keeping in line with Pope Francis’ unforgettable Urbi et Orbi message on the evening of March 27, 2020 where he poignantly summarized the situation the word was in: “We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel (Mk 4: 35-38) we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”
The CCBI had launched Communio India in 2018 with the following purposes:
(1) to establish a missionary organization (like Missio and Aid to the Church in Need in Germany) in order to build a culture of sharing and caring, in solidarity with our needy brothers and sisters in our own country;
(2) to encourage our faithful to pray and help the missions and the missionaries and, more importantly, to promote missionary vocations;
(3) to encourage and inspire our faithful to be lay missionaries.
Expressing solidarity with those who are suffering due to the menace of COVID-19, “Communio India Sunday,” the CCBI felt, “should be observed faithfully and meaningfully in all the parishes and institutions in our country, with a proper commentary at the Holy Mass, special Prayers of the Faithful and conscientization regarding our baptismal call to become missionary disciples. It is a Sunday to pray for the mission of the Church in India and to gratefully remember all our missionaries, who work gladly and generously in various parts of our country to proclaim the joy of the Gospel.”
There are many places in India where Catholics cannot celebrate the Sunday Eucharist regularly because of the lack of a proper church building. Communio India, the CCBI hopes, will enable the faithful to extend a helping hand to all such communities in building a house of worship, so that they are not deprived of the Eucharist every Sunday and in turn become communities that do not cease to proclaim the Gospel of God’s kingdom.