Our Lady of Perpetual Succour parish celebrated the feast of her patron, Mother Mary, on 27th June 2003. The feast was preceded by a novena for nine days preached by the Salesian priests of Don Bosco, Matunga. The focus this year was on youth in keeping with the parish vision and mission. To this end, Fr. Lionel conducted sessions for our youth in Sevadaan for three days from 8.00pm to 9.00pm. The picture of Our Lady below was kept for veneration in the sanctuary of the church during the novenas. As is customary, the liturgy for each of the nine days of the novena was organised by different Small Christian communities in turn.

The feast mass was celebrated on Friday, 27th June 2003, at 7.00pm. I had the priveledge of doing the second reading for the mass, and so was present in the sacristy behind the church altar before the mass. The picture below is of the sacristy. In the picture (from l to r) are some of our altar boys, the first reader Joyce, our sacristian Ronnie, Fr. George Rosario, and Fr. Edwin D'Souza (Salesian) who was the main celebrant at the mass.

The picture below show our parish priest Fr. Tony Cardozo, who had just celebrated his birthday on 25th June, reading the gospel. Fr. Edwin D'Souza preached the sermon on how Mother Mary has, down the centuries, always been the help of Christians in times of trouble.

The liturgy of the feast mass was organised by our youth. The picture below shows the offertory procession.

The picture below is of the consecration of the bread and wine during the mass. The priests celebrating the mass (from l to r) are Frs. Franklin Lobo, Peter D'Souza, Freddy Menezes (Asst. Parish Priest), Edgar Moreira (partly hidden), Tony Cardozo (Parish Priest), Edwin D'Souza (Salesian), Frankie Menezes, George Rosario, and Mervin Victor (Asst. Parish Priest).

The pictures below show the church during the distribution of communion, the parish choir who sang for the mass, and the veneration of the picture of Mother Mary by the priests after the mass.

We then made our way to the Sevadaan where there was an entertainment program planned as usual. The picture below shows the crowd eagerly waiting for the program to begin (the empty seats in the front were reserved for our priests who had not yet arrived). The first item was a welcome song sung and danced to by our girls from Sunday School.

This year, unlike in the past where various zones presented cultural items, the main part of the entertainment program was a show put on by a professional entertainer Milind Kumar. He was invited to perform for the feast by our Bombay Catholic Sabha unit. He first started off with a magic show which thrilled all, especially our children who even got to help him out in some of his tricks. He followed it up with a show of ventriloquism. The dialogue between him and his puppet kept us all in splits. We then had our parish priest Fr. Tony Cardozo address us. Snacks and cold drinks were distributed to all present courtesy of the parish. The evening's program ended with a bird circus also put on by Milind Kumar. Pictures of all this are below.