We celebrate the feast of Nativity of Our Lady on September 8. The birth of Our Lady is celebrated by the Catholic Church all over the world. Churches do so under different invocations of Mother Mary. For example, in Goa and Vailankanni in Tamil Nadu it is celebrated as the feast of Our Lady of Monte or Our Lady of Vailankanni, in Mumbai as the feast of Mount Mary. In certain areas the Catholic Church also celebrates this day as Mother’s Day. In Goa it is also called ‘Fulanchem Fest’ or the ‘Feast of Flowers’. The statue of Our Lady is placed for veneration after the novena mass. Young boys and girls stand in two lines and carry baskets of flowers while entering the church in procession. They empty the baskets at the feet of the Virgin Mary’s statue and return to their seats, singing the hymn, ‘Devache Mate’. It is interesting to see how youngsters would compete with each other in order to get the best flowers to offer the Virgin Mother. They would go searching for flowers in gardens, from the wayside or hillock, to present Our Lady. Now-a-days people prefer to buy flowers from vendors in the market rather than going in search of them. Like all traditions, there is a history behind this one too. Records tell us that Gaspar Barzeus in Old Goa started this practice. Of late this practice has seen a change. Instead of presenting the flowers after mass, it is now done as the mass begins. The importance of the feast to children and the tradition of showering Mother Mary with flowers has been beautifully portrayed by Goan poet of yesteryears, Joseph Furtado (1872-1947) in a poem titled ‘Feast of Flowers’, published in the book Selected Poems. Though the church celebrates this feast universally, in Goa the village of Chinchinim in the south celebrates it as the main feast. The parish of Chinchinim was at
one time the largest parish in Goa before it was bifurcated into other two independent parishes with Catholics from Sarzora and Dramapur. The Jesuits who spread the Christian faith in the South moved into the village of Chinchinim where later they decided to build a church. The church building was completed in the year 1590. On the occasion of its blessing, 300 adults requested to be baptised into the Catholic faith. The church was initially dedicated to St Anne, however later it was dedicated to Our Lady of Hope (Nossa Senhora de Esperanca). The reason for this change is unknown. The church went under renovations and was later blessed on April 30, 1888. Much late a beautiful grotto was built dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes and was blessed on December 26, 2000. A big fair gathers for the feast where thousands of people visit the stalls to by goods. (This appeared in goacom on Sept. 9, 2015)