New Delhi: A Syro-Malabar parish in the national capital has acquired a Marian statue with a difference.
Archbishop Kuriakose Bharanikulangara of Faridabad on October 9 blessed the statue of “Pregnant” Mother Mary at his residence in Karol Bagh. Later, the statue was brought in a procession to the Blessed Sacrament Church, Kingsway Camp, a suburb in northern Delhi.
The statue would be on prominent display during the four-day parish feast starting October 21.
Father Mathew Abraham Kizhakkan, the parish priest, said pregnant Mother Mary symbolizes the Blessed Sacrament. “Our Church is dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. We did not have a statue of Mother Mary. So, I thought of getting this statue because it was Mary who carried the Blessed Sacrament for the first time.”
The priest, who is also the secretary of the archbishop, says that similar statues are also seen in a few churches in the world, including one at St Thomas Mount in Chennai, southern India.
Another statue is at the Cathedral of Évora, one of the oldest and most important monuments in Évora city, in Portugal.
That Kizhakkan told Matters India that the parish feast would be “complete spiritual celebration. No drums, fireworks or decorations.”
The recent Synod Syo-Malabar bishops had opposed parishes spending lavishly on their feasts. “I had decided it before the synod, and finalized it after the synod with the permission and support of the parish community,” he added.