We have been thinking about a pilgrimage to the most acclaimed Christian pilgrim centre of India – Arokia Matha Church at Velankanni, near Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. Finally it was realized on 31st October 2016 when we landed in Velankanni by the Velankanni Express from Chennai’s Egmore railway station. We set off from Ahmedabad on 29th October at 9:40 AM by the Chennai Express made popular by Shah Rukh Khan and reached Chennai or Madras the next day at 5 PM. My prayer to Velankanni Matha (mata) was to give us a pleasant journey to as well as stay at Velankanni and Mother Mary in her mercy granted us both.
During a journey a slight indisposition to any member can make the whole trip unpleasant. And Mother’s helping hand was visible right in the train itself when Arul Sir of Saint Mary’s Higher Secondary School, Naroda, came to us as a surprise gift. We never knew he was travelling in the same train and we would have never known it if he had not shown the magnanimity to visit us on his own. His visit was indeed a joyful event for my daughters Neha and Neeta because he was their teacher at St. Mary’s. He was a great help to find the whereabouts of Chennai.
Velankanni is a remote rural region of Tamil Nadu in the Nagapattinam district. Velankanni is in the Catholic diocese of Thanjavur and this district has the world’s first granite temple the Brihadeswara temple but today Nagapattinam and Thanjavur are known to the world mainly and perhaps only because of the Arokya Matha Shrine on the seashore of Velankanni which has a five hundred year-old history rooted in the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to a milk seller boy and a lame butter-milk seller boy, and the miraculous saving of the Portuguese sailors caught up in a violent storm near Velankanni through the intervention of Mother Mary.
The information regarding the apparitions and the saving of the Portuguese ship comes to us mainly through the oral history but since the apparitions were to non-Christians and were based on the spontaneous response of the local people who were mostly non-Christians, there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the information.
We spent three days in Velankanni – October 31st to November 2nd. We were fortunate to reach there on October 31st, the last day of the Rosary month, and so naturally there was a huge crowd to take part in the last rosary in honour of Mother Mary at the Shrine Basilica and after the Rosary there was an impressive procession carrying the statue of Our Lady of Good Health. Since we were staying in Hotel Picnic very close to the churches, it was easy for us to attend the various devotional practices. In fact, Hotel Picnic is adjacent to the new Morning Star Church, only three minutes walk from the hotel, and you can watch the majestic new church from the balcony of the hotel.
A few things impressed me about Velankanni – passionate devotion, massive physical layout of the church structures, very good infrastructural facilities, elaborate residential facilities, huge crowds that visit the shrine every day, excellent arrangements for devotional practices, meticulous management by the church authorities and personnel, and the comparatively good cleanliness though it is located on the seashore.
I was taken up by the passionate devotion of the people coming there, especially of the Tamils. In their devotion I could notice spontaneity, genuineness, straightforwardness and emotionality, and these characteristics moved me a lot, and they gave a tremendous fillip to my devotion to Mother Mary. I watched with awe people moving on their knees on a two-kilometer sandy path, an extremely painful devotional act in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Though I did not venture for it, I am happy to say that my children did it devotionally with prayers on their lips.
I used to wonder how so many people turn up for every Holy Mass every day – about ten Masses are offered daily in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, and English, but no dearth of devotees for each Holy Mass. It was Mother Mary’s special blessing that I got a chance to do the reading for a Malayalam Mass in the Morning Star Church, an architectural wonder in itself. The Church has space for ten thousand people at a time and another 40 thousand can sit outside and attend the Eucharist. Built without pillars, I think it is the largest church in Asia, and of course definitely of India. I was so much taken up by the ambience and environs that I wrote two lyrics sitting inside this beautiful church as a prayer to the Mother of Velankanni and one of them is given below:
Mother of Velankanni (lyric)
Mother of Velankanni, Mother of Jesus
In pinions of love, gather us always.
Help us Mother to fly to skies on high
Take to your son our every day sigh.
(1)
When ship of life is tossed around
Mother of hearty love sans bound
Take us to your refuge and shore
Where we have your mercy in store.
(2)
When the cup of life is empty, dry
When we come to you with our cry
Fill our cup with your love and grace
Like that pot of a boy with your gaze.
(3)
When burden of tears makes us lame
Help us Mother to take your name
Make us walk like the child of old
On our life’s path.with steps bold.
November 1, 2016
When we returned we did feel that it was a memorable pilgrimage unlike any other we had set out in life. Our devotion to the Lady of Good Health increased several fold and we could experience an inner healing in the core of our being, and I could sing with William Wordswortth what the greatest bard of nature wrote about this greatest Mother in one of his memorable poems: “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast!”
Joseph Palathunkal (Joe Palathunkal) M.A.; MHR; PGDM, is a poet, essayist and teacher based in Ahmedabad. He has done his Master of Human Rights from Pondicherry University. Contact: josephpalathunkal00@gmail.com Mob. 9726800249
