By Purushottam Nayak
Partamaha, March 5, 2023: More than 50,000 people on March 5 gathered at a Marian pilgrimage center in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, when it celebrated its feast two years after a gap of two years.
“We are here after the Covid pandemic to thank God who loves unconditionally and who is always willing to grant Mother Mary’s intercession for all of us,” said Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, the main celebrant of the feast day Mass at the Marian shrine in Partamaha, a small village in Odisha’s Kandhamal district.
The Divine Word prelate remembered Komoladevi, a local Hindu widow whose vision of the Blessed Virgin led to the setting up of the pilgrimage center in 1994 in the village, some 250 km southwest of Bhubaneswar, the state capital. She died of Covid-19 in 2020.
Father Mukund Dev, the parish of Our Lady of Holy Rosary Daringbadi and a member of managing committee of the shrine, said more than 50,000 people attended this year’s feast. The gathering included 55 priests and 25 nuns.
People gathering in such huge number is the sign of growing faith in God and accepting Mother Mary, the priest told Matters India.
Saraj Nayak, the secretary of development committee of the shrine, the people prayed for Mother Mary’s intervention to bring peace and harmony between warring Russia and Ukraine. “We also pray that the Vatican declare 36 Catholic victims of anti-Christian violence 2008 as martyrs of the Church,” he added.
The Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar comprises of nine civil districts of Boudh, Cuttack, Kandhamal, Kendrapara, Khurda, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Nayagarh and Puri. It has 39 parishes serving around 70,000 Catholics. Kandhamal district alone has about 50,000 Catholics in 26 parishes including recently erected Sonpur and Barokhoma entrusted to the Capuchin priests.
The shrine was built after Komoladevi went to Partamaha Mountain to collect fire wood on March 5, 1994. She saw a bearded man in white dress and long hair coming closer to her. He disappeared after sometimes.
A beautiful woman from a distance called her and told her to request the local priest to build a church where people could pray the Rosary for the sinners to repent. The neighbors laughed at her when she first shared the experience .
Another day a 12 year-boy came to Komoladevi and asked her to go to the same mountain. When she went there the woman appeared and told her. “I am the Mother of Jesus, pray the Holy Rosary daily to come closer to Jesus and to establish the Kingdom of God where peace joy, love justice, truth and fraternity prevail.”
With courage the woman shared her experience with the then parish priest of Daringbadi Father Alphonse Balliarsingh. The priest set up a parish committee and built a small grotto near a Banyan tree where Mother Mary had appeared. He also baptized Hindu woman as Agnes.
People started flocking to the mountain to pray to the “Mother Mary of Partamaha.”
Mili Montry, a young woman devotee this year, said she has experienced God’s healing touch when her illness that medical doctor could not do cure disappeared after praying to Mother Mary.