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SSPX News Archive 2008 Ordination
of Gregory Noronha
2006
The children of Veritas Academy dressed up for All Saints' Day.
Here
is our humble Catholic School. In
Maria, April 16, 2006 Four girls and four boys at the orphanage receive the sacrament of Baptism.
The orphan children wait outside the church for
their baptism
Entering the church with Fr. Couture
The children with their godparents and Fr. Couture
new children of God!
Dear Friends in Christ, Wish you all a holy and blessed Easter. We all at the orphanage are doing fine. This Easter eight of our children will be receiving Baptism and two first Communion. It is going to be a wonderful Easter for us all. Please remember all these children in your prayers.
Dominic Savio From this time I will try to write a little bit about each child who is with us. About how they came to us and when, about their previous families etc.. I will start with Dominic Savio who may be around 11 years old. His previous name was Mohan. He came to us along with his brother Gopi in Dec 2002. Their dad died when they were very young and then their mom became very sick and they came to the Government Hospital in my home town Tirupati. After a few days in the hospital she died and they were left orphans. They had some relatives in their town which is around 200 kms from Tirupati. They went to them but they did not want them, so they went back to the hospital in Tirupati because the nurses in the hospital were sympathetic to them and were taking good care of them. They admitted the little one (Mohan) in the hospital so that he will get some free food and the nurses gave them some used clothes. They were in the hospital for nearly 4 months. The pediatrician in the hospital was my brothers' class mate, so when my brother came home for holidays he went to visit his friend and came to know about these boys and sent them to me in Kadapa. Since the older boy, Gopi, was in his early teens and didn't know how to read or write I sent him to the Salesians (Don Bosco fathers) in Hyderabad and since then he was with them learning tailoring and basic reading and writing skills. He visits his brother once in a year. His brother Mohan who was baptized as Dominic Savio in November is with us. He is fun loving, intelligent and has very good memory power. He started learning Tamil two months back and he is already studying the 3rd grade Tamil text. Here are some of his photos.
with his brother
singing
serving Mass
cleaning
Well, all of us at Nav Jeevan wish you all a blessed and holy Easter. We remember you all in our prayers every day. Please keep praying for us also. In
Christ, February 26, 2006 Dear Friends in Christ, Hope you are doing fine in this New Year. We are all doing fine by the grace of God. It is one month since our move to Tirunelvelli. It is so peaceful and quiet here and so it is giving us more time to meditate on the things of God, and with the Spiritual conferences once every week and regular sacraments we are all striving to raise our hearts to God and to do His will.
We reached Tirunelveli at 4AM on the 19th January. That evening we had the blessing of our house and the first mass in our chapel and then consecration of all of us to Mother Mary. That night we had big fireworks celebration. That night we had a good sleep as we all were dead tired. The children are learning Tamil now. I don't know when I will start learning Tamil formally. Now I am going around for shopping and other things and managing by using little Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and English all mixed up! Only three of our children are joined in a regular school outside as they were studying in English medium school in Kadapa. The other children are being tutored at home. We are teaching them Tamil and English and hope to join them in a regular school next academic year (June).
Two days back we took our children on a picnic to Tuticorin. It is a town around 60kms from Tirunelveli. The children had nice time playing at the beach. They also had a chance to see the port and had a tour of the inside of a Ship which was loading up and getting ready to go to Singapore. We also went to Our Lady of Snows Church and the Cathedral. For the first time the children were able to see big Churches with high steeples. They were really happy to see such beautiful big Churches. We are very happy at our new place with all the sacraments available to us. The children also have improved a lot with regular confession and daily Communion. I hope and pray that we may get many vocations from these kids. Our
New address is: Orphanage
comes to Tradition!
The two ladies running the Orphanage assisted by a French lady
Now
she is completely in the hands of the priests, friends and benefactors
of the SSPX. She is now renting this new building, while looking
for a property she could eventually purchase -- if possible at
walking distance from our priory -- and then she will build according
to her needs. Fr D Couture
The new Nav Jeevan Orphanage near the SSPX Priory
The
St Pius X Hostel Boys, with Fr. Summers,
Catechism during the train journey
The
Prior, Fr. Summers, with one of the orphans
After
the Blessing, the first Mass by the District Superior,
20
orphans and 11 old people in their new home 2005
Group
picture of the clergy in the mission of the Society of St. Pius
X in Palayamkottai, India. 2003 The Feast day of St. Thomas The Apostle was a day of special celebration in India. After years of labor, we have finally been able to dedicate our new priory and Hostel in Palayamkottai. The Providential designs of God sent His Excellency Tissier de Mallerais to India to preach the annual retreat to the priests, and without any human intention, the dedication date fell on the feast day of our patron Apostle. The building itself is magnificent: four Ionic columns enclose a noble front porch; the interior of the building is much like a cloister, with a garden open to the sky. The resemblance to the House on Pennsylvania Ave. is wholly intentional. There is ample room for priests, brothers, and familiares, as well as space for office work, publications, and receiving visitors. It is set on an open ground of 2 acres, near the center of Palayamkottai, adjacent to Senthil Nagar, the foremost Catholic colony in the town. The extra land will provide room for future growth, which immediately includes a church and enlarged Boys Hostel. For the days celebrations, a huge thatched basilica was raised, and the interior decorated lavishly. The ceiling was covered with sequined drapes, and at the end there was erected a large stage and altar. The Hostel boys worked late into the night preparing everything, and rehearsing their rubrics. The crowds began arriving by bus, foot, and van at 9 AM, and by ten o'clkock the grownd was teeming with about 400 people, among them being confirmands, in their white dress. Faithful followers of Tradition came from distant cities: Madras, Trichy, Bombay, Bangalore…and most of our parishioners from South India made sure to come. Six Indian priests, who are now come to Tradition, also looked on: Fr. Matthias, Fr. Sebastian, Fr. Pancras, Fr. Xavier Ignatius, Fr. Albuquerque, and Fr. Sequeira. It was a grand and joyfull reunion of friends and family, for we Catholics do, indeed, form one family. The unity of hearts could be seen in the friendly atmosphere Fr. Blute had to play traffic cop to keep the confirmands in line, as they registered and received their cards. Indians don't like lines--they all want to cut in front. The Bishop arrived, straight from the priests retreat, and was thronged with people. When all was ready, the Bishop, Fr. Blute, and Fr. Pancras vested and processed into the basilica. The Veni Creator was intoned, and His Excellency addressed the crowd. Originally, the number of confirmands was estimated at about twenty…but what to our astonished eyes not twenty, but sixty young men and girls, to become soldiers of Christ. Such a consoling sight!! Truly, God has brought forth these fruits, without us even knowing it! After the Confirmation ceremony was over, we had the great blessing of celebrating a Solemn High Mass. The people were much moved by the stately ceremonies, especially by the excellent performance of the Hostel boys, whose gravity and solemnity provided a stark contrast to the hoopla of the Novus Ordo. After Mass, the altar was screened off, and we invited several prominent Catholics to speak for the occasion. The Bishop spoke of how important it is to protect the young from corrupting influences, and he commended the work of our Boys Hostel. Fr. Blute expressed his great joy and satisfaction at seeing the army of soldiers of Christ, like the dry bones of Jeremias, to spring from the ground, fully armed. Also addressing the crowd were Benny Joseph, head of the Dept. of Economics at Christ College, and a long-time supporter of the Latin Mass, and Mr. G. Selvaraj, a local school Correspondent and an active collaborator in our work. Then, the new building was blessed by the Bishop, and the Managing Trustee Mr. Innocent Regis cut the ribbon to inaugurate the new priory and Hostel. After so much food for the soul and mind, you can believe, everyone was very hungry. For this purpose, a festive meal was prepared and served to all… chicken biriyani, vengayam, mango jam, and more! Everyone went home confident that the work of Tradition was soon to take off in a big way, and that God's blessing was upon us
August 4: Three ladies from Bombay managed to get all their papers to join us in Rome and thus to represent India. June 17: In the last month, we received two astonishing donations of new books: one bookstore in Texas donated 8 crates of their overstock, and another generous soul donated $1000 worth of Tan books for building up our priory library. May God bless them for all the good which will come from those books. We also received permission to build a community hall (chapel) in Christurajapuram and we are well on the way to receive Government recognition for our Primary school. With the help of Children in Need, in Essen, Germany, we were able to construct a new classroom, and staff rooms for the teachers in our school of Christurajapuram. We also were able to buy lots of furnishings necessary for the school. Enrollment has held steady at 70. Great thanks to C.I.N. Fr. Blute completed one year of teaching in Magdalene Matriculation. He has also signed on to teach Creative Writing in English for one more year. May 31: In the last two months, we celebrated 3 weddings in Nagerkoil, in a place called Christu Nagar, where the sheep are left without a shepherd; In March, and May there were two conversions from Hinduism to the Catholic Faith--after sufficient instruction. May 30: Day of recollection for the Boys of St Pius X Hostel. May 20: After literally years of efforts, Fr Blute was finally able to procede to the inauguration of the St. Pius X Boys hostel, located at a walking distance from the Palayamkottai priory. May 3: Fr George Maurel left India temporarily to fill in a vacant post in Sri Lanka. April 16, Palm Sunday: Many of our faithful participated in a Palm Sunday procession of some 300 people in Tuticorin. It was followed by a very nice 6 hour recollection by Fr. Pancras Raja. April 7: Fr. Edwin returned from a 6 week tour of Europe, during which he spread to dozens of Mass centers and thousands of Traditional Catholics the good news of our Mission in India. For the first time, an Indian priest made presentations in England, a nation to which Mother India is historically linked. Jan-Mar: The school in Christurajapuram got a big new classroom, a staff room, and increased rations at the noon day meal. The schoolyard is now dominated by a statue of St. Pius X, thanks to a faithful of Germany. The school in Christurajapuram also received government recognition, after a year of preparation. The Society received a plot of land as a gift in the subdivision of St. Alphonsa. Fr. Blute completed one year of teaching English successfully. The mission was pleased, thrilled, and consoled with the 1-year visit of Mr. Isaac Moats, seminarian from the SSPX seminary of Winona, USA. Mr. Moats wanted to experience one of the Society’s most difficult missions before proceeding any further. Another visitor, Gabriel Swatzell, 20 years old from Spokane, WA, USA has arrived. He helps keep the house clean. The prior has held a monthly day of recollection every month for the priests. Outside priests are now beginning to frequent it. A grand Solemn High Mass was celebrated in Trichy for the wedding of Mary Jude and her newly baptized husband Marcel. Fr. Pancras Raja assisted as Deacon. Fr. Edwin has been assisting at the hearing of confessions in the shrine of Kadal Matha, Our Lady of the Sea, and Our Lady of Fatima Church, Vallioor, at the request of the parish priest. 1999 December 8: Many of our priests renewed their membership, their oblation within the ranks of the Society of St. Pius X. May we all persevere unto the end… November 25: In Bombay, while Fr. Maurel was recovering from his Indian 'welcome' (only a gentle bug…) the Redemptorist Fathers flew East to Europe and Fr Couture flew West back to base in the early hours of the day (1.30am,2.30am… ) November 23-24: While the two Redemptorists visited the shrine of St. Francis Xavier in Goa, the District Superior stayed in the South to discuss apostolic and administrative matters. November 19: Fr. George Maurel left Singapore for Bombay and Palayamkottai to begin his new Indian apostolate. November 15-20: Second priestly Retreat by the Redemptorist Fathers for 5 priests. |
