Mangalore: Plays Add Charm to Seminary Day Celebrations at St Joseph's, Jeppu

Anil Fernandes

Mangalore, Dec 8: St Joseph's Interdiocesan Seminary celebrated its most delectable day, the 'Seminary Day' on Thursday, December 8.

Every year St Joseph's 'Seminary Day' celebration is an occasion for the Josephites to come together and thank the Lord for His blessings. Besides it is an opportunity for the Josephite alumni to return to their Alma Mater.

The seminary day celebration began in the morning with the Eucharistic celebration in the seminary chapel, presided over by Fr Patrick Rodrigues, director, Fr Muller Hospital. In his homily, he spoke on the aspect of faithfulness to Christ in becoming Christ's disciples. He also invited the students to study with earnestness the current social issues in order to be effective leaders of the Church.

The opening of the cultural evening was at 5.30 pm in the seminary premises. A wide variety of audience including the Bishop of Mangalore, benefactors, priests, religious, neighbours, relatives and family members of seminarians and invitees from various institutions were present.

The bishop of Mangalore, Dr Aloysius Paul D'Souza, in his presidential address expressed his appreciation for the training imparted to the seminarians. Stressing the importance of priestly formation, the bishop called upon the seminarians to have an experience of Christ like the first disciples. He further pointed out that witnessing Christ in a world of consumerism and agnosticism means strengthening the faith of the people. The task of new must be a help to the people to return to the sense of the sacred.

Fr Joseph Martis, the Rector of St Joseph's Seminary welcomed the august audience. In his report, the Rector presented a summary of the various activities of the current academic year. In addition he mentioned that currently there are altogether 255 students in the seminary hailing from 30 Dioceses and 5 religious congregation and 53 laity students.

The English play 'The Bells' based on the struggles of the conscience in facing personal evil in one's life was staged on the occasion. It was well appreciated by one and all.

The Konkani Bhingari enacted the story of the 'Ten Virgins' from the Bible and made the audience aware that 'one is old enough to die ever since birth' and therefore 'one must be prepared'. The Kannada Academy with their 'Brashtachara Elli?' appealed to the gathering to remove corruption from the heart as it could be the first step one can probably take against the augmenting phenomena of corruption. The Tamil Beschi Academy presented a dance related to the struggle of life. The Hindi Academy staged the intrigue and intrusion of the western culture into that of Nagpur. The Malayalam Mar Thoma Samajam through the play 'Achante Ponmakkal' presented the necessity of having a refined attitude towards the physically and mentally disabled of the society.

The Mangalore seminary in its 133 years has been the 'Alma Mater' for about 2000 priests who have gone out of the portals of this seminary to places all over India and overseas.