Mysore: St Anthony's Feast Celebrated at Dornahalli with Devotion
Pics: Stanley Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mysore (NM)
Mysore, Jun 15: The annual feast of St Anthony, Dornahalli here was celebrated on Wednesday June 13 following a spiritual preparation of nine days of novena. The preparation began with the flag hoisting by Fr J B Xavier, director, ODP, Mysore on Monday, June 4.
As a part of the spiritual preparation, mass was held on the theme 'strengthening our faith in Christ' at 11 am and 5.30 am every day, followed by procession and benediction. Fr J B Sequeira, Fr John Peter Rego, Fr Patrick Jonnes and Fr Seluvy Muthu preached on the novena days.
The pontifical festal mass was celebrated at 10 am by Fr Dr Thomas A Vazhaphilly, bishop of Mysore diocese. For the benefit of the devotees, there were holy masses offered every hour from 5 am onwards in different language.
At 11.30 am the mass was offered in Tamil by Fr Joseph Abraham, at 1 pm in English by Fr Walter Lobo OCD and at 5.30 in Kannada by Fr Ignatius Paul Pinto, former bishop of Bangalore diocese, followed by procession and benedication.
Fr John Bosco, Fr Anthony Swamy, Fr Prashanth, Fr Prakash Barnes, Fr Marie Joseph, Fr JB Xavier, Fr Cyril D’Souza, Fr Michael Marie were among others joined together with the parish priest Fr Gilbert Disilva, reaching out to the spiritual need of the devotees and to celebrate the feast of the wonder worker in a pious manner.
Thousands of people from different castes and creed gathered to honour the saint. The devotees expressed gratitude for the favours bestowed on them and fulfilled their promises made to the saint.
St Anthony was born on August 12, 1195 in Lisbon. He was a zealous student and greatly devoted. He joined Canous Regular of St Augustine. Later in 1220 he was made aware of the will of God for him to be a Franciscan. As a Franciscan he became a mode of faith, hope, truth and love.
St Anthony died on June 13, 1231 after 36 years of life rewarded with the power of performing miracles and much more love for God.
The miraculous statue of St Anthony of Padua is enshrined in the little village of Dornahalli.
A humble peasant while ploughing his field suddenly came across a small wooden statue. Thinking it as just a doll he gave it to his children to play. The tradition says the saint instructed the peasant many a time in dreams to have a special shrine in his honour and that he and his family would be blessed. The peasant who turned a deaf ear to the instructions had to suffer with calamities. Later, he erected a little shrine in the field where the statue was found after which he prospered exceedingly well.
Since then, devotees have flocked the shrine to seek the saint's blessings day after day.