Mangalorean Catholic Association EC Holds Monti Festh
USA: September 8 turned out to be a glorious fall day in New Jersey and the perfect day to celebrate Monthi Saibinnichem Festh. Mangalorean Catholics, across the world, prepare for weeks to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary at her Nativity.
Mangalorean Catholic Association – East Coast (MCA-EC) celebrated in a spectacular manner at Our Lady of Peace Church, North Brunswick, New Jersey on Saturday, September 8. The event started with the Mass at 2:30 PM and attendees from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania filled the Church, The traditional entrance procession carrying the statue of infant Mother Mary was accompanied by the hymn ‘Bhakthin Urben’. The procession was led by the Vado Gurkars and Gurkarns holding the colorful umbrellas followed by members of the MCA-EC carrying the palki bearing the statue of “Maria Bambina”. Next in the procession line were the current executive board members followed by the five Mass Celebrants.
The five mass celebrants were Rev Wency Rodrigues, Rev Ron Machado, Rev Vinod Fernandes,, Rev Sunil D’Souza and Deacon Glen Mendonca. The Mass was in both Konkani and English to make this a very special celebration for all attendees. Fr Wency opened with the introductory rites which included the entire congregation singing Happy Birthday to Our Blessed Virgin Mary and prepared the congregation to invite the Lord into their hearts. After the First Reading by Maria Pereira and a searing solo rendition of the Responsorial hymn “Somia Tujem Utar” by Merlin Mendonca, Deacon Glen shared the Gospel. Fr, Sunil explained the scripture in the most spiritually fulfilling homily speaking on Catholic family values and there was a special message for one and all.
The youth from the MCA-EC family read the Offertory Prayers and the families from the current and prior MCA-EC Executive Boards brought the gifts to the altar including the Novem for blessing. It was a beautiful service with the Choir’s melodious music and hymns in Konkani filling the church. After the concluding rites and final blessing, the celebrants and the altar servers lined up for the recession and the choir sang ‘Somya Haavn Vetha’ as the recessional hymn.
The choir was led by Merlin Mendonca and Bernie Pinto, with Anita Pais coordinating practice sessions. The choir were accompanied by Tasha Pais, as organist, and Amelia Fernandes, as violinist. It was apparent as to the effort and practice that went into the fantastic choir singing at the Mass which clearly moved the attendees. Vanitha Furtado gave a great rendition of the Ave Maria.
The traditional procession for the showering of flowers began from the church to the accompaniment of the hymn “Sakkad Sangatha Melya”. The children carried fragrant rose petals in bowls and were joined in the procession with their parents. The statue of infant Mother Mary was placed and the choir sang the traditional hymn ‘Moriyek Hogolsiya’ during the showering of flowers. There was so much spirituality and devotion during this worship that everyone felt the immense warmth and blessings of our most Blessed Mother. What a joyous birthday celebration of the Nativity Feast.
Special thanks to Arine for building a beautiful palki for Baby Mary. Sunil Lobo, Gurkar of the Pennylvania and Delaware based Bhagevonth Vado stated “After a number of years, I heard a Mass in Konkani which filled me with nostalgia remembering past Monthi Fest Masses in Bangalore, India”. Maria Pereira of the Jersey City based Infant Jesus Vado added “The Mass was very well organized and even through we are very far from home, I am experiencing the same culture as if I never left home”.
Members of the MCA-EC family donated many weeks and precious hours volunteering to help with the celebration in the church and the church hall (cultural program) right from church & hall set up, registrations, sound set up, and even coming forward to commit and serve the Lord as Altar Servers, Lectors, Readers, Ushers, Offertory takers, Eucharistic Ministers and the Choir. Not to forget the volunteers who religiously showed up at 7 pm the night before to prep up the main church, the church hall, the foyer, tarp set up, etc.
As always, we had a record registration of around 350 attendees with last minute requests to register. Overall, the response was amazing and overwhelming. The registration began at 4:30 pm and was managed by Ben Sequeira, Treasurer, and his excellent team of volunteers. The registration team made sure that everybody who had registered were checked in a very quick and efficient way. The grand cultural program was a befitting way to continue with the celebrations of the feast day. Each of the children were presented with a custom designed bookmark that had the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and Glory Be in Konkani. Hot snacks from Babco Foods/Dou Oven and Dou Oven’s tea was promptly served. A perfect way to get the crowd meet and greet each other and get settled down before the very special cultural program started.
The much-awaited cultural program began with a welcome note by Aarti D’Souza, President. Aarti welcomed the guests warmly and thanked Bob & Olivia Vaz and Dou Oven for the delicious snacks that the guests had enjoyed. She, also, thanked the clergy and made special mention of the thought provoking sermon by Father Sunil D’Souza, Aarti made a special mention of the wonderful performance by the choir and hoped that the children in attendance will carry on the great tradition of celebrating Monthi Festh.
The cultural event was enlivened by the hilarious and charismatic emcees, Blossom Pothan and Manesh Aranha who, also, had a couple of fun games for the attendees.
Below are the list of performances by each Vado:
Moriye Vado: Adult Dance + Skit, Kids Dance.
Kursa Vado: Adult, Teen & Kids Dance
Sacred Heart Vado: Skit
Divine Mercy Vado: Adult & Kids Dance, Skit
Sangatha Vado: Adult & Kids Dance
Fatima Vado: Adult & Teen Dance
Bhagevohth Kutam Vado: Kids Dance
Infant Jesus Vado: Adult Dance
Bernie Pinto, Royce Mcwan & Anita Pinto planned and managed the entire cultural program with such finesse and efficiency making sure that all was in order behind the scenes. It took this team weeks of planning and hard work to get a huge line up of sixteen (16) performances as part of this cultural extravaganza. The performances were entertaining, lively and humorous.
There was a raffle and the airline ticket prizes were won by Joe Martis and Sydney Fernandes. Sydney Lasrado served as auctioneer to auction the flowers and the winning bidders for the flower arrangements were Kevin D’Costa, Nancy Castelino and Olivia Vaz. Meldon Mendonca was presented with a prize certificate for winning the MCA-EC Investment Game Challenge.
Melrin Sequeira, Vice-President, delivered the vote of thanks. She thanked sponsors Babco Foods, DTDC Courier, Ajay Patel, Ivan & Anita Pinto, Melvin and Premilla Mendonca and the Sayeed Family with special acknowledgements to Norbert Mendes, Carmeline Britto, Arun Menezes, Christopher Monis, Melrin, also, expressed special thanks to Arine for decorating the stage as well as decorating the palki. The whole event was a huge success and there were so many people who had come forward to help and support the success of the event. The list was long but Melrin went through the entire list with aplomb.
After grace was said dinner was opened at 8:00 pm. The dinner was filled with traditional vegetarian dishes and a fish fry ending with delicious comforting vorn. Food was specially catered from Dou Oven, Monmouth Junction, NJ and Leo Lobo catered the “pathrade”. The unanimous comment was that the food was good, while maintaining Mangalorean Monthi Fest tradition at the same time. This was followed by the crowd singing Laudate Dominium with such fervor that Mozart would have been proud. What followed was even more music and dancing to the traditional Mangalorean baila numbers played by DJ Gladson Cardoza . The energetic music got the guests to their feet and it was a terrific sight to see the whole floor packed with dancers having the time of their lives.
The amazing moments throughout the day were expertly captured by Christopher Monis. Christoper made sure that every special moment was captured and the pictures clearly hit the mark in showing what a successful, enjoyable
and memorable event the 2018 Monthi Festh was.
And when it was time to say good night, the volunteers responsible for cleanup were right on the mark making sure that everything was put back in order and cleaned up. We couldn’t have asked for a better way to support each other and experience the true fellowship in our community. This day of celebration of the Feast of Nativity of our Blessed Mother will not be forgotten by all those who attended this event for years to come. Part of the profit from the event will be donated to Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project, a US based charity, whose mission is to build schools in India to educate children from economically disadvantaged families.
