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At the end of the academic and formation year at St. Gaspar Ashram Major Seminary in Bangalore, the Rector, Fr. John Bosco and the 12 students who finished 4th year Theology conducted a popular mission in the parish of St. Jude, in Bangalore. Fr. Amal Charles, assistant parish priest of Sadras parish in Tamil Nadu joined the team. St. Jude parish is a new established parish of the periphery of Bangalore composed mainly of working class people. The parish is formed by 480 catholic families. The mission has been prepared months in advance when the missionaries, with the leaders of the parish, announced the mission and started meeting with the 17 groups of the parish. The goal was to form “centers of listening” where families would meet together in small Christian communities. The mission lasted 10 days. Besides the traditional preaching during the different masses, each day was dedicated to a particular theme, such as marriage, sacrament of reconciliation, youth animation, the word of God, etc..
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The missionaries also went around the parish visiting all families; listening to many problems and answering questions, animating and energizing the various parish groups, especially the youth group (that has more than three hundred members), reconciling many with God, the Church and among themselves. The parish priest and the parish council described the mission as a success because “people’s hearts were shaken”. More modestly, Fr. John Bosco, the director of the mission said: “The fruits of the mission will not come immediately. They will come slowly and the parish people need to be constantly accompanied with our prayer and our commitment to follow up what has been started.”
Fr. John Bosco has already received invitations from other parishes of the City of Bangalore to have missions. It could be a new start of a traditional ministry of the Congregation and part of the mission project of the Indian Vicariate.
Text: Fr. Francesco Bartoloni, CPPS
Photos: Victor Albert Leo, Francis Xavier Mallalan[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]