Team Goemkarponn
OLD GOA: On December 3, Old Goa will commemorate the feast of Saint Francis Xavier, known to the devout as Goycho Saib, at a unique pandal on the grounds of the Basilica of Bom Jesus.
Following the nine-day novenas that precede the feast, the event will be celebrated with a great deal of pomp and devotion.
The feast day is on December 3, 1552, the anniversary of the saint’s death while traveling to China at the age of forty-six.
The feast day’s itinerary has been provided by Fr. Henry Falcao, Convenor of the Exposition Committee. Starting at 3.45 am, the first mass will be followed by services at 5 am, 6 am, 7.15 am, 8.30 am, and 10.30 am with a high mass in English.
There will be other English masses at 12.15, 3.30, and 5 p.m., as well as another English service at 6.15 p.m.
The solemn mass will be celebrated at 10.30 am with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, as the principal celebrant. Bishops and priests will join Archbishop Filipe Neri Cardinal Ferrao as concelebrants.
“We are the Messengers of the Good News” is the theme for this year’s festivities.
While traveling to China, he became ill on Sancian Island on November 21, 1552, and passed away on December 2, 1552.
Goa received his body on December 11, 1553. Francis Xavier was proclaimed a saint on March 12, 1622.
In 1782, the first exhibition of St. Francis Xavier’s relics took place in Goa over three days, from February 10 to 12.
Rumors that the Saint’s body had been taken by the Jesuits and that an empty casket had been left behind were refuted by the exposition.
Only after the liberation of Goa in 1964 did expositions start to take place every ten years.
