Fellow readers Goa Goans + - = Special Status
In the last few months the term “special status” keeps appearing in the Goa press. What exactly is this may I ask? Are we special at being spectacularly good for nothing when it comes to family life or in 2015 just good for dancing, music and chasing money. For your information, the word “special status” for Goa has been discussed since 1543, approximately 472 years ago. In a letter dated 20 October 1543, St Francis Xavier wrote to Father Ignatius Loyola to persuade the Pope in Rome to change the Lenten season in Goa mainly because people were not fasting. Had this been agreed all those years ago, Catholic Goa would be out of step with the rest of the world. As you know, gospel readings on a Sunday are the same wherever you are today and cannot be changed ….Just saying and sharing with you information on our DNA past and present. Timing is everything. Even today examples like World Goa Day which is the 19/20 August is celebrated by our people around the world in different months according to weather and hall availability. If people were not given a time to get to work they may never turn up at all. I give below an extract from page 141 of the above mentioned letter which is from the book The Life and Letters of St Francis Xavier by Henry James Coleridge. This letter is dated Goa Oct 20,1543 to the Father Master Ignatius of Loyola from St Francis Xavier Quote And, as I said before, in the season of Lent all the troops take arms and go on board the vessels for a sea campaign, and the merchants in like manner are in perpetual motion to and fro. For the Portuguese here, having greater command of sea than of land, are engaged in commerce, and support themselves and their families thereby. Thus, what with the excessive heat which I speak of, and what with the almost continual voyages of the Portuguese, Lent is disregarded and few persons observe the law of fasting. The Governor has charged me to lay all these facts carefully before you, and to beg of you in the name of God, that if such a thing be possible, you will get the Pope to change the time of Lent in these parts to the months of June and July, at which time of year the heat begins to relent, and there is much less navigation, on account of the roughness of the sea. So the milder temperature would make it easy for most people to fast, and the return of Lent at that time would be a sort of remainder, and they would then easily obey the precepts of the Church as to confession and communion. This measure is one which seems of the greatest importance for the service of God, unless you see any objection to it. The Governor entreats you earnestly not to let anything that can be done in this matter be left unattempted through any want of exertion on the part of his advocate. You will be rewarded for your trouble by the gratitude of all the inhabitants of these countries and you will have a share in the fruits of the divine worship and the merits which will be acquired in consequence of all those graces. Unquote Melvyn Fernandes Thornton Heath, Surrey, United Kingdom 18 October 2015
