[Gulf Goans] Happy "MONT SAIBINNINCHEM FEST" - "Devache Mathe"!

[GOA-WORLD.COM]

Happy "MONT SAIBINNINCHEM FEST"  -  "Devache Mathe"! 
 
 
  Wishing everyone a happy �MONT SAIBINNINCHEM� fest.  It is a great day for Christians all over India.  The Bombayites must be in a great festive mood today at �Bendrachea Festak�.The novenas of this feast began on Sunday, August 29.  During our childhood, these were the best novenas besides �Salvi� which preceded �Advogad Saibinnimchem fest� in Anjuna, when few children were selected to dress as �anj� (angels).  However, at Mount Mary�s novenas all children got a chance to participate in �Devache Mathe� act.Although we had lot of flowers in our garden and vases, we still wanted to have a variety of flowers in our little basket at every novena.  So, every evening during novenas we would go to neighbors� house(s) and request them to give us flowers and nobody ever refused because they knew the purpose very well.  We
 would bring flowers and immerse them in a container or glasses so that they remained fresh.  If we didn�t find time to collect flowers in the evening, we would wake up early the next morning and go to neighbors� house(s) to ask them flowers.  Here again, they did not mind our disturbance.  On the contrary, they sometimes thanked us for waking them up.
As soon as we woke up, we would first fill the base of the basket with May Flower branch leaves and then meticulously arrange flowers in the basket by tucking them to its sides.  When we finished dressing up, we would finally place the white crape paper flower crown on our head.  Once it was on the head and we looked in the mirror, we would get that angelic, majestic feeling.  Those who had received the first Holy Communion would save their crowns for use at these novenas and it would be used until it lasted and did not fit one�s head.  Others had to buy new ones.  We would then leave home for the church.  We walked to church slowly but briskly making sure flowers did not come out of the basket and fall on the road.
When the novena mass came to an end, children would get up from benches and stand in two parallel rows in the middle of the church.  This was the time when public took notice of flower arrangements in our baskets and sometimes complimented us after the novenas.  Children would then proceed to the statue of Mount Mary, place flowers at its feet and fall back in row.  
 Finally, �mestir� would play the hymn �DEVACHE MATHE� which everyone sang.  While the hymn was sung, children placed their hands in baskets, picked up natural confetti (May Flower branch leaves) from them and threw it up in the air thus bringing an end to the novena ceremony of the day.  As children, Mount Mary�s novenas meant a lot to us; they were some of the happiest moments in our lives.  Yes, those were the angelic days to which we belonged and which now remain only memories in our minds.  Once the feast was over, we would save the crown in a box.  Similarly, we would hang the basket at the end of a "dannddi" (clothes hanger made out of a bamboo bar) where it remained safe until the next year.That�s all from Dom�s antique shelf.
Moi-mogan,Domnic FernandesAnjuna/Dhahran, KSAwww.goa-world.com
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