Bishop's Message

Dear Brother and Sisters, we need to praise and thank God for the opportunity and privilege given to all of us to celebrate Holy Week and Easter Triduum with the traditional gaiety and solemnity in April last month. After the unfortunate wave and outbreak of Covid-19, our beautiful and noble life at all stages was paralyzed making us handicapped from our otherwise routine life style of which we all were so used to and comfortable. Since a few months people seem to be enjoying freshness of air and breathe without face mask going about freely as if corona virus is a plague of the past. Let us not be overconfident. Let us continue to implore Divine assistance and mercy, blessings and providence as always. ‘God-is-with-us’ and hence He will take care of us. Let our trust in Him increase and the way of our life and manner of living correspond to Gospel message and values. Then we have nothing to fear.

We are still in the holy season of Easter practically this whole month till we will celebrate the Ascension of Our Lord on 29^th. Let the joy of the Risen Lord and His assurance of New Life with Him permeate our lives with tremendous hope in Him and faith in His Word and on the Teaching of the Church.

Month of May is also known as the Marian month, i.e. month of the holy Rosary traditionally recited in front of the grotto of Our Lady.  I request you all to continue with this traditional form of the recitation of the rosary; feast of Our Lady of Fatima will be celebrated on 13^th and Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on 31^st of this month hence as we honour and venerate our Blessed Mother Mary, let us all seek Her protection and intercession to be worthy of God’s mercy and benevolence.

Summer this year is hard and harsh. Shortage of water is being felt everywhere. We depend heavily on rain which seem to be playing hide-and-seek. Let us start praying for rain copious and in abundance so that this mother earth  of ours which gives us our daily bread and nourishes us with freshness of life, vegetation, crops and fruits may continue to assure us all that we need for our growth and happiness.

Please do not forget to pray for Udupi Diocese, its clergy, religious men and women and Lay Faithful who give their best to build this Mission which is nine years old. We are all an integral part of this Mission in the sincere effort to implement and translate the revisited Pastoral Plan 2025. The success of the vision, aims and objectives of this Plan totally and entirely depends on our conviction on and acceptance of it. Let us all join hands in our endavour of building Udupi Diocese and in its plans and projects is my request to you all and also a humble call to pray for me as well to be an effective instrument of God’s mission given to me through  my shepherding ministry. May God bless you.