Mother of Sorrows Church Panadura celebrates Diamond Jubilee
The Mother of Sorrows Church Panadura celebrates its 75th Diamond Jubilee of becoming a separate parish today.
The history of the Panadura church dates back to Portuguese times with the start of the Church of Mary Magdalene. After the capture by the Dutch and the persecution of the faithful, the church was re-established in the time of the British. “In 1864, a church devoted to the Mother of Sorrows was established in the Main Street, currently called the Old Galle road. The 150th anniversary of this old church will be celebrated next year.
Fr Sisira Priyashanth
Initially under the Moratuwa parish it was changed later to the Wadduwa parish. The church formed its own Panadura parish together with St. Anne’s church in Sarikkamulla and the Church of the Holy Rosary in Arukkgoda in 1938. Later Fr. Joseph Jayasuriya, seeing the large number of devotees in the area, built another church for the parish, St. Joseph’s church in Wattalpola,” said Lalith Fernando, son of the author of the 50th anniversary souvenir. Mr. Fernando also compiled the church website. It has taken him three months of hard work to research the history he says.
“Fr Alex Ranasinghe purchased the land on which the current church is built in 1952. The Sunday school building for the parish children was built by Fr. Raymond Samarakoon and Fr. Sunil Kumara renovated the old church giving it a more local architecture. Fr. Merl Shanthi Perera was the parish priest during its 50th anniversary and since then which many changes have taken place,” says the President of the Sacred Heart Association of the parish for 45 years, Carina Silva.
The Mother of Sorrows church, where more than 700 families worship still keeps its traditional novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour every Friday evening. This was started by Fr. Jayasuriya in 1966 to seek divine intervention for the church constructions which were stopped by the non-Christian population of the town. The parish lives in harmony with other religions and conducts an annual multi-religious service at the beach where all religious leaders participate to commemorate the tsunami catastrophe which took away the lives of many locals.
The launch of the CD, ‘Nimala Mariye’ and the premiere of the jubilee hymn marking the 75th anniversary was last Wednesday, September 4, at the Panadura town hall in the presence of the retired Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Colombo Most Rev. Oswald Gomes and other dignitaries representing other faiths and professions.
September 6, marked the hoisting of the flag symbolising the start of the season of reflection and repentance in preparation of the feast. Vespers was held on September 14 at 7 pm which will be organised by the Church youth. There was also an additional evening mass after which there was a get together of the parish community for an evening of fellowship and fun.
“We are now doing the renovations of the church and we are almost finished with stage one of the construction.
We started off with a meagre amount of money in our hands with the sole aim of giving people a better house of worship and thus far we have come a long way with only a short time. We only ask for the support and prayers of the patrons of the parish,” says parish priest Fr. Sisira Priyashantha.
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