Fr. William (Bill) Petrie sscc arrived on 29th June 1975 to India to work with Mother Teresa’s Leprosy patiences. On 29th June 2013 we completed 38 years of Sacred Hearts presence in India. The acceptance of local vocations started on 1994. A great gift for the Congregation and to the nation was the blessing of St. Damien Seminary at Bangalore.
The celebration began with a short historical note on the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts by Fr. Michael Shanahan,sscc. The Archbishop of Bangalore, Rt. Rev. Bernard Mores blessed the building and Fr. Jonathan A. Hurrel, sscc, Provincial of the US Province opened the building by cutting the ribbon and the archbishop blessed the whole seminary with holy water. Along with some twenty priests, good number of religious sisters, seminarians, neighbors and friends of the community, the Archbishop celebrated the Holy Eucharist, during which he blessed the altar and the tabernacle.
Followed by cultural programme organized by our candidates and prenovices, who are those who will live in this house. During which the Archbishop instructed that all are called to be missionaries… zealot missionary like St. Damien of Molokai. Final part of the celebration was fellowship meal.
There were 200 participated in the historical event. Fr. Bob Charlton,sscc, Vicar Provincial of US Province, Sr. Grace Tom, sscc, Fr. Sudhir Nayak sscc, Regional Superior, Sr. Vandana ,sscc, Fr. Antony Ajith, sscc were present for this milestone event of the Region of India. Fr. Santhosh,sscc the local superior thanked all those who were part of this construction work and all those participated in the celebration.
07/05/2013