PRESS RELEASE FROM THE JOSEPH NAIK VAZ INSTITUTE

Special Intention for Healing from Covid-19

We invite you to our live stream January 16, 2021 Feast Mass of St. Joseph Vaz, at 5:30 p.m. California time. It will be offered by Rev. Fr. Olvin Veigas S.J. from the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church at Mount Saint Joseph campus, Bangalore. Our main Intention this year is to pray for the victims of Covid-19 and their families, for First Responders, for national leaders to make wise policies, in Thanksgiving for vaccines, and Healing from Covid-19.

The single most consuming concern for humanity in 2020 has been the Coronavirus – Covid19 – pandemic. It is affecting 218 countries and territories around the world.

There have been 89,668,000 infections and 1,927,000 deaths so far.

The country most affected has been the U.S. with about a quarter of a million infections each day and about over three thousand deaths each day. We have had 374,072 deaths so far. In the first ten days of 2021, we have had 27,000 deaths already.

In California, not only have we had 50,000 new cases in the first ten days of 2021 but the ICU capacity of hospitals is falling to dangerously low levels.

We invite you to say our Prayer for Healing from Covid-19 through the intercession of St. Joseph Vaz, a saintly model for First Responders, which is on our website, www.josephnaikvaz.org

In all this, we are thankful for First Responders and frontline workers who provide those affected by this pandemic with health care and services, often with a risk to their own lives.

We ask you to read our article on our website about St. Joseph Vaz, as an Indian-Sri Lankan First Responder when he nursed the abandoned victims during the smallpox epidemic in 1697 in Kandy, Sri Lanka.

As well as our own Feast Mass, Bishop Oscar Cantü of San Jose, Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore, Bishop Peter Paul Saldanha of Mangalore, and Bishop Michael Barber S.J. of Oakland, California are offering Masses for the Feast of St. Joseph Vaz and for Covid–19 intentions. Messages of support have been received from Cardinal Oswald Gracias of Mumbai and Archbishop Felipe Neri of Goa.

If you have any questions about the Feast Mass we are offering on January 16, please phone Filomena Saraswati Giese at 1-510-325-1803 or George Pinto at 1-408-230-4858