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TSUNAMI-PRAYERS Jan-6-2005 (970 words) Roundup. With photos. xxxn
U.S. holiday festivities give way to prayers for tsunami victims
By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- At a time of year normally marked by festive celebrations, many Catholics in the United States grieved over relatives and friends in the tsunami-ravaged areas of Asia.
It also was a time of prayer and generosity as Catholics gathered at Masses and offered money to help survivors.
About 150 Washington-area Catholics with roots in Sri Lanka met at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Potomac, Md., on New Year's Day for a Mass to remember victims and survivors of the devastating tsunamis that swept through part of their country on the day after Christmas.
"We needed to come together," said Dakshi Desilva, holding his 2-and-a-half-year-old son, Drushan, after the Mass.
The Dec. 26 undersea earthquake and resulting tsunamis left a trail of death and devastation through 12 countries bordering the Indian Ocean. More than 150,000 people are estimated to have died, including 30,000 in Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southeast coast of India. The United Nations estimates that millions in the region lack proper shelter.
"Prayer helps everyone. This is our way of uniting together," said Anomi Wijesooriya, a member of St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Derwood, Md., who helped organize the Mass.
"If it happens to one family, it happens to all (of our families)," said Wijesooriya. "You can't begin to think of everyone who goes through this, what they must be feeling, the hunger, the cold, the wet, the fear, the sadness."
According to the Catholic Almanac, nearly 7 percent of Sri Lanka's 19 million people are Catholic. About 69 percent of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, 15 percent are Hindu and 8 percent are Muslim.
Nihal Goonewardene, the president of the Sri Lanka Association of Washington, spoke at the end of Mass. He thanked the Sri Lankan community for their generosity, noting that $80,000 had been initially raised, including $32,000 at a special New Year's Eve gathering.
He noted that school-age youths born in the United States have likewise responded with generosity to help their ancestral homeland.
Goonewardene estimated that about 1,000 families with Sri Lankan roots now live in the Washington metropolitan area.
In the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, the destruction in Sri Lanka had a special meaning for Father Edwin Savundra, who had celebrated Masses for several parishes along the hard-hit Jaffna coastline from 1984 to 1996.
During that period he was philosophy department dean at St. Francis Xavier Seminary in the Diocese of Jaffna and ministered to several parishes.
Although most of the news he heard from Jaffna was of devastation, there was one story of preservation.
A priest at a parish where Father Savundra used to celebrate Mass in Mullaitivu, recounted how the parishioners gathered for an outdoor Mass a few miles away from their church on Dec. 26.
The decision not to have the Mass inside saved their lives, said Father Savundra. While the Mass was in progress, the church was swept away by a tidal wave.
"It was providential," said Father Savundra, pastor of Nativity Church in Cleveland, Minn.
In the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kan., Indian-born Father Thomas Reddy Aduri was vesting for Mass Dec. 26 when he first heard about the tragedy. As soon as Mass was over, the associate pastor of Holy Spirit Parish in Overland Park turned on the television to hear the initial news reports of the devastation.
Father Aduri called his sister in the inland city of Cuddapah, India, to confirm the reports. He learned that his inland hometown of Guntur was untouched but that people on the coast were less fortunate.
Father Aduri and Holy Spirit pastor, Father Harry Schneider, organized a fund-raising drive for the victims in India, starting with appeals at Masses over the weekend of Jan. 1-2. Initial efforts raised more than $14,000.
In other parts of the archdiocese, three parishes served by Indian-born Father Arul Carasala began taking up special relief collections at Mass.
"This was their idea, not mine," said Father Carasala.
Father Carasala was unable to contact his relatives in India for several days because of power and telephone outages.
"The first couple of days were a nightmare for me," he said.
When he was able to get through, he learned that his immediate family was safe.
In Detroit, two congregations of Catholics from India began offering prayers and donating money as soon as news of the tragedy arrived.
"I'm asking all of our people to give up at least one day's salary or wages to help people affected by this tragedy," said Father Matthew Charthakuzhiyil, who ministers to Indian Catholics of the Syro-Malankara rite.
In Los Angeles, the offers to help have been encouraging, said Maria Perales, archdiocesan Catholic Relief Services director.
"It's been very heartwarming -- the phone hasn't stopped ringing," she said.
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger M. Mahony on Dec. 27 urged prayers and donations for the victims. He established a special Southeast Asia Disaster Fund.
The Tidings, archdiocesan newspaper, received sad news in an e-mail from a priest in India who previously was a pastor in the archdiocese.
Father Christopher Lawrence e-mailed that 10 Catholics in his Diocese of Ootacamund were killed while on a holiday trip to the seaside Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health at Vailankanni.
The Miami Archdiocese announced that the annual Migration Day Mass at St. Mary Cathedral this year, scheduled for Jan. 9, will be dedicated to the tsunami victims. Miami Archbishop John C. Favalora has asked that all 118 archdiocesan parishes take up a collection on that day to aid the victims.
- - -
Contributing to this story was Mark Zimmermann in Washington, Pat Norby in St. Paul, Joe Bollig in Kansas City, Robert Delaney in Detroit and Paula Doyle in Los Angeles.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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