Dehon Prema Nilayam, Gorantla

Gorantla is a place where our minor seminary is situated, a bit far from the city of Guntur. In our minor seminary there are students who come here to know about their vocation with the Lord. Just two weeks before the Feast of the Sacred Heart, around 12 new candidates arrived at our seminary. They are all tine and simple students coming from different backgrounds. At the moment they speak only Telugu and we need to cooperate with them to help them feel at home.

There are also other candidates who have to finish their intermediate courses in the city of Guntur. In the midst of all these people and experiences we celebrated the feast.

The preparations for the feast, both spiritual and manual, were quite simple and matching our way of life. Spiritual preparation has been occurring along with the liturgical calendar, because after Easter Sunday, almost in every week we celebrated the consequent feasts and solemnities.

In one way it helped all Christians to prepare ourselves for the feast. The depth and quality is very genuine. I say genuine because we are only in the initial stage of prayer and deep experiences. But the preparation helped us to meditate and contemplate on the pierced Heart of Jesus who is opened to everyone.

In the manual preparations we tried to clean our house in the best way possible. The day before the feast, on Thursday, we cleaned all the rooms in and out very well. On Thursday afternoon we started decorating our house, mainly concentrating on the chapel, dining hall, recreation and entrance halls. All the candidates were quite happy to show their abilities apart from studies and other works. The Senior brothers took the initiative to guide and help the Juniors in doing the decoration.

In the morning of the Feast Day, we went to our neighbors, the Sisters’ College to celebrate and participate in the Eucharist. It was a different experience to celebrate our feast with other people, not limiting ourselves to our own community. In one way we see the open Heart extended to all people to share the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

In the evening, at 6 o’clock, there came a priest, who is the spiritual director of the students, Fr. Anthaiah, SDB. He gave us a short recollection to bring us close to the Heart of Jesus. At 6:30pm, we officially started our festive Adoration with our guests and students. The atmosphere was very good to pray and immerse ourselves in the Heart of Jesus.

During the Adoration, we prayed and adored the pierced Heart of Jesus in an intimate manner. At the end of Adoration we received the blessing to continue our tasks in a fruitful way. After Adoration we had a fellowship meal. The fellowship meal is a moment to share our love and happiness, and to express our hospitality to our guests: the seminarians and director of the diocesan minor seminary, the St. Anne Sisters, Mother Teresa Sisters, and the JMJ Sisters.

After the meal we performed some cultural programs to entertain our guests who came to bless us on our feast. Our entertainment and all the programs were concluded with the hymn of Mother Mary, and good prayers.

Thank you.

Br. Joseph Kumar M., SCJ