The three languages spoken captured the
history of the people at the Mass. These Syro-Malabar Catholics came from
Kerala, India, where Malayalam is spoken. Now a part of the St. Jude Community,
the Northern Virginians celebrate Mass at St. Andrew the Apostle Church in
Clifton, and intersperse Malayalam with English. And for a few hymns and
prayers, they use Syriac, which is a dialect of Aramaic — the language spoken
by Christ. The rite traces its roots to the apostle Thomas, who brought the
faith to India.
Seventeen children celebrated their
first Holy Communion with Auxiliary Bishop Mar Joy Alappatt of the St. Thomas
Syro-Malabar Diocese of Chicago May 26; eight of them also were confirmed. The
diocese, which encompasses all of the United States, was established in 2001
and is growing. This year, the diocese will ordain its first priest native to
the U.S.
First communicants and their parents
processed into the church to present the bishop with a tray of flower petals
with prayers and offerings for the church. In their liturgy, the offertory
occurs at the beginning of Mass, said Felix Simon, a parishioner and catechist
of the community. Also in the Eastern tradition, children are baptized and
confirmed at the same time. The children who were baptized in Roman Catholic
churches also received the sacrament of confirmation.
During his homily, Bishop Alappatt
showed the boys and girls a picture of the day he received his first Communion,
which he said was one of the most beautiful and important days in his life.
“Don’t leave Jesus here in the church,” he told them. “Jesus wants to come into
your home, to eat with you, to study with you, to play with you. Jesus wants to
accompany you.”
During the Mass, the children led the
congregation in a Syriac hymn and the Our Father. “This is the fourth year in
succession that we’ve had Syriac as sort of a rite of passage,” said Simon.
Much like Latin in the Western tradition, Syriac was used in their liturgy
until the vernacular replaced it in the early 1960s. As part of the Aramaic
Project, started by his friend Father Joseph Palackal, Simon and others are
trying to keep the ancient tongue alive.
“It was not being used, so that
knowledge base is lost,” said Simon. “We’re trying to reintroduce some of the
elements of the Syriac hymns. For the older generation, it’s nostalgic.”
Though it was hard at first for them to
grasp the pronunciation of the words, Simon thought the children sang spectacularly.
“The children were excited to learn a new language, especially the language
Jesus spoke,” he said. “When you say the Our Father it’s almost the exact words
(of) Jesus.”
Find out more
Fr. Joseph Palackal will speak on Syriac chants and
Aramaic Christianity in India May 31 at noon at the Library of Congress’
Whitall Pavilion, Jefferson Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington.
To learn more, go to the Christian Musicological Society of India.
Buy photos at catholicherald.smugmug.com.
