Officially, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount,

colloquial Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation amo ...

ly known as Mount Bandra and Mount St Mary Church; is a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

(

shrine A shrine ( "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred space">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...: ''escri ...

) of the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, located at the

Bandra Bandra ( æːɳɖɾa is a coastal suburb located in Mumbai, the largest city of the Konkan division in Maharashtra, India. The area is located to the immediate north of the River Mithi, which separates Bandra from the Mumbai City district. It ...

neighbourhood of

Bombay (Mumbai) Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12.5& ...

, India. The

festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

of the nativity of

St Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto. ...

, also known as Holy Marymas or the Bandra Fest, is celebrated here on the 8th day of September: The auspicious occasion of the birth of the virgin-mother of

Jesus Christ Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

. The annual feast is followed by a week-long

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...

fête In the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies, a fête or fete is a public festival organised to raise money for a charity, typically held outdoors. It generally includes entertainment and the sale of goods and refreshments. Fetes are ty ...

, known in the northern

Konkan region The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the east. ...

as the "Bandra fair". The fair is thronged by

lakhs A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ...

tourist Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as being limited to holiday activity on ...

pilgrim The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as ...

s and devotees every year. Many visitors come to Mount St Mary Church in order to make their ''

mannat In the Indian subcontinent, mannat (, ) is a wish that one desires to come to fruition and the vow one makes to a deity or saint after his/her wish comes true. The word comes from the Persian language in which ''mannat'' (منّت), means "g ...

'' (wish) come true.

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

granted a decree of

canonical coronation A canonical coronation () is a pious institutional act of the pope, duly expressed in a formal decree of a papal bull, in which the pope bestows the pontifical right to impose an ornamental crown, a diadem or an aureola, aureole to an image of ...

to the shrine's reverenced Marian

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

on 21 October 1954, both signed and notarised by Cardinal

Giovanni Battista Montini Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

of the

Sacred Congregation of Rites The Sacred Congregation of Rites was a Congregation (Roman Curia), congregation of the Roman Curia, erected on 22 January 1588 by Pope Sixtus V by ''Immensa Aeterni Dei''; it was divided into two separate congregations by Pope Paul VI on 8 May 196 ...

. The statue of the

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

and the Prince of peace was crowned in a ceremony on 5 December 1954, by the late Cardinal

Valerian Gracias Valerian Gracias (23 October 1900 – 11 September 1978) was an Indian Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Bombay from 1950 until his death. He was made a cardinal in 1953 by Pope Pius XII. Biography Valerian Gracias was born in Ka ...

The basilica

The basilica stands on a

hillock A hillock or knoll is a small hill,The Free Dictionary
"hillock" entry, retrieved December 18, 2007 ...

, about 80 metres above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

overlooking the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

. It draws thousands of devotees and pilgrims annually, especially during the Bandra Fest. Many visitors attest to the

miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...

s worked by the

supernatural power Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanings since the an ...

at Mount Bandra. The shrine attracts people from all faiths who plead for favours, with others coming back expressing their gratitude. The church was

raid RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

ed and destroyed in 1738 during the Mahratta Invasion of Bassein, led by the Peshva Brahmin

Chimaji Appa Chimaji Balaji Bhat (c. 1707 – 17 December 1740), born as Antaji more commonly known as Chimaji Appa, was a military commander and statesman of the Maratha Empire. As the younger brother of Peshwa Bajirao I and the son of Peshwa Balaji Vishw ...

. It was rebuilt in the British Bombay era. During the Bandra Fair, the entire area is decorated with festoons and buntings. Many pitch up stalls to sell religious articles, flowers, snacks and sweets.

Wax figure A wax sculpture is a depiction made using a waxy substance. Often these are effigies, usually of a notable individual, but there are also death masks and scenes with many figures, mostly in relief. The properties of beeswax make it an excel ...

s of the Virgin Mary along with an assortment of candles shaped like hands, feet and various other parts of the body are sold at kiosks. The sick and the suffering choose a candle or wax figure that corresponds to their ailment or request and light it inside the church with the hope that Mother Mary will heed their appeals for help.

Statue of the Virgin Mary

Although the current structure and edifice of the shrine is just 100 years old, as it was rebuilt in British Bombay, the history behind the current statue of Blessed Mary goes back to the 16th century, when

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priests brought the statue and constructed a

chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

on Mount Bandra, which was then a part of the

Portuguese East Indies The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...

. In 1700, Sunni Arab pirates raiding the area, were interested in the gilt-lined object held in the hand & desecrated the statue by cutting off the right hand. In 1760, the church was rebuilt after the Mahratta Invasion of Goa and Bombay ended, following which the statue was substituted with a statue of Our Lady of Navigators from the St Andrew's Church nearby. Legend has it that a

Koli Christian Koli Christians are Koli people who profess Christianity in India, they are also a subgroup of the Bombay East Indians, who are the indigenous people of the Seven Islands of Bombay and the Bombay metropolitan area, which is now also called Mumba ...

fisherman, dreamt of the statue floating in the sea, as prophesied in the dream, the statue was indeed found the next day, floating in the sea. A Jesuit annual letter dated to 1669 and published in the book ''St Andrew's Church, Bandra'' (1616–1966) supports this claim. Koli

fisherfolk A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million Commercial fishing, commercial and Artisan fishing, subsistence fishers and Fish farming, fi ...

call the statue as Mot Maoli, literally meaning the "Pearl Mother" or "the Mother of the Mount"; ''mot'' could be a corruption of the

Indo-Portuguese Indo-Portuguese creoles are the several Portuguese creoles spoken in the erstwhile Portuguese Indian settlements, Cochin Portuguese Creole, Fort Bassein, Goa and Damaon, Portuguese Ceylon etc; in present-day India and Sri Lanka. These creoles ...

word ''monte'' for "mount"; ''maoli'' is a Marathi-Konkani word for "mother". The original statue is now restored and is enshrined in a place of honour at the basilica.

Bombay East Indians The Bombay East Indians, also called East Indian Catholics or simply East Indians, are an ethno-religious Christianity in India, Indian Christian community native to the Seven Islands of Bombay, the Mumbai Metropolitan Area and the northern Ko ...

as well as Hindus visit this shrine often, making the place a prominent feature of intercommunal harmony and

interfaith dialogue Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious dialogue, refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religion, religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spirituality, spiritual or humanism, hum ...

for Mumbai (Bombay).A Hindu nationalist leader at the Marian Shrine
''

AsiaNews ''AsiaNews'' is an official press agency of the Catholic Church's Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME). The editor-in-chief of AsiaNews is Father Bernardo Cervellera, a PIME missionary who also heads Agenzia Fides, the official news ...

'', 12 September 2011. Mountmary

References

External links

Official Web Site
{{Basilicas in India Our Lady of the Mount, Bandra Roman Catholic churches in Mumbai Bandra Mumbai History of Mumbai

The basilica

Statue of the Virgin Mary

See also

References

External links