MAY 2026

Dear Rev. Fathers, Religious, and People of God,

On 3rd of May, four of our deacons will be ordained priests in our cathedral. We thank the Lord for the gift of four priests to our diocese. While congratulating them, we offer our prayers and wish them fruitful ministry in our diocese. At this juncture, I recommend you to promote vocations from your parish. Our diocese is in dire need of priests to do pastoral ministry. The best place to nurture vocation to priesthood and religious lives is the family. You, as the parish priest, should instruct the parents and the elders in the family to encourage their children to become priests and religious. In the words of St. Mother Teresa, we need priests in the Church to obtain God's blessings through the celebration of the sacraments.

The month of May is dedicated to the devotion of Our Blessed Mother Mary. I earnestly request you, dear Fathers, to propagate the pious devotion of reciting rosary individually and as a family at home. The recital of rosary is old aged piety of our Church. St. Alphonse De Ligouri says, “Never will anyone who prays rosary be led astray”. In the words of many saints, the family that recites rosary will live together and never be divided. It is a mandatory responsibility to spread the devotion to Our Blessed Mother who favors the recital rosary wherever she made her apparitions.

In this month, we are invited to organize VBS in our parishes. As our children are on holidays, it is good opportunity to instruct them about the importance of the Word of God. The Word of God has to be the part and parcel of the lives of Catholics, much more in the lives of the children. Through VBS, you can very well inculcate into the minds of the children the necessity of the Word of God and make them develop the habit of reading the Bible daily. While appreciating your Bible apostolate in your parishes, I earnestly exhort you to give the utmost importance to VBS and make it obligatory for all the children to participate in the VBS actively and enthusiastically.

May the Risen Lord bless you and your Bible apostolate.

Yours devotedly in Risen Lord

+L. Thomas Aquinas

Bishop of Coimbatore