Dear Parishioners,
I am so happy to introduce myself, I am Fr.Elson Kattookkaran. I am from southern part of India, a state called Kerala originally, and Christianity is very dominant in that part of the land and we have our claim that we are the followers of St. Thomas, because Christianity started in our soil from 1st century onwards. But due to the assassination of St. Thomas at the early stages of his missionary works Christianity was confined to Kerala itself in the beginning, but later years the zealous missionaries went to different parts of India to evangelize the people. In 15th century another vibrant missionary St. Francis Xavier came to India started evangelizing the costal belt mainly fisher flock which boosted Christianity and as a result many more professed their faith in Jesus. Presently we have over 20 million people embraced the faith in Christ Our Savior and still evangelization is carried out by the missionaries and lay people. Faith is kept blazing and storming in different parts of the country, despite of all persecution and false accusations, just because of the love for Christ and what he had done for the people of God. Though we are minority in that land in Population ways (it is only 2% out of 100) we are doing good regardless of cast and religion, and major religion is Hinduism which is 95%.
I have my parents and three siblings (two brothers and one sister all got married and having a blessed and happy married life with their children). I joined the seminary when I was fourteen years old and spent twelve years (which is very usual formation period in India for the candidates to become a priest) in the seminary having formation in different places in India and Philippines. I got ordained when I was 26 on the birthday of Blessed Mother September 8th. So I used to say my birthday to priesthood and birthday of blessed mother is on same day and she will always accompany me in my priesthood to guide and protect. I spent four years in India teaching in the seminary and worked as fulltime vocation director. In 2010 January I came to USA to work in the diocese of Norwich in Connecticut. Now I am here in Manchester Diocese to render my gift of priesthood which is the service to the people of God. As soon as I arrived in Lincoln I was so impressed by your love and hospitality, more over your welcoming enthusiasm. Hope we will have Good spiritual time and personal time together to uplift the community and its faith, and I assure you my Best
Fr.Elson Kattookkaran