Parish Administration

(2008-09)

Parish Priest

Fr. Kuriakose Vadana

Fr. Vadana is vicar of Lourdes Matha Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, as of 2021.

Trustees: Jimmy Joseph, Sino Sebastian

Trustees

In 2008-09, the first formal parish council under the bylaws of the Chicago diocese was established under the leadership of parish priest Fr. Kuriakose Vadana. The parish council consisted of elected leaders from the various parish units spread across the greater Boston area. The leaders selected 2 representatives to constitute the team of trustees Sino Sebastian and Jimmy Joseph - during a parish council meeting presided over by diocesan chancellor at the time - late Fr. Zacharia Thottuvelil. The trustee team started working actively to bring the functioning of the parish under the guidance of the diocese bylaws.

HIGHLIGHT

Among one of the challenges that the team decided to tackle, was establishing more financial discipline in the functioning of the parish. For this a sub- committee under the leadership of Mathew Thomas (Mathew Chettan) and Sino ran a very successful campaign to follow up with families who were not consistently contributing to the church and re-energized them to pledge a monthly contribution. As a result of the campaign the parish was able to quickly get to a very stable financial state to run the day to operations and more importantly start saving for a permanent/own parish for the community.

Around this time, the parish received notice that the temporary church which the community used in Waltham, MA had to be vacated as result of a litigation that the property was involved with. This situation made the parish start actively planning to move to a new facility. For this, the trustees created two committees under the leadership of trustees and parish vicar. The first committee was a finance committee and the second one was a building committee. The objective of the former was to start developing funds to pay for a new facility and the later was tasked with exploring properties/facilities that the parish could move into. As a result of a few months of hard work by both committees and significant involvement by the Chicago diocese working directly with Boston arch diocese, SMCB found a new home in Framingham, MA. The beautiful parish in Framingham which was used by the local catholics was allotted to us for use on a daily basis including a very spacious rectory. Under the agreement with Boston arch diocese, SMCB had to pay all the operational expenses for running the parish and associated facilities while our community used all the facilities and amenities as our own. The agreement also included the parish priest celebrating one holy mass for the local English community on Sunday morning which we continue till date.

Once the agreement was formalized, the parish moved to the new church in Framingham. The move happened over several weeks and the entire parish participated and helped with the move including cleaning and setting up the new rectory for the vicar. The parish started celebrating masses on Sundays at 10 am followed by CCD while the English community enjoyed their mass earlier in the day. After a few months, the community celebrated the feast of St.Joseph as well as the formal inauguration of the parish. The highlights of the celebration were visits by Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil and Sean O’Malley as well as a series of cultural and entertainment programs that brought the best out of the Syro Malabarians who had migrated to New England.

Late in 2010 a new parish council alongwith trustees was formed. Sino and Jimmy under the leadership of Fr. Vadana led the parish through some turbulent times but in the end they were able to get us to calm shores through their able leadership and support from the parish council.

Church History

SMCB - The Genesis
My Recollections - by Jose Puthanpurackal
A Parish Review 2008-09 - by Sino Sebastian
A Parish Review 2009-10 - by Bonus, Joshy & Jose
CCD Program - The Beginnings in 2004!
In Retrospective! - by Ranjith Thomas
Church Life (2003 - 2010)

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