BY CEDRIC SILVEIRA
An incident occurred on July 27, 1626, in a church in Old Goa which increased the devotion to Our Lady of Three Necessities. Today that church no longer stands. On that day in the afternoon between 1 and 2 pm, a Portuguese lad, named Antonio Roiz da Guerra of Lisbon was sitting in the church while a girl was sweeping.

All of a sudden she cried out that the image of Our Lady of Three Necessities was weeping. On seeing the same he went out of the church and called out to the passersby’s to come and witness this miracle. The first to arrive on the scene was none other than Antonio Antunes, a Portuguese man who made and sold arms and ammunition. On entering the church and seeing Our Lady weeping, he collected her tears in his hands.   Sebastiao Ferrreira, another Portuguese man who was born in Goa, and lived near to the church, also rushed to the church along with his wife and family. He embraced her feet and cried out “You are crying for my sins”. People then started arriving in numbers and they started to say, “Our Lady is crying because there are big sinners in Goa”.
Miracles started to occur after that to those who would pray to Our Lady of Three Necessities. An incident is told of a man who for a whole year suffered from a fever accompanied by shivers. On falling at the feet of Our Lady of Three Necessities his fever disappeared. Yet another man was suffering from high fever and he couldn’t speak. A concerned person told his wife to pray to Our Lady of Three Necessities. Whilst praying to Our Lady in the church itself, the fever left her husband and he was cured. Like the above two examples, there are many more incidents wherein people have been cured.
So what are the three necessities? The first necessity is when Jesus Christ was born, the second necessity was when Mother Mary and St Joseph along with Jesus fled to Egypt and the third necessity is when Jesus was crucified on the cross.
Nowadays on every Sunday evening the novena is made to Our Lady of Three Necessities and the faithful come in large numbers to attend the novena.
(The feast of Our Lady of Three Necessities at Old Goa will be held on May 31at the Se Cathedral. The feast mass timings are 7.30 am and 4 p.m. The novenas are already in progress and the last novena will end today.)