Outgoing Vicar leaves St. Joseph's Forane Church, Marika with nothing to desire for another decade

We live in an era, where we are concerned about the popularity of our leaders. Whereas most of the popular leaders are found in the political arena than among religious leaders, however, Rev. Fr. James Vararappilly is an exception to the law. He has been indeed a popular religious priest.

As the disciples preached the 'Experienced Christ' to the people, let me narrate the 'Experienced Fr. Vararappilly here. Being a catechism teacher, i could closely associate with him and had a rich experience of him.

Fr. Vararappilly is bestowed with great humour sense, people skills, welcomes everyone with a smile, and always lends his ears to listen to. After the principle of Pope Francis, Fr. Vararappilly is a priest for the unity among different Churches. As a result, he organized a combined carol programme at Marika and Vazhithala in collaboration with St. Thomas Jacobite Church and St. Antony's Knanaya Church.

In his 4-year tenure as the vicar of St. Joseph's Forane Church, Marika, the church witnessed some remarkable visible developments, both small and big scale from May 2015 to May 2019. Fr. Vararappilly took up the task to demolish the dilapidated presbytery, which was a pressing need of the church and got constructed a new two story presbytery with a built-up area of over 3000 sq. feet. Though St. Joseph's Church was elevated as a Forane Church, it did not have enough classrooms to run Sunday catechism, considering the number of Sunday School Students were close to 500. At the time of the centenary celebrations of St. Mary's L.P School, it was decided to construct a new school building. Fr. Vararappilly, in his ecclesiastical vision, thought of constructing a school building that could accommodate Sunday School students as well. Thus, he got constructed a new school building with 11 classrooms to have enough classrooms for Sunday School and bring it under one roof.

Apart from these, he got extended the cemetery with over 60 more graves as well as got the front of the cemetery beautified, had installed a high-mast light in the church courtyard, renovated church's roofing, got the inside of the church painted, got new mat spread in the church, made better ventilation in the church by removing the glass panels, paved access to the sanctuary from the sides by cutting off the handrail, completed the compound wall of the church, got the ceiling done for the mini auditorium behind the church, installed PVC curtain before the common toilet for women's privacy, extended the roofing on top of the common toilet, got constructed common toilet near the church auditorium, got installed an illuminated name board of the church at Marika junction and in front of the church and so on and the list is endless.

Church Trustees, Mr. Mathew Perumbanni, Mr. Raju Thannickal, Mr. Vincent Puthenpurackal rallied behind Fr. Vicar to give full support in their 2-year terms to all the developmental activities.

I have a very personal experience with Fr. Vararappilly, as I got married during his vicarship at Marika. As he was the former vicar of my life partner's ancestral parish, her father enquired about me to Fr. Vararappilly. So, later Fr. Vararappilly told me in good humour that with me being a catechism teacher he couldn't but say only good things about me to the girl's father, because if he had said anything bad about me, automatically a question would have come up, as to why i was continuing as a catechism teacher. As a result, i got a marriage alliance from a reputed family.

Also while the marriage of us twin brothers was getting fixed, we had to meet Fr. James Vararappilly many times, and even as late as 10 pm he was ready to meet us after his pastoral works like parish ward celebrations and settled all the formalities.

He was a vicar just a phone call away and even if he couldn't attend the call, he used to revert to the missed calls, whether they be unknown numbers. Parishioners of St. Joseph's Forane Church, Marika were indeed fortunate to have Rev. Fr. James Vararappilly as their popular vicar and to have witnessed such a remarkable development during his 4 years of tenure from May 2015 to May 2019 without squeezing the parishioners for financial aid for various construction and development works. Wishing Rev. Fr. James Vararappilly all the very best and prayers in his pastoral ministry to continue his remarkable works.

If had an opportunity, this would have been my farewell speech for Rev. Fr. James Vararappilly as he goes to St. Mary's Church, Nagapuzha, his new sphere of service.