KAYYAR

Originally Kayyar was part of Bela parish. Since, however, some of its villages lay  around 20 km away from the Bela Church, the Catholics found the distance much too hard to cover to reach Bela. Thus in 1925, for instance, Fr Faustin Aranha, parish priest of Bela, began to attend to the spiritual needs of the local Catholics in a small chapel built by Mr Dominic D’Souza of Kayyar Village. The present site was selected later on by Fr Aranha, who put up a building here which served nearly 20 years as a chapel, school and even presbytery. Aware of the needs of the people Bishop Victor erected these areas into an independent parish on February 16, 1934 and appointed
Fr L. Furtado its first resident parish priest a little later on October 12, 1935. Fr Furtado secured the management of the local elementary school from a Hindu.
More than ten years passed before Bishop Victor could bless and lay the foundation stone for the overdue church. This was on November 8, 1946, when Fr J.A.P. Miranda was the parish priest. However all that he could achieve was the completion of the basement. It was for Fr L.S. Pais to resume the work in 1954 and complete it, have it blessed with the altar consecrated by Bishop Peres on April 25, 1956.

Fr Lawrence C. Pais should be regarded as the architect and builder par excellence of the modern Kayyar parish. For well-nigh fifteen years, from 1951 to 1965, he identified himself with the people of God and the place too, for the betterment of both. Until his time the school and the church were carrying on in the same building. He succeeded in putting up two distinct structures and assigned one each to the two. Practically in every major work run in the parish since then, his creative hand could be discerned clearly. Those who knew him as a self-sacrificing pastor can hear his name called as the church bell peals out. He provided for the formal education of every child; arranged for a convenient bus to visit the place regularly; saw to the distribution to the poor, irrespective of religious affiliation, of the free food supply from abroad; got a clinic opened for the sick, attended to by a resident doctor. On a more specifically devotional level he erected a grotto too in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes. Meanwhile Kayyar was proud to see one of its sons Benjamin D’Souza, ordained priest by Pope Paul VI at the Eucharistic Congress in Mumbai. Fr Pais had started an elementary school in a village called Permude. But though he moved heaven and earth to get it recognized by the government, his efforts did not yield any positive results. So he closed down the classes and redid the building so that it served
now as a chapel to celebrate Mass for the sick and aged. The vicars who followed Fr Pais carried his work further while enriching it each with his own distinctive  contribution at spiritual, liturgical, material and social levels, proving themselves true pastors. The Ursuline Sisters have brought in their precious share as well. This
is how the parish can rejoice now in what the Lord has done for it.