Nashik: Braving chilly cold conditions, lakhs of devotees from across the country arrived at the Infant Jesus Shrine to seek blessing on Saturday. The huge rush of devotees caused frequent traffic jams on the Pune road near the shrine from early morning.Founded by Peter Lewis in 1969, the Infant Jesus Shrine at Nashik Road opposite Nehru Nagar marked its golden jubilee year.Throughout the day, trains arriving from Mumbai and Manmad side were full of devotees at the Nashik Road railway station. At the same time, hundreds of private buses from different parts of the country also made way towards the Infant Jesus Shrine.A huge pandal was set up on the ground of St Xavier’s High School, which saw a continuous stream of devotees attending the masses from 6am till 8pm. Trevor Miranda, chaplain of the Infant Jesus Shrine said, “Over three lakh devotees from across the country visted the shrine. On our part we have made all the necessary arrangements to see that the devotees can attend the mass prayers peacefully. For the convenience of pilgrims, masses were held in English and Marathi every hour from 6am to 8pm, besides one in Tamil and the another in Konkani.”Easter Vincent, a devotee from Coimbatore said, “I have been in Nashik for over 10 days now with my family. I attended the daily masses on all the novena days from January 31 to February 8. Being born and brought up in Nashik, I must have hardly missed the shrine feast. I have been coming to Nashik for the shrine feast even after my marriage.”Brain D’Souza who arrived from Mumbai early morning said he has been coming for the annual feast for over a decade. “My mother and aunt have huge devotion towards Infant Jesus and I have been accompanying them to Nashik for their annual visit for the feast.”Another devotee William Moses from Nashik said that he had been helping out pilgrims. Pilgrims have all sorts of questions right from parking facility to lodging and boarding, place of the mass prayers, making an announcement of the public address system in case of emergency etc. “The number of pilgrims coming for the shrine feast is huge and so are the problems faced by them. Being a local, I only try to offer help.”

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