We do not need to have recourse to philosophy or theology to convince us that community living is most important to human happiness. "No man is an island" and so we all need each other, if we have to live as one large happy human family. This is corroborated by our experience.

Fortunately this conviction is growing on the Church in Mumbai as also in India and the whole continent of Asia. We had lost the sense of community and become individualistic in our way of life. The Spirit is reminding us, in this millennium, that we must give priority to building community not only amongst ourselves as Catholics but as a starting point for reaching out to people of all faiths, so that we can truly become a sign and sacrament of unity for the whole human race (Vat. II: Constitution on the Church No. 1).

In Mumbai we have been assiduously working on the Small Christian Communities (SCCs) project since 1985 and a recent survey conducted has shown that practically all the parishes have been structured into SCCs. However, it is sad to see that quite often SCCs and sacramental life run parallel to each other with hardly any meeting point. Yet our theology is very clear, that the church is community and that the most powerful instruments and our strongest allies in building community are the seven sacraments. We have therefore to make strenuous efforts, and the matter is urgent, to integrate sacramental life and life in SCCs.

In future, every sacrament like Baptism, Confirmation, First Holy Communion, Priestly Ordination, Marriage and the Sacrament of the Sick must all be acknowledged in the SCCs and must become, as they are meant to be, a means for deepening the love and unity in the community. Hence before or after the reception of the Sacrament in the Church or in the house of the individual (as in the Sacrament of the Sick), there should be some prayer service in the community where the sacrament is acknowledged and responded to by the whole community. For this we needed, for a long time, special prayer services to be made available suited for this purpose.

I am therefore deeply grateful to Fr. Aniceto Pereira and his team at the Diocesan Catechetical Centre (DCC) for preparing this book of prayer services connected with the sacraments and meant for SCCs. I do hope that all the communities in Mumbai will make the best use of these prayer services to deepen and strengthen community life and to impress on their members the inseparable links between the sacraments and community building.

+ Bp. Bosco Penha

Director, Small Christian Communities

Archdiocese of Bombay

Dated: 29^th August, 2003