New priest launches drive-thru prayer

Without leaving your vehicle on Clayton Road, you have an assortment of drive-through options – from a freshly made peppermint mocha to getting your car washed and filled up.

Now, Father Mat Vellankal is offering you a couple minutes of reflection and prayer each weekday evening at St. Bonaventure Church. Starting next week, the new pastor is introducing Drive-Thru Prayer 5-6 p.m. Monday through Friday in the front parking lot of the Catholic church off Clayton Road.

This isn’t a new concept for Vellankal, who began this spiritual service in November 2014 at his previous parish of Holy Spirit Church. Drive-Thru Prayer is still going strong at the Fremont church three years later, he reports.

“There will be no need to turn off the ignition or get out of the car,” says Christa Fairfield, director of parish life at St. Bonaventure. “Drivers can just set the brake and take a moment to have the prayer team be present to them, to hear their request and pray with them.”

The pastor explains that a few notices in the church bulletin resulted in 23 volunteers to serve on the team. “I will have 30 on the team so that they can share the nightly duties,” says Vellankal, who also plans on recruiting some teens to be human signs on Clayton Road – hawking prayer rather than pizza.

“At the end of the work or school day, people may be stressed out and/or face a crisis in their life,” Vellankal says. “We want them to share a short prayer of three minutes or less with the team before they continue home.”

Volunteers will give each driver a card with contact information and the St. Bonaventure Mass schedule on one side and the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi on the other.
Vellankal, who turns 60 in May, has spent 30 years as a priest. His late parents were “middle class farmers” in the state of Kerala in Southwest India. He called the area “God’s own country” in his 2015 book, “From Rural India to Silicon Valley.”

After his ordination in India, he ended up in Northeast India working as a youth minister and, for some time, as headmaster of a 2,000 student, all-boys school. His work was recognized to such an extent that in 1997 the Vatican appointed him as international chaplain of the International Movement of Catholic Agricultural Rural Youth. The position required him to move to their world headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

He came to the United States four years later and was named assistant pastor at Queen of All Saints in Concord, where he served for three years. He was the pastor at Holy Spirit in Fremont for the past 11 years.

After leaving the Fremont church, he took a short sabbatical that included a trip to Italy and a few weeks in India. He visited family including his three brothers and his sister, who is a nun.

Upon the retirement of Father Richard Mangini, he was named St. Bonaventure’s pastor in July. The church celebrated its 60th anniversary last summer.

“This new assignment is good for me,” says the enthusiastic Vellankal, who seems to wear a perpetual smile as he discusses his plans for the local Catholic community.

Holy Spirit parishioners posted a six-minute farewell video on YouTube. In it, Holy Spirit business manager Jeff Van der Sluis says people can’t say no to Vellankal. “The reason is the magic that comes when you say ‘yes’.”

Holy Spirit School students said how much they like the humor in Vellankal’s homilies as well as his magic tricks.

“I like to get young people’s attention by doing magic at our children’s Mass and bible camp,” says the priest.