A Blessed Easter to All Our Friends!

Divine de Leon, a Lay Claretian who worked many years with Claretian Publications in the Philippines and is now part of the Macau team, keep saying that the days are running very fast in Macau… it seems that the week is gone as soon as we begin it. In short, plenty of work and doing it all with great joy in our hearts.

Let me share some of the most relevant news of the past weeks.

Our Macau community grows…

New Personnel

Last March 9, Fr. Jojo Ancheril, a young Claretian from India joined our community. He comes full of enthusiasm and on March 26 Fr. Jojo started his classes at the Royal Foreign Language School in Zhuhai (China) – very near our Macau residency: 4 hours a day, 5 days a week. The official language in China is Mandarin; but Cantonese is spoken in this area by about 75 million people.

On March 23, we were again blessed with the arrival of Claretian Fr. Peter Zhao Songqiao. Fr. Peter was born in China but his family moved to Taiwan. Fr. Peter is Chinese and has taught in China and Taiwan for many years. He does not want us to say that he holds a Master and a Doctorate in pastoral ministry. He has already been accepted as Professor at IIUM (the Catholic University in Macau). Meanwhile his Jesuit friends want him to accompany them to give some seminars in China as well. Fr. Peter already has a full load of work. Welcome to our team!

New apartment

We were doubting about placing or not the picture below… All of you might want to come and spend some time in this corner of heaven! Yes, this is our chapel in the apartment that a friend rented to us in Zhuhai. Zhuhai is the border city with Macau and is part of Mainland China. We can cross the border in 15 minutes from our house in Macau. So we should now say: Our Macau-Zhuhai Residencies.

We are moving...

Parish Libraries – Sister Parishes

We shared with you this project in our past bulletins. The news today is that several “Sister Parishes” are responding and beginning a dialogue of life and sharing between a parish in China and a sister parish in other country. The last four partners come from Claretian parishes in Malaga and Canary Islands (Spain) and from Claretian Fr. Mario Bonfaini in Taiwan. As you can imagine, the list of parishes in China is quite long… we need the solidarity of more “sister parishes!”


Chinese Daily Gospel 2008

This project is getting into shape with the help of Chinese friends who are joining us to make it happen. The book is in the “oven” right now. It will be “cooked” in a couple of months. Here is one sample page…

Pastoral Bible Foundation Update

The Spirit of Fr. Bernardo…

Fr. Bernardo Hurault (born in France) is the author of the famous Christian Community Bible, now in 12 languages and more than 60 million copies in print. The last 18 years of his life he worked in close contact with the Claretians and helped in the creation of the Pastoral Bible Foundation.

With his brother, also a priest, Fr. Louis Hurault, and a group of friends, Fr. Bernardo started a small foundation in France for the help of distribution of the Bible in Asia, especially China. He lived very poorly all his life. Two years after his death, PBF received his inheritance. We are humbled by this gesture and we commit to make his dream a reality for the Chinese Christians. We also thank Fr. Louis and friends for their continuous generosity in the service of the Word.

No more bibles…

At the beginning of this year we printed over 100,000 copies of the new Spanish Pastoral Bible, La Biblia de Nuestro Pueblo. It is a co-edition with Mensajero from Spain. But run out of copies very soon…again. Now we are printing once more the same number of copies at Amity, in Nanjing, China. Last year this press printed more than 500,000 books for the Pastoral Bible Foundation (PBF), whose headquarters are here in Macau. PBF is also part of our work.

Translations…

This is a big call. We continue our work with Chinese translators working in several countries. Recently Bro. John Mi Shen sent us the translation of the pastoral commentaries of Genesis. Here is a sample… (easy, right?).


We have a long list of translations from English into Chinese. We are also very interested in bringing Chinese writers and theologians to the knowledge and readership of other parts of the Church.


Bilingual New Testament in Vietnamese

Soon after launching the Pastoral Bible in Vietnamese, Claretian Fr. Angelito “Lito” Ancla, PBF representative in Vietnam, is publishing a bilingual edition of the New Testament: English – Vietnamese.- - - - - -


More bilingual editions… This time of the Four Gospels

We know Mr. Roger Butland by email only. This person from New Zealand contacted us for a partnership in a project to print the Four Gospels in many languages: English (always) accompanied by other language. The list is already calls for about 20 different languages. Mr. Butland started the “Xaverian Charitable Trust” to carry out this pastoral project. To a commercial edition will follow another one that will be distributed totally for free:
- To migrant workers and undocumented workers;
- To the homeless;
- To men and women in penal institutions and incarcerated young people.
The first volume to appear is the Spanish – English edition.

The Pastoral Bible and the Beijing Olympics

China’s official English newspaper, China Daily, brought a news some days back that other agencies around the world immediately followed: UCAN is one of them:

UCAN: Catholic leaders arrange pastoral care for ‘08 Beijing Olympics
(view link)

BEIJING(UCAN) -- With about 500 days to go until the Beijing Olympic Games, Catholic leaders in China are making arrangements to meet the religious needs of foreign Christian athletes and visitors.
Anthony Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA), recently put forward a proposal to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) to "provide English-language bibles in hotels." Liu, a CPPCC member, made the proposal during the annual meeting here of the conference, the top advisory body of China's central government.
The theme of the Beijing Olympics 2008 is: One World – One Dream. What about: One Word – One Dream! Well… not bad to introduce “The official Bible of the Beijing Olympics!”.

Featured Websites

If you are curious and have a little time I invite you to take a look at this web page: www.sino-asian.org/

The dream of starting a university in Beijing and/or Zhuhai… yes, so far it is a dream. But sometimes reality is bigger than dreams!

The soul of this project is Fr. Michael Saso, now working with us.


Another web page that can be of great use to you is: www.bible.claret.org. On this site, among many other pastoral helps, is the online version of Fr Camilo Marivoet's Liturgy Alive: Models of Celebration. Each entry contains readings, commentaries and prayers. You can find this site at: www.bible.claret.org/liturgy

This site also hosts the Christian Community Bible in several languages.- www.bible.claret.org/bibles/

Visitors

Fr. James Liebner, SVD shared a few hours with us talking about our respective pastoral work. Fr. James is an excellent photographer and he is recording and taking pictures of all the Catholic Churches in China.

Fr. Benedict “Bong “ Dilag, Director of Claretian Publications in the Philippines graced us also with his presence on his way to Beijing and other places in China. Last Sunday April 1, he conducted a short recollection for Filipinos in Macau.

Fr. Sergio Edwards, SVD. He is the Superior of the Missionaries of the Divine Word (SVD) in this part of the world – and a good friend. Fr. Sergio comes to Macau to prepare the arrival of his Congregation here.