A Blessed Season of Lent
-A time for fast, from ...
Fast from bitterness; turn to forgiveness
Fast from hatred; return good for evil
Fast from negativism; be positive
Fast from complaining; be grateful
Fast from pessimism; be an optimist
Fast from harsh judgments; think kindly thoughts
Fast from worry; trust in Divine Providence
Fast from discouragement; be full of hope
Fast from anger; be more patient
Fast from pettiness; be more mature
Fast from gloom; enjoy the beauty around you
Fast from jealousy; pray for trust
Fast from gossiping; control your thoughts
Fast from sin; turn to virtue
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The Word continues to become flesh!
The Pastoral Bible Foundation and Claretian Publications
have organized a felicitation gathering for its Founder Director, Fr. Alberto
Rossa and for Divine De Leon who completed 25 years of her service with the
Publications on 12 February in the Chok Van Convention Centre, Colovan, Macau.
The concelebrated Eucharistic celebration was presided over by Cardinal Gaudencio
Borbon Rosales, the Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Manila.
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| Concelebrating priests and Ms. Divine with Cardinal Gaudencio Borbon Rosales, the Archbishop Emeritus of the Archdiocese of Manila after the Eucharistic Celebration in Macau |
“I know Fr Rossa for the past 38 years”, said Cardinal Rosales
during his homily. He recalled the days of Fr. Rossa in Zamboanga in the
Philippines as a parish priest. Later, when he shifted his ministry into
multimedia and printing ministry, like everyone else, Cardinal too was skeptical.
"I miscalculated this man" , he said. "He was not just tall, but also had a
tall vision".
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| Vintage stuff!: A relationship of over 38 years... Cardinal Rosales and Fr. Alberto in Macau |
When he brought in
big machines to the printing press that marked the growth and development of
the Claretian Publications in the Philippines. Fr. Rossa was instrumental in establishing the
Publications in the Philippines 36 years ago to promote a new model of being
Church. In order to provide a focused attention to Bible and related material,
he later founded the Pastoral Bible Foundation 20 years ago.
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| Ms Divine flanked by Cardinal Rosales and Fr. Alberto |
On the 25 years of service of Ms Divine with the
Publications, the Cardinal said that the tall Rossa and short Divine provided
the perfect balance for the growth and development of the publications.
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| It's all about the Bible!: The priests' fraternity |
Commenting on the readings of the day, the Cardinal stated
that the Lord has given us the greatest gift – our free will and freedom of
choice and the capacity to choose life, and to choose what is right. He
encouraged the faithful “not to be satisfied with mere ordinary, rather do
something more, give something more, seek something more and be something more!
Over 100 friends of Divine and Fr. Rossa from the
Philippines, Mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong participated in the
Eucharistic celebrations concelebrated by 11 priests.
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| The delegation from Amity Printing, Nanjing with Cardinal Rosales, Ms. Divine and Fr. Alberto |
During the felicitation gathering, the Claretian
Publications and Communications of the Philippines, and Amity Printing Company
of Nanjing expressed their gratitude and appreciation to Fr. Rossa for his
association with them in his dedicated service to the Word of God for more than
three decades.
Fr. Dennis, CMF the Director of the Claretian Publications
presented a plaque to Fr. Rossa and to Divine, acknowledging their
contributions to the Ministry of the Word of God.
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| Mr. Li Chunnong, the former General Manager of Nanjing Amity Printing Corporation |
Mr. Li Chunnong, the former General Manager of Nanjing Amity
Printing Corporation traced back his association with Fr. Rossa, which began
over 20 years ago. “The Claretians were our first overseas clients and this was
a difficult decision to make”, recalled Mr. Li. What we value is not just the
business, but much more than that, the friendship and trust that we have
developed over the years”, remarked Mr. Li. He acknowledged “the Amity printing
gained a lot from its associations with Fr. Rossa as he promoted the company
wherever he went – in Frankfurt Book fair and other places. Fr. Rossa and the
Claretian Publications have played a role in making Amity Printing the largest
Bible printing press in the world today”. Today Amity printing company has over
600 employees of which only three per cent are Christians, has printed over 150
Million Bibles, in 90 different languages distributed all around the world.
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| Mr. Yu Hong of the Amity Printing presenting the custom made Bible in Spanish to Fr. Alberto |
In the absence of Mr. Luke Liu, the General Manager of the
Amity Printing, his representative, Mr. Yu Hong read out his felicitation
message. In his message, Mr. Liu wished that the long-standing relationship
with Claretian Publications and PBF continued in the future as well.
Amity
Printing prepared two special gifts for Fr. Rossa – Custom-made Copies of the
Christian Community Bible in Spanish and English. To understand the enormity of
the gift – the whole the printing machinery was put to work just to print one
copy of the Bible – just for Fr. Rossa!
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| Amity Printing printed just two Bibles to gift them to Fr. Alberto |
Fr. Rossa, in his inimitable style of running away from the
limelight, began with a question: “Who killed the messenger? Where in the Bible
do you find this expression?” This
Shakespearean expression (Don’t shoot [kill] the messenger) means that do not
punish the messenger for bringing the unpleasant news. His point was that “do
not praise the messenger and do not stop with the messenger, instead, praise
the message”. “This celebration is not about the people but about the message”,
said Fr. Rossa. He thanked everyone who contributed in this shared mission over
the past 36 years of Ministry to the Word
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Increase in HK’s Catholic population
A new study has shown that the Catholic population of Hong Kong has grown in recent years. The number of Catholics in Hong Kong has passed the 590,000 mark, an increase of some 5,000 over 2015, the latest statistics released by the Hong Kong Catholic Church Directory 2017 published in January this year indicate.
The latest calculation by the diocese shows that as at August 2016, there were around 591,000 Catholics in Hong Kong. Among them locally baptised Catholics amounted to 389,000.
The diocese estimates there were 166,000 Filipino Catholics in Hong Kong in addition to 36,000 from other nationalities, forming the number of expatriate Catholics to 202000 pushing the total Catholic population to around 591,000.
Meanwhile, the data shows that the number of parishes has fallen from a peak of 62 in 1995 to 51 in 2010, but the number of churches and chapels has increased. The ratio of priests to laity also dropped from one per 500 in 1971 to one per 1,200 in 2010.
A total of 6,633 people were baptised in 2016. In each of the past six years, more than 6,000 people have been baptised. Of the over 6,000 newly-baptised every year, adults account for around 50 per cent.
But the Church leaders readily admits a note of caution that an increase in the Catholic Population does not necessarily mean an increase in the Sunday church attendance. Victoria Au Bing-sum, the secretary of the Central Council of Catholic Laity was of the opinion that a strengthening of personal spiritual formation needs to be encouraged and that the catechists must encourage the catechumens to join parish groups during their catechumenate.
Father Simon Li Chi-yuen, from St. Benedict’s in Shatin, said the growing number of Catholics is not represented in the growth of the parishioner population. He believes parishes need to strengthen their formation work. Father Li explained that although the number of Catholics has increased every year, the number of priests has remained more or less the same.
Statistics as of August 2016 show there were 288 priests, 469 sisters and 29 deacons serving in the diocese of Hong Kong. There are also 58 brothers, 24 seminarians and 28 novices.
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HK CEO Candidate drops policy that concerned Hong Kong Catholics
Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor apologised for any confusion, saying proposal wasn't about controlling religions. The early favourite in the race to become Hong Kong's next chief executive has rescinded a controversial religious policy following strong opposition from Hong Kong Catholics.
The former Chief Secretary of Hong Kong gave up her proposed policy that included the possible set up of a "Religious Affairs Unit" that met objections from Cardinal John Tong of Hong Kong and the diocese because of fears it could introduce a system similar to that in mainland China.
According to a March 3 statement put out by Hong Kong Diocese, the cardinal wrote to Lam "expressing the diocese's resolute opposition of a possible 'setting up of a Religious Affairs Unit' or similar institutions in Hong Kong."
It was feared by many Catholics that Lam's proposed policy was an attempt to introduce the Chinese Communist Party's model of "religious affairs" in Hong Kong.
Lam, a practicing Catholic, told the cardinal on March 3 that the proposal had no intention to control religions and that she was withdrawing her religious policy, which was part of her 47-page election manifesto, reported Hong Kong media. Reports said that Lam apologised for any confusion.
Lam along with John Tsang, the former Financial Secretary and Woo Kwok-hing, a retired judge, are the three candidates for the fifth Chief Executive election to be held on March 26.
According to government statistics, around 30 percent of the 7.37 million people in Hong Kong are believers of different religions. There are 590,000 Chinese and foreign Catholics here, according to latest statistics from Hong Kong Diocese.
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Our Publications
"CLARET Publishing Group" - Represents all the publishing houses of Claretians in the world. We are united by the same mission, but each publishing house in different countries acts independently with respect to chose of items for publications.
Today we rejoice with the Director of Claretian Publications of Madrid, Fr. Fernando Prado who has just published "TEN THINGS THAT POPE FRANCISCO PROPOSE FOR PRIESTS" - a book in the series of "Ten things that Pope asks for ..." .
Here he is, presenting the works to the Pope:
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| Fr. Fernando Prado, Director of Claretian Publications of Madrid presenting the books to Pope Francis |
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| A papal signature! |
A couple of books on the message of Pope Francis to the families: "A Year with Pope Francis and the Family" . It is a book prepared in Macau by Fr Alberto which has been translated into several languages, including Hungarian, the latest:
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| A book by Fr. Alberto |
"Amoris Laetitia - A Handbook for Families" - The Joy of Love - A Manual for Families. Published by Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy , Director of Claretian Publications in Macau.
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| A book by Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy |
Old Testament translation to modern Chinese: We have already covered half the way ... Just to show the amount of work done, ... here is an example - it is a page of the book of Proverbs of Hebrew and modern Chinese:
More works from Fr. Alberto:
He has spent hundreds of hours for preparing the scripts and then translating them into both English and Spanish for creating the subtitles for the Bibles study talks given by Fr. Fernando Armellini. A group of friends from China and Hong Kong are contributing their bit in preparing the Chinese Subtitles as well. Here is the QR Code or the links to access the videos for the season of Lent, Holy Week and Easter:
March 26 - 4 Sunday of Lent
https://www.youtube.com/watch? V = WeLFGLdHBBs
April 2 - 5 Sunday of Lent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TXEJtbumMU
April 9 - Palm Sunday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q79xpO4TJgY
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Our Visitors
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| Fr. Marcelli Fonts, CMF visited us in Lantau in the last week of January |
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| Fr. Arnold Abelardo, CMF from the Philippines (in the centre) with a few of the parishioners of Mui Wo |
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| Our Friends from Christ the Worker Parish, Ngau Tau Kok together with their Assistant Parish Priest Fr. Yeun in Tai O |
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| A group of Sunday School teachers from St. Benedict Church, Shatin spent a day of recollection in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel, in Tai O |
