An abrupt change: Taiyuan

From Shanghai, Márquez and I went by plane to Taiyuan where we arrived after two and a half hours.

Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi province and has a population of 3.5 million.

We have already mentioned this city in several of our previous newsletters. We go to this city often. We try to give a hand in the formation of religious women… doing whatever is possible.

More than 60 religious sisters attend a two-year intensive course on theology. They are so eager to learn… but the place is so congested… The sister in charge tells us that she received more than 200 applicants… and had to refuse them because there is no space… Sisters live in a very crowded place and with very limited facilities.

Here are some moments of the day – classes and prayer:

One day during our stay in Taiyuan, we went to Fenyang, a nearby town, 100 kms away to meet with the old bishop, Msgr. Johannes Huo. What a testimony! He is 86 years old and still in charge of one of the 8 dioceses of Shanxi province. After listening to us he said: “Don’t be afraid… always trust in God; you will find a way!”

Here is a man of God. He has suffered greatly in past decades when he could not exercise his ministry… so hospitable and a man of peace! We left empowered by his words and testimony.

Alberto with Bishop Johannes Huo and Sr. Clara

A dream…

What else can it be called? Take a look at this picture:

This is a hotel south of Taiyuan, Shanxi province. Newly built. The owners (who are Catholics) have to sell it and are offering it at a good reduced price, especially if it is for church use.

A group of very committed religious sisters are offering their services for a “Holistic Healing Center.” They would like to have a retreat house for priests, sisters, catechists, lay people; a center for the care of the poor: education, health. Perhaps also a language school.

Where do we get the funds?
That is the “million-dollar” question…

By the way, it is much less than “a million dollar.”

Any ideas?

1st International Claretian Encounter on Distance Education

It was held in Batatais, Brazil, at the beginning of April. Fr. Paco Carin,CMF attended the encounter and he tells us:

“The encounter was quite interesting, mostly, because it was the first one and it offered an opportunity for us to come together and share the different approaches and experiences on distance education in Claretian setting. Except for me, coming from East Asia, the rest of the participants were from South America, representing CEFIT (Argentina) ECCLA (Chile), FUCLA (Colombia) and the host, CLARETIANO of Batatais (Brazil).

“For us/me, East Asia, it was an eye-opener. Here in China, education is still a forbidden fruit in the government tree. Private institutions are allowed to start educational institutions (usually for the elite, as they are completely private), but the Church is not allowed to.

“For foreigners there is no such restriction, that’s why we hope we can start a high education center for foreigners in China, starting by first offering semester/year long immersion courses in China, moving to graduate and post-graduate (master/PhD) courses and finally to full college undergraduate studies.

“This encounter helped me to see the possibilities of distance education, and its complexity. Distance Education is not simply to publish/offer educational/academic contents in the Internet. Distance education requires a complete pedagogical/academic setup aimed at providing and facilitating education to students who experience obstacles more than “presencial” students, who can exclusively dedicate financial resources and time to this purpose.

“One way of make use of the benefits of distance education is to implement courses for lay, religious, and priests, for their initial and ongoing formation in Chinese. This setup can be done using the academic/faculty resources of already-existing educational institutions in Hong Kong and/or Taiwan. As long as we don’t expect these courses to be officially recognized in China, probably there would not be any problem in implementing them. Nevertheless, it will need a thorough study to see the pros and cons.

“The second way is the possibility of offering a course like a “Bridge Course in Theological English / Basic Theology Studies” in English… My experience in ICLA and in China and according to some priests and sisters who had studied abroad is that for many of them (mostly those who lacked/lack a strong foundation in English), most of the course contents were “lost in translation”…

“As we can see, this is not (and cannot) be a Claretian-alone enterprise, as we lack the manpower, educational knowhow, faculty resources and financial back up for such an enterprise. Nevertheless, we can try to be the catalyst to bring together many different and distant institutions toward a common goal: the betterment of the Chinese Catholic Church.”

Francisco Carin (second from left, front row)
with the participants to the

1st International Claretian Encounter
on Distance Education

Zhongshan City 中山市

Sunwen Road West at dusk

Zhongshan Prefecture in China

Zhongshan: Guangdong Province

Zhongshan is a city of numerous leafy parks, wide boulevards and various monuments and notable sights. It is very beautiful and very near our house in Zhuhai and Macau.

On Sunday, April 19, we visited the city, looking for the Catholic church. When we found it, we saw that it was under renovation and we were told that it will reopen on May 13.

Judging from their website, this local church is very active. You can take a look at: www.cncatholic.org

Even if you do not know Chinese,
you can appreciate the huge work that they do.

Zhongshan Church

Our Zhuhai group in Zhongshan:
(L-R) Lydia from Singapore, Maria from China,
Maritsa from Colombia, and Alberto

“Marriage and the Family” – Hong Kong

Jojo has been in Hong Kong for more than a year now and he can speak Cantonese now… not yet like a native but fluent enough to feel “proud” and make others full of “envy.”

He arranged for our meeting with two lay persons in charge of the Diocesan Pastoral Commission for Marriage and the Family: Mr. Kevin Lai, Executive Secretary, and Michael Tse, Family Pastoral Officer.

We shared ideas and projects and looked for ways to work together. One such project consists of the preparation of a well presented and printed booklet to be offered for free to the millions of Chinese tourists who visit Macau every year.

In the first three months of this year the number of tourists in this tiny place dropped 10% compared with that of last year… so we only had 5.5 million tourist from January to March 2009 (!!!)—remember that Macau has a population of half a million people. They come to Macau for gambling… and then to visit the historic city. They see many church buildings… but not the Church! One of the most important places attracting tourists is the Ruins of St. Paul.

The Ruins of St. Paul's refer to the façade of what was originally the Cathedral of St. Paul, a 17th century Portuguese cathedral in Macau dedicated to St. Paul the Apostle. Today, the ruins are one of Macau's most famous landmarks. In 2005, the Ruins of St. Paul were officially listed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Macau.

Façade of the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Macau

The Ruins of Saint Pauls in the evening light

Close up

Behind the façade are remains
of the original pillars and a shrine

The idea is to present Christianity from “below”: starting, for example, with this Ruins of St. Paul and explain what the building represents, who St. Paul is, Jesus, who the Christians are…

Mr. Kevin Lai, Executive Secretary,
and Michael Tse with Alberto

An Easter Picnic in Shenzhen, the city bordering Hong Kong

Shenzhen is situated immediately north of Hong Kong. Owing to China's economic liberalization under the policies of reformist leader Deng Xiaoping, the area became China's first—and ultimately most successful—Special Economic Zone.

Shenzhen's novel and modern cityscape is the result of the vibrant economy made possible by rapid foreign investment since the late 1970s, when it was a small fishing village. Since then, foreign nationals have invested more than US$30 billion for building factories and forming joint ventures. It is now reputedly one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Being southern China's major financial center, Shenzhen is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies. Shenzhen is also the second busiest port in mainland China, second only to Shanghai.

A night view of Shenzhen

It was twelve years ago when I visited Shenzhen with Fr. Bernardo Hurault. We looked for a Catholic church on a Sunday and were directed towards the outskirts of the city. There, in an old and dilapidated school building the Christian community gathered for their Sunday Mass. Times have changed. Now Shenzhen has three beautiful Catholic churches.

A couple of weeks ago, Fr. Jojo, with the Maryknoll priests of Christ the Worker parish in Hong Kong and a group of Catholics, visited the Catholic churches.

Shenzhen Church

A group of Catholics from Hong Kong

went across the border to visit Catholics in Shenzhen

Jojo shares this with us:

On 18 April, 42 of us, including three priests and two deacons, went to Shenzhen, one of the famous cities in China. We had the opportunity to visit the three churches in that city. The aim of our visit was to exchange Easter joy, peace and love with our brothers and sisters in mainland China. And we had the satisfaction and joy of achieving what we intended to do. In all three places we had lot of dialogue and exchange of ideas and faith experiences with the priests and the people. We also shared our personal experiences and ideas about our Christian faith, which really enriched the faith of everyone. It is a great joy for us to see the growth in faith of our brothers and sisters in China. One of the faithful said that our Christian life is to be lived in relationship with Jesus and in communion with other Christians in the world.

Personally, I feel so happy to see the way the Church in China is growing in all aspects in spite of the many difficulties, problems and struggles. God has a plan for this promised land and he will fulfill it according to his will. Let us unite to spread the good news of love, peace and joy wherever we are and may the Risen Christ give us the courage and strength to do it. In this season of peace and joy let us remember our brothers and sisters in China and pray for them.

In the footsteps of Claret

We all need to connect with our roots. We treasure our family origins; we remember our ancestors with respect and gratitude… This is also true of our religious mentors.

St. Anthony M. Claret, the founder of the Claretian Missionaries, lived in 19th century Spain and in Cuba. We, the Claretian missionaries, inherited his missionary spirit. To keep that spirit alive we need to connect with our religious roots. A group of 17 English-speaking Claretians from different parts of the world are participating these days in an intensive seminar in Spain, following the footsteps of Claret: following “physically” and spiritually. A member of our China Mission team, is the chronicler for the group and sends his notes every day. We copy at random:

Chapel of Our Lady of Fussimanya:

English-speaking Claretians
attending the Encounter with Claret.

Today Fr. Jesu Doss of the Center of Claretian Spirituality led the discussion, which highlighted some important points both in the life of Claret and of the participants as Claretians: the tension between charism and institution, the challenge of being evangelizing and evangelized, awareness and sensitivity to the particular reality of the different countries and continents, the tension between being Claretian priests working in the diocese and at the same time being religious living in a Claretian fraternity, the lack of a specifically non-clerical religious formation for Claretian brothers, who according to Fr. Jesu have a greater opportunity to live our “Claretian-ness.” At 6:30 pm, to conclude the session, Fr. Jesu asked the participants to share their impression of the Encounter so far, and the brothers agreed that initially they were expecting that these days would only be about past history, but the Encounter has so far brought them to the present, to see Claret very much alive today.

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Another day:
Fr. Gonzalo Fernandez CMF was the main celebrant in the mass this morning and in his homily, he talked about the changing face of the congregation in the past 30 to 40 years. He reiterated the fact that it is still the same Claretian congregation, but which has now fulfilled Claret’s desire for his spirit to be for the whole world. He also reminded the brothers of the aim of the Encounter with Claret, which is to know, enjoy and deepen our Claretian identity, not as a congregation of priests, but of missionaries, nourished by the Word of God as servants of the Word and united in the Eucharist as one community.

Some birthday celebrants and visitors

On April 29 we gathered in our house

to celebrate several birthdays:

Divine de Leon on May 9
(forth from left…not counting the baby!),
Fr. John Ledesma SDB on May 6 (in red),
and Alberto on April 29.

Fr. Ledesma is a Salesian missionary who has been very close to our community. We treasure his presence whenever he is in Macau or Beijing. He is a biblical scholar and a much-sought-after resource person for retreats and seminars of religious, priests and bishops. He is now studying Chinese so he can teach the seminarians in Chinese… Wow! Chapeaux!

Recently, through contacts with his friends he channeled a substantial donation for our Parish Library project. Many Catholics in rural areas across China will benefit from the books in their parish libraries for their Christian formation. In their name we say, “THANK YOU!”

And “WELCOME BROTHER!”

May the apostles be friends!

Sharing life, projects, dreams…
and a moment of fraternity with some of the missionaries
connected with the mission of the Church in China.

From left: Fr. Víctor Mejia, Comboni missionary
from Costa Rica;
Fr. Jose Ruiz Marquez, Claretian working in ICLA, Manila;
Fr. Victor Aguilar, Comboni missionary from Mexico;
Fr. John Ledesma, Salesian missionary;
and Alberto

On a lighter note

Well, not so light…

So if you think that you have a heavy burden in life… think again!