Welcome to the China Bulletin Blog - May 2016

Six Months in the new mission parish 

From the Opening Mass of the Epiphany Parish on 1 November 2015

Feast of the Epiphany on 3 January 2016

Feast of Santo Nino in Bui O 

Youth Camp, preparing for WYD, in February 2016

During a liturgy celebration in Epiphany Chapel, Mui Wo 

Claretian Community in Hong Kong has completed its first six months in Epiphany Parish, Mui Wo by the end of April. Looking back at the life of the parish community during the past months, we are indeed joyous!

A picture is worth a 1000 words... During one of those hiking stories! 

The Parish Community is comparatively small, scattered in the South of the Lantau Island. Daily Eucharistic celebrations, weekly adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and weekly Bible study sessions are some of the regular activities in the parish. Since the geographical distance between the mass centres is huge and conveyance facilities are not often very convenient, the parish had to come up with some new strategy to make the spiritual formation material available to the faithful. Thus we have set up parish a web-site which is updated everyday. The webpage provides spiritual formation and liturgy aid materials both in English and Chinese languages.

Checkout our webpage: http://epiphany.catholic.org.hk/home/

Fr. Jose Ruiz Marques, CMF giving a talk on Marian Devotions 

In the last week of April, as a preparation for the celebration of the Marian Month - the month of May, the parish organised a three-days talk on Marian Devotions by renowned professor Fr. Jose Ruiz Marques, CMF. His talks are available in our web page: http://epiphany.catholic.org.hk/home/liturgy-alive-classes/ 

News from the Publishing House ...

Claretian Publications and Pastoral Bible Foundation were busy during the past months as a number of important projects are on hand. With the arrival of the new Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Francis, "Amoris Laetitia" - The Joy of Love, Fr. Jijo and his team in Macau worked hard to make the copies available to the readers at the best possible price. The response to the book was so exciting, so that the Diocesan Pastoral Commission for Marriage and Family (DPCMF) and many parishes in Hong Kong purchased the book in large numbers. We have distributed a lot of copies free of cost in some of our parishes.

Apart from the religious, theological and pragmatic significance of the document, Pope Francis must be turning out to be one of a kind, best-selling authors!
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Daily Gospel 2017

Daily Gospel 2017 in traditional Chinese is going into press and will be available in book-stalls by early August. 2017 marks the 100th Year anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions. This is the 10th year of publishing of the Daily Gospel in Chinese.  More than 100000 copies of the simplified version of the Chinese Daily Gospel is distributed in the Mainland China every year.

The cover of the Chinese Daily Gospel 2017

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The Book of Psalms in Chinese 
The Bible translation work is being continued. After publishing the new Chinese translation of the complete New Testament in 2015, the Pastoral Bible Foundation now focuses on the translation of the Old Testament. The text comes with commentaries for each paragraph and Lectio Divina format.

The Cover for the Book of Psalms 

 These two books will be available in time of the Hong Kong International Book Fair in mid July.

A way to fight an addiction...

Li Yinming and his family 

Li Yinming was addicted to online games ... He was a good Christian, but was losing his way and his family was worried. It occurred to him that the best way to fight this addiction would be to copy the Bible by hand ... He prepared a daily program for three years, copying one chapter a day and he publishes it in WeChat.

Sample page of the hand-written Bible

His aim is to present the hand-written Bible to his daughter on her 18th birthday who is now 15 years old. Li says that copying the Bible, in addition to help you overcome your addiction, helps you greatly to develop your relationship with the word of God. He has the support of his wife and children. No wonder, there are many Chinese who are already doing the same and have joined this adventure,

Pope welcome Chinese Priests

A group of 30 priests from Mainland China visited Pope Francis in Vatican in April 

To the right of the Pope is Fr. Jeroom Heyndrickx, CICM, the founder of the Taiwan Pastoral Institute and founding director of the Ferdinand Verbiest Foundation, Leuven Catholic University, Belgium  and back (with red jacket) is Fr. Paco Carín , Claretian priest who helps Jeroom in contacts with the Church in China. Paco speaks fluent Chinese who completed his PhD last year in Beijing. The group of priests have been a few weeks at the Institute Verbiest of the Catholic University of Leuven for a renewal course and ended with a pilgrimage to Rome. When Father Jeroom presented the Pope the draft pastoral exchanges, the Pope said , "Great! That is what we need". Fr. Paco had prepared 30 priests to say in Spanish: "We want Pope to visit China." To which the Pope replied immediately; "Yes, yes ... that's what I want." Fr. Jeroom, with offices in Leuven (Belgium), Taipei and Beijing, has over 30 years of work, building bridge with the Church in China and Vatican

TV Series on Pope Francis in Taiwan

Pope Francis is at the centre of a new national television series that began airing in Taiwan on April 16. Entitled “Oh My God – Hello Pope!", it was developed by Jesuit-run Kuangchi Program Service (KPS) which believes this is the first weekly TV series in Asia about the pope.

KPS held a preview showing of the weekly series, which in Chinese is called "Hello Pope!", at its Taipei studios on April 9, a week ahead of its official opening broadcast by Dongfeng Satellite TV station. In addition to presenting the values, priorities, and goals of Pope Francis to the Taiwanese audience, "Oh My God" introduces various social and pastoral services of the church in Taiwan, said KPS director Jessica Chuang Li-hung. When the producers of the programme presented a CD to the Pope, the exclaimed "Oh My God". And that became the title of the programme!!

Becoming a candle in their darkened lives

The story goes back to 2007- 08, when Fr. Jojo was still a student of Chinese language in the Chinese University. He used to live with Fr. Tom Payton, a Maryknoll Missionary priest who used to visit the centers for leprosy affected in the Mainland. Fr. Tom would take Fr. Jojo along with him during those trips from Hong Kong. Years later in 2009 when Jojo moved to Macau as the Assistant Parish priest in St. Lawrence Church, he began to visit the centres for the leprosy affected with a group of friends from Hong Kong and Macau.

Fr. Jojo and Rose with a leprosy affected 

As the years passed by, the group of friends under the guidance of Jojo picked one of the centers in the South China as their mission project, with regular visits and accompaniment. The inmates of the centre who were neglected and discarded by the families and the society found new joy and comfort in the presence of these few friends from Macau and Hong Kong. 

The group from Macau-Hong Kong would pray, eat and live with them during their visits to the centre. Slowly they came up with the idea of setting up a charity under the title - Candle Light - under the aegis of the Claretian Missionaries. 

Jessica with one of the inmates of the Centre 

As they grew in confidence and relationship, many of the inmates began to open up their stories of pain and despair with their new-found friends, some of the stories - painful to digest, while some others - so inspiring! Those moving and inspiring stories made the group realise that these stories are priceless gems and must be preserved. Thus they came up with the idea of publishing these stories so that their friends and well-wishers back in Hong Kong and Macau would know them too. 

Bishop Stepehn Lee Bun-sang, Bishop of Macau, releasing the book by Candle Light 

Ms. Rose, the author with Bishop Lee during the book releasing in Macau 

The group Candle Light, consisting of Rose, Gloria, Jessica, Manna and Sandy came out with their first ever book, published in the first week of April. They appreciate any sort of assistance people can render in their mission for being a Candle Light in the darkened lives those those less privileged leprosy affected. Visit them in their fb page:                                              https://www.facebook.com/CandleLight19700515/?fref=ts

Silver Jubilee of Religious Profession

Fr. Jijo had an eventful year of Silver Jubilee of his Religious Profession. He made his first profession as a Claretian Missionary on 31 May 1990 in Bangalore. His Jubilee celebrations began with an opportunity for a Papal Audience in late May 2015. The year year long celebrations had a grand finale together with other Jubilee celebrants of the Diocese of Macau on 17 April. We wish Fr. Jijo the heavens' choicest blessings! 

Fr. Jijo with Fr. Jojo and a few friends from Macau 

Fr. Rossa celebrates birthday...

Yes! It's celebration time again! Fr. Alberto Rossa celebrated his birthday on 29 April. But the toughest part was to convince him to celebrate with us!!

Joint celebration of the Golden Jubilee of the Ordination of Fr. Marques (R)
and Birthday of Fr. Rossa in Epiphany Church, Mui Wo 

A couple of weeks earlier, Fr. Jose Ruiz Marques celebrated the 50th Anniversary of his Priestly Ordination. The parish community had the opportunity to celebrate with him when he came to give the talks on Marian Devotions at Mui Wo, in Hong Kong.