Activities of the Various English Speaking Groups. Rosary Church

Transcription

1 Activities of the Various English Speaking Groups Rosary Church September 2014 to August 2015 INDEX Page Introduction 2 English Pastoral Committee (EPC) 4 Children's Catholic Instruction Programme 6 Mustard Seed Charismatic Prayer Group 7 Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults 7 Rosary Church Children's Choir 8 The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) HK 9 Life Teen

2 Introduction As we celebrate the 110 th anniversary of Rosary Church, we thank God for being a super parish. Anyone who has lived a full century is a centenarian. Add ten more years and the honorary title is supercentenarian. There are only a few hundred people in the whole world who were here 110 years ago. No one knows how many people, since most babies back then did not get a birth certificate after they arrived in the world. The internet is not sure if the first auto arrived in HK in 1905 or in 1908, because the colonial government did not immediately begin licensing cars. We are sure that the Canossian Sisters opened a small school for girls in 1900, and donated part of their property in 1904 to build a church. The ceiling is high, with windows in the upper walls to let hot air escape while slightly cooler air entered through the lower windows. Those were the so-called Good Old Days before AC. Many Portuguese came to the newly opened church for Mass in Latin. Those surnames continue in their great-grandchildren. Today a slight majority of our parishioners attend Cantonese Masses. A cross section of the human race from at least 27 countries on 6 continents comes to the English liturgies every Sunday, not to mention tourists from additional nations. The word catholic with a small c comes from the Greek adjective for universal, open to everyone. In 1965, Vatican II called the Church the sacrament of universal salvation. Officially there are only 7 sacraments : Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Marriage, Holy Orders and Anointing of the Sick. The church is like a sacrament, which is - 2 -

3 an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible reality. We come to church, see different races and hear different languages. Hopefully we feel in our hearts that people are meant to be united in love, not divided in conflict. Rosary Church feels like a super parish, yet we have to admit it is not as large as say, St. Paul s Anglican Cathedral in London. Christopher Wren ( ) designed St. Paul s and many other beautiful buildings. People wanted to build a monument to such a famous architect. Christopher Wren instead requested to be buried inside his beloved church, with a simple plaque on the spot, If you seek a monument, look around you. Does anyone know who designed Rosary Church? Neither he nor anyone else is buried on this church property. If we seek a monument, we can walk around outside the church and then look closely at the interior, notice the names of benefactors, and see the 20 Mysteries of the Rosary high over the entrance to the sanctuary. If you have not already done so, one way to celebrate our 110 th anniversary is to learn the names of those 20 Mysteries, and how to say a rosary. To seek an even better monument, recall 1 Peter 2:5 Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house. Sunday after Sunday, seek a new face or two and shake hands with other living stones in our super parish. Happy Anniversary, Rosary Church! Fr Michael J. Sloboda, MM Assistant Parish Priest - 3 -

4 English Pastoral Committee - (EPC) The English Pastoral Committee ( EPC ) is composed of parishioners who have been invited by the Pastor to represent members of the parish community who use English as their language of worship. The current committee members are: President: D Ann da Silva Treasurer: Manoj Sadarangani Secretary: Rina Nicolas-Santos General Committee: Deirdre Chaves, Lorraine Hamet, Benjamin Kwong, Mary Chen Law, Maria Raichandani, Remy Sabinano, Ruel Trinidad and Elaine Zuniga The EPC, through Fr. Mike Sloboda, advises the pastor on issues concerning the community. The EPC takes the lead role in planning and implementing special liturgies, activities and the like. It meets on the second Friday of each month. Before 2014 ended, the parish enjoyed various services and programs

5 Towards the end of every August the parish thanks the altar servers by inviting them to a pool party and dinner, usually held at Mariners Club. In 2014, this was held on 28th August. The annual Family Living Rosary service was held in church on the afternoon of 26th October, 2014 in honour of our patroness Our Lady, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary. Members of the Children s Choir, Life Teen, and candidates from the Children s Catholic Instruction Program participated as human beads during the recitation of five decades of the rosary. On 23rd November the end of the liturgical year the EPC organized the annual Eucharistic Adoration in honour of the Solemnity of Christ the King. The adoration took place in the parish hall after the p.m. Sunday Mass and ended at 6.00 p.m. with benediction in the church. EPC members helped to set up the Christmas trees in the hall and the courtyard as well as all the decorations in the church and rectory. As is now customary, the tree in the courtyard was named The Giving Tree and a request was made for donations of specific items for the Little Sisters of the Poor, Sheung Shui. To plan the liturgy for 2015, the EPC held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 10th January. In the lead-up to Holy Week, a Lenten Recollection was conducted by Fr Mike Sloboda during the daily 6:30 p.m. Mass from 23rd to 25th March, 2015, preaching the theme Preparation For Purgatory

6 The annual reconciliation service in preparation for Easter was held in church on the afternoon of Palm Sunday, 29 th March, 2015 And finally, the numbers in our church continue to grow. From September 2014 to August 2015 Fr Mike Sloboda baptized 21 babies and 6 adults. Children s Catholic Instruction Program Classes for began on 6 th September, 2014 and were held every Saturday morning from 9.15 to a.m. On the eve of Pentecost, 23 rd May, 2015, 18 children received First Holy Communion and 19 young people received the Sacrament of Confirmation at a Eucharistic Celebration presided over by Auxiliary Bishop Stephen Lee. Our Parish Priest, Fr. John Baptist Tsang and assistant pastors, Fr. Mike Sloboda and Fr. Ezakias Anthonyswamy concelebrated. The celebration was followed by a gathering of family and friends in the Parish Hall to celebrate the children s special day. Bishop Stephen very graciously gave of his time in the hall so that families could take their special pictures with him. At a penitential service held the week before on 16 th May, 2015, 16 children received the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time. Fr. Mike Sloboda baptized 21 infants and 6 adults between September 2014 to August

7 Mustard Seed Charismatic Prayer Group The Prayer Group meets every Wednesday evening to praise and worship God in prayer, song and Scripture reading. During the course of the year, the Prayer Group arranged Mass for Healing on the last Wednesday of every other month as a service to the parish. These masses were usually well attended. The group continues to be blessed to have Fr. Timoteo Merino, O.P. and Fr. Terrance Mascarenhas, S.V.D. helping out with the Mass for Healing. Mustard Seed would like to take this opportunity to invite anyone who would like to spend an evening in praising God to join us on Wednesday at 8.00 p.m. in the 1 st floor Meeting Room of the Church Rectory. Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA Program) The RCIA is a year-long program for English speakers. Classes are held every Friday evening from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in the 1st floor Meeting Room of the Church Rectory. The classes for 2014 began on 12th September and ended in June At the Easter Vigil 2015, six adults received the Sacrament of Initiation. The classes for 2015 began on 18th September and will run until June

8 The course includes common prayers, the rosary, the Seven Sacraments, the Five Rules of the Church, etc. Rosary Church Children's Choir The Children s Choir is a group of young people, aged 7-12, who attend Saturday afternoon rehearsals in preparation for various social occasions and special liturgies in the parish. At present, there are 18 children in the choir. As in previous years, the Children s Choir parents core group organized a number of fellowships to celebrate birthdays, Halloween and Christmas. Orientation, recruitment and training for potential choir members are ongoing through the course of the year

9 The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) HK The practice of Christian Meditation, as taught by our founder John Main, can be traced back to the Desert Fathers. The three essentials of Christian Meditation are (1) Interior Silence to try and keep our mind calm; (2) Stillness to keep our body still: Be still and know that I am God and (3) Simplicity all we need to do is to keep our mind blank and concentrate on our mantra (which is usually a short word or phrase and repeat it throughout our meditation). It is recommended that we meditate for at least 20 minutes twice a day. Christian Meditation started in Rosary Church in We still meet every Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. in the Library. We follow a simple routine: we start with a short reading from the Bible then we listen to a teaching for about 10 minutes followed by 20 minutes of meditation. The sessions end at around 8:45 p.m. with a short prayer. We are blessed that in all these years we have a faithful core of about 8 10 meditators. Very often we have newcomers who come and go but we are hopeful that although they don t attend our sessions physically they go away with a knowledge of what Christian Meditation is all about. This year the annual Seminar organized by WCCM was held in Hamilton, New Zealand. There were 12 meditators from HK who attended, including 4 of us from Rosary Church. It was a very meaningful seminar and we learnt a great deal from the other participants. We had two renowned speakers : Prof. David Tacey who spoke on Spirituality and Religion in a Secular Age and Fr. Laurence Freeman OSB who spoke on - 9 -

10 Meditation as a Modern Spiritual Path. After the Seminar we took the opportunity to tour around the beautiful country of New Zealand for about 10 days. We are always happy to see newcomers so please join us and see how this simple form of meditation will help you to be a calmer and more cheerful person. Life Teen Life Teen Rosary Church marked its milestone 10 th year anniversary of youth ministry this year and continues to make headway in its mission of leading teens closer to Christ. The anniversary celebrations were held last May 2 with a formal masquerade ball and a special Life Teen Mass celebrated with the 7PM Sunday congregation on May 3 presided by his grace bishop Joseph Ha with our pastor Fr. Michael Sloboda and Fr. Josekutty Cheruka representing the Diocesan English Youth (DEY) con-celebrating. During the normal course of the year, English-speaking teenagers of varying ethnicity attend the regularly scheduled life nights held every Saturday and the once-a-month Life Teen mass held in the parish. As they have done so in previous years, our teenagers were at the forefront in the planning and presentation of prayer services, XLTs, the Family Living Rosary held in October and the traditional Midnight Mass Service last December. The special Life Teen Lenten Tenebrea prayer service was held in the parish hall on March 28 the eve of Palm Sunday

11 Our teenagers continue to be active participants of the Diocesan English Youth (DEY), which has sponsored various diocesanwide youth activities and masses throughout the past year such the Holympics in September and the Lord s Flock Community Arise youth rally in July. Life Teen was able to send 50 teenagers and 20 adult core facilitators to the annual 3-day summer retreat entitled Sent at the Salesian House in Cheung Chau on August Also this year, 38 teenagers and 12 adult core facilitators were able to attend the annual one-day Lenten recollection held in February at the PIME House, Sai Kung. As part of our continuing inter-parochial exchange program, Life Teen once more hosted a 15-member delegate of teenagers from the Antioch Community of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, Makati City, Philippines, to this year s annual 3-day summer retreat. Generous parents hosted the delegates in their homes for a few more days after the retreat for their socio-cultural and

12 pastoral immersion. We look forward to continually working hand-in-hand with our counterparts in Manila to further reachout to many more young people by strengthening ties through this inter-parochial exchange initiative in the future. It was indeed another awesome year full of blessings and graces. Our teenagers were able to raise HKD 67, towards Life Teen s operational fund during the bi-annual fundraiser. The teens promised to schedule a beach clean up activity in December in thanksgiving for our parish community s outpouring of generosity. The Youth Minister and his core team prayerfully hold steadfast to their commitment in reaching out to more and more teens