English
On October 22, 2017 on Mission Sunday, our Parish St. Benedict Church has organized a pilgrimage for all the catechumens of the parish. Nearly 75 Catechumens have joined our pilgrimage.
We have taken the catechumens to one of the old churches in the outskirts of the city in SaiKung district of Baak Sha O village, Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel. This church has more than 100 years of history. This church is same as other churches of Sai Kung. They are built in western style. This is a typical 19th century church. This was designed by an Italian missionary. The PIME missionaries built the church for the purpose of serving the already existing Catholics of the village as well as for evangelization. This area is very inconvenient place for preaching the good news because of their traditional Chinese customs of that time. For more than a century, the PIME priests walked for mile upon mile along country paths to administer mass, or conduct a
wedding or funeral. To reach Sai Kung in the first place, they would have had to either take a five-hour junk ride from Hong Kong Island or walk across the mountains from Kowloon.
Baak Sha O Village was abandoned when descendents of the founding Ho family left Hong Kong. In 2013 this church was innovated by the Hong Kong Diocese and the Catholics are invited to go on pilgrimage to this area to learn about missionaries of that time. The missionaries who sowed the seed of faith stand as an exemplary for today’s missionaries. It was a great moment for my parish catechumens to visit this church to learn about the life of the missionaries and how they sacrificed their life to bring Christ to the non-christians.
In order to keep our pilgrimage more motivated and lively, the catechumens were requested to prepare food items for our lunch to eat at the church area. Each food item they choose should have a biblical reference and meaning. They need to explain to the group what food they have prepared, which bible reference it has and its meaning. The catecumens apart from learning about the life of the missions and missionaries, they also learnt some bible passages.
Sr. Anitha Eddula (Hong Kong – Cina)
