Sr.
Maureen and I left for Jiangmen by bus on Aug 20. We stopped at Huanggang border and then
continued the journey to Jiangmen for total around 4.5 hour trip. I stayed with Immaculate Heart of Mary
sisters at the Cathedral compound for ten days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Jiangmen. The compound consists of two floors ex
seminary, three floors Bishop’s house, four floors convent, one floor
Cathedral, and one floor guard room.
The sisters prays Cantonese Divine Office
besides Cantonese Rosary and Divine Mercy, so I joined them for afternoon and
evening prayers, and prayed English morning and night prayers privately. Cantonese daily Masses and Cantonese–Mandarin
Sunday Mass were celebrated by Bishop Liang.
He and six other priests manage 36 churches in the diocese. There are 25 sisters including three elderly
sisters and three sisters on further study, mostly work as pastoral sisters by
two. Several churches only have four
Sunday Masses during the year (Christmas, Easter, Pentacost and Assumption) and
one priest responsible for 6-7 churches including Bishop Liang.
Mother
Superior Sr. Li, Deacon Huang and I visited two elderly in a nursing home nearby
and attended a funeral service led by Fr. Yang in a funeral parlor. All of us wore a white cloth in our arm as
sign of grieving and then the family invited for supper together besides giving
red envelope, peanut and candy. Sr. Li
and I also visited another elderly woman in her house.
Sr.
Ke accompanied me to stay overnight in Heshan, around 2 hours by bus. Sr. Qi was alone during our visit as another
sister went to another Church; they responsible for three Churches. The Rosary Church
is located in a village, all of the residents are Catholics. In 1966, around 100 parishioners moved from
another Catholic village, and now there are around 200 parishioners. We visited several parishioner, most of them
are elderly so they only speak either Cantonese or Hakka. There is Cantonese-Hakka prayer of St. Bridget
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pray0345.htm
that night. After our Mandarin Divine
Office, several elderly attended Cantonese morning prayers including Rosary. An elderly woman invited us for her birthday
celebration so Sr. Qi led a Cantonese prayer in her house before going to the
restaurant nearby by a motorcycle with six seats in the back. One of her daughter recognized me as she
lives in Macau, finally she remembered after knowing that I am an Indonesian as
she knows an Indonesian seminarian Toto, SVD who was in Macau. Small
world! Fr. Yang invited Sr. Ke and me
for supper as we visited St. Joseph Church
in Jiangmen downtown. He told me that
Fr. Paul is an Indonesian born Chinese priest of Jiangmen who passed away in
1996.
Bishop
Liang, Sr. Li, Deacon Huang and I visited leprocy center in Cangshan, around 3
hours by bus. Bishop Liang celebrated the
Cantonese anticipated Sunday Mass. Around
60 out of 80 residents are Catholics. After
lunch with the volunteers, we went back to Jiangmen.
After Sunday Mass, Bishop
Liang, Sr. Ke, three parishioners and I went to Shunde, around one hour by
car. We dropped Bishop Liang at Sacred Heart
Church and then visited Holy Family
Church in Foshan. A couple invited us for lunch, he said that they are so grateful to God as his wife
is healthy even though she only has one kidney since six years ago. I was moved to hear his Cantonese sharing
which was translated by Sr. Ke. After
lunch, we visited Sacred Heart Church
and then joined Bishop Liang and one parishioner visited Rosary Church
in Shunde, which was built in 1929 and couldn’t use anymore due to safety
reason. After supper at Foshan, Bishop
Liang celebrated Cantonese Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church, which was arranged
that afternoon as Sunday Mass usually on third Sundays. The parishioners sang several prayers around
45 minutes while waiting the confession and the Mass was one hour late.
I attended Mandarin Memorial
Mass for one of the elderly celebrated by Bishop Liang and then joined the
sisters cleaned, mostly from dried leaves and branches, the former Maryknoll
Sisters convent. It’s the number five
building in a big school compound next door, our sisters left it as they were
expelled from the country during revolution and never came back. The big compound were belongs to Maryknoll,
and then the government only gave back the convent to the Immaculate Heart of
Mary Sisters, but they never occupied the convent, and then it was rented out
to the school. The story of our sisters
in South China during Revolution in China can be read at: http://www.maryknollsocietymall.org/chapters/978-1-57075-934-5.pdf
I got
lower back pain after sneezing so Sr. Chen did a reflexiology
massage for two days. Thanks God it
works!
Sr.
Li, two sisters from Shanghai and I had a dim sum lunch in a park on our way to
visit St. Matthew Church in Xin Hui around one and a half hour by bus. Sr. Huang and one of the sisters also work
for another three Churches.
Usually
parishioners call the sisters with “阿姑” from “姑娘” (for single
woman) to show closer relationship.
I
left Jiangmen for Luo Hu on Aug 30 with gratitude for the warm welcome and
hospitality of Bishop Liang, Deacon Huang, all the sisters and people whom I
met. Even though I couldn’t speak
Cantonese/Hakka, I learned a lot from this trip including their faithfulness to
keep their faith amidst the limitation of the priests and sisters aviability. The pictures of the visit can be seen at: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbuWrFm4ZM2Fo
I
visited Holy Family Chapel in Luo Hu to meet Fr. Lu regarding the possibility
to help. The Chapel was opened last
year. All Masses are celebrated in
Mandarin as Fr. Lu is from Handan Diocese-Hebei.
Hong Kong， 31 Aug, 2012
Sr.
Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.
Let’s
do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible
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