I organized the first youth day at Holy Family
Church Shenzhen last April 12, 2014. I
called for three times preparation meeting and tried to write all the details in
Chinese as clear as possible because there was always somebody who couldn’t
attend the meeting. It was organized for 16-35 years old, especially the single
parishioners. There were almost 40
persons attended it including the volunteers, which were divided into small
group of four persons: mostly two men and two women. Four of them are not Catholics yet, several of them are usually attend the Sunday Mass in the other Church. All the volunteers are volunteers at the
usher, reader, or Sunday’s School group.
Two young women and two young men brought forward
two candles, brown color cross (the replica of world youth day cross) and the
icon of Mother of God of Tenderness (as I couldn’t find a big icon of Our Lady
of Perpetual Help in the bookstores in Hong Kong) to the altar followed by the participants by
twos while singing the Chinese version of “The Beatitude”. Our pastor Fr. Lu welcomed the participants
followed by power point presentation of history of World Youth Day prepared by
Ms. Lin and presented by Mr. Liu, it’s his first presentation. Mr. Liu and Mr. Dai prepared the wooden stand
to put the cross on the previous night.
Fr. Lu shared his experiences during the WYD in Sydney and Madrid
and then led the opening prayer. Mr. Wu read
the message from Pope Francis for the 29th World Youth Day while
showing in mute mode the video of the Mass with Pope during World Youth Day
2013 in Brazil . This year, Pope Francis chose the theme:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat
5: 3) Here is the link both the message:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/youth/documents/papa-francesco_20140121_messaggio-giovani_2014.html
and the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-iZAten9MI.
The participants could watch the video (with voice)
of the World Youth Day 2013 Mass with Pope during the break before going to a
public park nearby. We had potluck lunch
upon arriving at the park followed by ice breaking games led by Mr. Dai.
Ms. Xiong told the story of “The Hunter, Monkey and
Peanuts,” here is the link of the story: http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/friends-family-substance-abusers/233277-parable-hunter-monkey-peanut.html. With the help of Ms. Xiong, I led the small
group sharing. Everyone in the group
took turn to answer four questions for 3 minutes before writing/drawing their
small group sharing and writing a petition prayer for the Youth Mass in the
evening. Ms. Liang found the Chinese
version of the message of Pope Francis and compressed it into one page to help
them to look for the sentences which impressed them. Every small group presented their sharing to
the whole group led by Mr. Dai followed by games led by Ms. Luo.
After taking group pictures, Fr. Lu shared his
thought. Our praise and worship group
led the praise and worship after dinner followed by Youth Mass, which was the
anticipated Palm Sunday Mass. One of the
offerings was the report of small group sharing, which was posted on the brown cross.
Most of the participants wrote “very good” and
“great” on their evaluation and wish to have an event for the youth every 1-2
month as they enjoyed the opportunity to meet new friends, share their faith
experiences, learn the teachings of the Church besides play together.
It’s first youth gathering for most of the participants.
When I checked the weather in the morning, it was
predicted to be raining but God answered my prayer not to give us raining and
too hot weather! We were at a very nice spot
under palm trees. Thanks be to God!
Sr. Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.
Let’s
do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible
No comments:
Post a Comment