Sharing: The Fourth Youth Gathering of Holy Family Church

With the help of several volunteers especially Ms. Liang who is the contact person with another 3 youth groups in Guangzhou, I organized the fourth youth gathering of Holy Family Church on November 22. The Shenzhen Catholic Youth chat group, which was formed after the first youth gathering at Holy Family Church, helped to spread the news as it has more than 270 members from Shenzhen and neighboring cities.  

The registration for the participants of Holy Family Church was begun at 7:00 a.m. and we left around 8:00 a.m. in a bus.  Another bus left from St. Francis Xavier Church Shenzhen led by Sr. Huang.

Mr. Liu was the MC during the day.  Fr. Lu gave a short talk and then led the prayer and ice breaking games.  The praise and worship team taught and led to sing several songs.  We arrived at Cathedral Guangzhou around 10:30 a.m.  The pastor Fr. Yu gave introduction about the Cathedral and Guangzhou Diocese and then Fr. Lu led us to sing several songs before we took group pictures in front of the Cathedral.

We, more than 90 of us, walked to Our Lady of Lourdes Church - Shamian Island in 3 big groups.  It took around 30 minutes.  The Guangzhou Mustard Seed group (16 university students), Indonesian Catholic Charismatic Renewal Group (more than 35 youths) and Fr. Chen welcome us. Fr. Lu led the grace before the potluck lunch prepared by the parishioners of Shamian Church and Indonesian youth group.    

Due to limited time, everyone was asked to seat according to the sitting arrangement so they no need to move around to look for their small group for the small group sharing.  The small groups sat in each pew and consist of several group members.  There were 19 small groups of 6 persons while the rest of the Indonesians who should leave early for preparing the Indonesian Mass sat on the side pews.

After the group pictures of more than 140 persons, Ms. Nana gave introduction about the Indonesian group and then their choir sang beautifully “Jadikan Hati-ku Istana Cintamu” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzOWfCCjAkM and “Arbab“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJn1afJMZGQ&list=RDRJn1afJMZGQ#t=248. Fr. Peter Chen gave introduction about the Church and gave souvenirs to Fr. Lu, Sr. Huang of St. Francis of Xavier Church, the 5 youth groups and me.   Guangzhou Mustard Seed and St. Francis Xavier Youth Group then gave introduction about their groups followed by introduction by representative of Cathedral Youth Group because their members were on a day retreat at Cathedral.  Guangzhou Mustard Seed then led us to sing an action song 爱使我们相聚在一起 (=Love makes us want to be together).  Mr. Wu gave introduction about the Holy Family Youth Group.  Ms. Xiong gave away bookmarks from Holy Family Bible Group to all the groups followed by singing Holy Family Song, which was written as Holy Family Church Shenzhen Song, led by Fr. Lu.

Ms. Zhao read the message of Pope Francis for World Mission Sunday 2014 followed by small group discussion on their pews. 

Fr. Lu led a song and gave blessings as we, the Holy Family Youth Group, should walk to Cathedral as soon as possible.  We left Cathedral around 5.00 p.m. After an hour of resting, Mr. Wu led the sharing on the seat and the invited anybody who wanted to share to the group.  Ms. Xiong gave short talk on Bible and gave away the bookmarks to all participants. 

Several agenda couldn’t be done e.g. group sharing at Shamian Church and games on the way back to Shenzhen, because of time limitation.

We arrived at Holy Family Church dinner around 7: 20 just in time for dinner before attending the anticipated Sunday Mass.  Several youth attended the Mass by sitting together on the front rows, several youth were volunteering for the Mass, and several youth went home especially the ones from other Churches. 

Here is the link of the pictures: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbuWrFm4ZM2NI. 39 participants from Holy Family Church returned the evaluation and wrote “非常好” (great) and “很好” (=very good) and they wish to have more and longer pilgrimages.  Here are sharing from three participants, please use https://translate.google.com/ to translate it:

大家好！我叫吴静洋，来自河北。首先特别感谢神父，修女以及大家的陪伴。跟你在一起，很开心，让我做为真正的自己。这次的一日朝圣让我明白了我们不是去旅游。也不是去看美丽的风景。教堂的华丽与简单，雄伟与弱小跟我们传教信德几乎没什么关系。曾经我以为，大教堂就容易传教，小教堂是不容易传教。现在看来不是这么一回事。我很少跟团出去朝圣，以前出去朝圣都是跟我舅舅一起去，我去过山西圣母山，七苦山，洞儿沟以及德兰修女住的地方。现在那里还保存她曾用过的东西。不过，我那时去的时候只不过为了娱乐和满足我的好奇心罢了。我舅是非常热心的人，每次接待老家朝圣教友时都会带上我。但那时我不懂的与人分享，也不懂的跟教友讲解。而现在我明白了当初我舅带我去的目的。不是为了看美丽的风景，而且，让我和教友分享天主带给我们的爱。以及天主爱世人的道理。他们为教会奉献的教友盖起的教堂也不是让我们旅游的景点。而是让我们更加相信耶稣爱我们，耶稣无所不在处处都在，也告诉我们。让所有人来天主面前，天主耶稣爱我们每一个人。最后想所的是，在今后日子里我要把天主的圣言，天主的爱传给教外朋友，让更多人认识天主，跟随主耶稣基督。以后想去山西太原朝圣时我一定带你们去，给你们讲解和分享。小伙伴们，有时间就去趟吧，那里我们也会学到很多东西。谢谢大家！

我是李丽娟，我来自广西，下面是我的分享:
难忘22号的美好时光！爱让我们相聚在一起。
《第四届青年节》神父带领我们去广州石室圣心主教堂，沙面露德堂朝圣。
时间虽只有一天但我们收获满满。
感谢沙面露德堂神父及各位热心的教友为我们精心准备了丰富的午餐，让我们有充足的体能来为主做见证。

下午的分享很精彩，听了各堂区的精彩介绍后又欣赏了印尼团体教友的美妙歌声，印象最深刻的是芥子团体（大学生），这群充满活力，爱心和感恩的青年去探访了麻风病人，用他们的实际行动诠释着天主的大爱。为我树立了一个学习的榜样……

感恩天主赐予了我们健康的身体，时刻医治我们受伤的心灵，给我们机会去创造爱的能力与价值，温暖着我们冰冷的心，使我们变得更坚强勇敢，更有勇气去克服所有的困难与挫折，重新回到主的怀抱，活出自己的信仰价值观。
感谢神父修女及参与此次活动的所有兄弟姐妹们的用心付出，让我们拥有难忘的美好回忆！本次的活动圆满结束，期待下次的相聚！

感谢天主
愿主的名永受赞美

阿门

大家好！我叫若望。这次由深圳、广州以及印尼青年团体的交流活动举办的非常顺利;感谢主赞美主！在这个活动中，让我更加坚定团体的重要性，有句话叫做有经历过的才叫信仰，信仰是生活出来的。现代的教会是属于年轻人的教会，我们应当服从教宗的教导，多多学习圣经和祈祷；学习耶稣基督的良善心谦，在生活上懂得感恩，懂得分施，让这个世界多一份爱。

Hong  Kong, December 9, 2014

Sr. Anastasia B. Lindawati, M.M.

Let’s do simple things with simple love to make God’s love visible