Photo: Ivan Leong
– Marco Carvalho
Thurible, boat, paten, pall, chalice, ciborium, aspergilium, custody. Their names evoke ancient mysteries and in them echoe divinity and transcendence, but more than the names, it was the splendor and extravagance of the sacred vessels that the students of St Joseph’s Seminary brought to Tap Seac Square last Sunday that captured the attention of both kids and grown-ups, on a day in which the Diocese of Macau made an effort to make itself known to the local population.
With a renewed vigor, St Joseph’s Seminary was one amongst more than half a hundred Catholic institutions that joined the Mission Festival. Parishes, schools, universities, charities and religious congregations took part in the event, but few were able to arouse as much curiosity among the visitors as did the small stand representing the Seminary. The secret for such popularity? Sacred vessels.
The institution set a small exhibition of liturgical objects on a single table on Tap Seac Square. The vessels sparked the curiosity of many of the visitors who wanted to know what were the sacred vessels for and why are they used during the Eucharist: “For many people these containers are wrapped in a cloud of mystery. They see the priest and the acolytes using these objects at the altar, but they rarely have the opportunity to see them closely, to understand what they are, what they are called and what they are for. Our role is to tell them a little about these liturgical objects and to explain that everything has a different liturgical function,” explained José Maria, one of the young seminarians studying at Saint Joseph’s Seminary.
Two steps away, his Macanese colleague Adriano Agostinho swings the thurible just over the head of two young girls. The children follow the small silver censer with their eyes, ask a handful of questions, invite themselves to see the incense and to peer inside the ciborium: “Some of the children who came to us were really curious, they wanted to know everything there is to know about these objects. Most of them, I think, they might have already seen some of these sacred vessels being used in the Mass and this reality is not entirely unknown to them,” said José Maria. “Those who didn’t know anything about these objects offered us the opportunity to practice some of the principles of catechesis, albeit in an indirect way. They ask questions and we answered them. It’s a good opportunity to evangelize, also in a natural way,” the young seminarian explained.
On the stage erected right in the heart of the square, songs were chanted in Portuguese. Sister Maria Lúcia Fonseca, who is in charge of the Lusophone community of the parish of Our Lady of Carmel, in Taipa, led an eclectic group of men, women, children and teenagers. They are on stage to sing, but also to recall that in Macau there are still Catholics that pray in Portuguese, in an enthusiastic performance that drew a round of applause from the audience: “These people are hungry for God. They often do not know how to satisfy the hunger that they feel. Through these signs we nurture their enthusiasm,” Sister Maria Lucia explains. “We were careful enough to choose children that take part in the catechesis classes, the parents of those children and some other people who are more closely linked to the Church. Our aim is that we can serve as a leaven among the great mass of Macao,” the Franciscan missionary said.
An attentive Church
In the “midst of the great mass of Macau” Catholics are but a minority, but Father Carlos Malásquez Quispe believes that many of those that live in the Special Administrative Region are fully aware of the relevance of the work that the Catholic Church does in Macau. The parish priest of St Joseph The Worker parish, a diocesan district recently elevated to the status of parish, argues that the values associated with the Church’s action in Macau will endure forever: “I think the people in Macau are very much aware of who and what the Catholic Church is. A few weeks ago I have started the catechumenal classes and many people came to me and told me ‘When I was a child, I used to study in a Catholic School’ or ‘I came in contact with some Catholic people.’ The Church has always been part of their lives, even though now they are like 30 or 40 years old,” the minister said. “Many people now are taking these steps and probably the younger generations will also come to know the Catholic Church. I am not saying that it will happen now, but maybe later they will follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and what the Gospel tells us to do also,” Father Quispe sustained.
Promoted by the Diocese of Macau, the Missionary Festival is one of the two big events with which the Episcopal Palace intends to celebrate the Extraordinary Missionary Month and the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s promulgation of the Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud. Officially inaugurated by D. Stephen Lee, the event that last Sunday gathered at Tap Seac Square more than half a hundred Catholic institutions is also a turning point, after the announcement, made last December by the Diocesan Curia, that this triennium would be entirely dedicated to the younger generations.
The initiative deserves Paul Pun Chi Meng’s applause. The Secretary General of Caritas, an organization that was present at Tap Seac Square with a few young volunteers, says that more than an opportunity for the Church to show itself to Macau’s society, the gathering had the ability to conceive of the local youth not only as the future of the Church itself, but fundamentally as the future of Macau: “It is important to have a strong and solid foundation for the younger generations, because they will have a future role to play. They will assume different active roles when they grow up. To have this opportunity, for them to share their work together, is important,” the secretary-general of Caritas said. “We are not merely talking about a learning process, but mainly an acculturation process. Is not only about learning. It is also about developing values, about acculturation. In Macau, we need different types of activities. This is a good example, but some activities don’t need to be held in public and not in a carnival mood: visiting the old, visiting the homeless. These are all ways to build a better society,” Mr. Pun Chi Meng concluded.
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