Category: Church

The Catholic Church in Cambodia.

Getting ready

Our Saturday night mass for the English Catholic Community is held at the St. Jude Thaddeus School in Phnom Penh. Today I was there for a meeting on Friday afternoon and the students were setting up the chairs for us to use tomorrow evening. (Thank you!)

Priests Meeting

Today the Phnom Penh diocese had its quarterly meeting of all the priests.

Fr. Chatsirey made a point while explaining about the progress of the new church being built in St. Joseph Parish.
Later, before lunch, the group celebrated Bishop Olivier’s 16th anniversary as a bishop.

Ash Wednesday 2025

Today we had our first Ash Wednesday service at the St. Jude Thaddeus School site. It was something of a test run to see how many people wanted to come, could find St. Jude School, and would brave the heat after a 97ºF afternoon. They came. We used basically every chair the school had and people were still standing.

In previous years we had two Ash Wednesday services, on opposite sides of town, but this year just the one gathering and it was crowded.

I told the priest to keep the homily short and he did.

Around the world, Ash Wednesday is one of the most well attended religious services and we certainly had an outpouring for our English Catholic Community.

A surprise…

My birthday was last Saturday, a week ago, when I was in Bangkok to get a new visa. I didn’t think much about my birthday then and certainly not much since then, but today at the end of mass some of the parishioners surprised me with a cake!

Presentation of the Lord

Today the church celebrates the presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple 40 days after his birth, a prescription of the Law of Moses. An elderly man, Simeon, recognizes the baby as the messiah, “a light for the gentiles,” and from that reference the church picked this day for blessing candles used through the church year. We had a blessing of candles today–and some people seemed to make a point of dropping pools of wax on the floor. Three of us spent 45 minutes after everyone left to scrape up wax before the Khmer community had their afternoon mass.

Fr. Ponchaud Funeral

Fr. François Ponchaud died two weeks ago in France. He first came to Cambodia in 1965 and was the major influence in rebuilding the Catholic Church in the kingdom after the Khmer Rouge.

Today there was a funeral service for Fr. Ponchaud at St. Joseph Church. At the beginning, before the bishop and priests processed in, there was a ten-minute video about his life and work in Cambodia. I was pleased to see the Khmer church using the video system that our English Catholic Community installed. They have not taken advantage of it previously. Each Sunday there are masses at St. Joseph in Khmer at 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM with an English mass at 10:30 AM.

End of Christmas Season

In the Catholic liturgical year, today–the feast of the baptism of Jesus–is the end of the Christmas season and tomorrow begins the first day of the cycle of Ordinary Time for the church.

Today is the last day this Christmas creche will be displayed. Note the carved wooden figures, about 18-inches high. They are made from extremely dense and hard luxury woods from Cambodia and each is worth$300 to $500. These luxury woods are a sign of achievement and success in Cambodian culture. If you can acquire these, you are successful in life.

30th Anniversary

30 years ago the parish community of the Church of the Child Jesus moved out of a residential house they were worshiping in and erected one of the first post-Khmer Rouge actual church buildings. This past weekend their parish celebrated their anniversary.

In the early afternoon, Father François Hemelsdael and some of the parishioners greeted the first guests to arrive for the 4:00 PM anniversary mass.

Fr. Gianluca and Fr. Oh Chang were two of the priests who came for the celebration.

The parish had set up a wonderful display of information and old photos and it was a good gathering place for the visitors to meet.

Bishop Kike from Battambang was one of the guests.

The displays really were interesting and taught the younger members of the parish a lot about the early days of their community.

Opening of Jubilee Year

Involving the church youth

After the prayerful opening of the Jubilee Year, Bishop Olivier turned his attention to performances by youth of all ages.

First the older girls presented a classic Khmer dance.

Then younger girls performed another traditional dance with a simpler choreography.

Then about 25 boys, in two groups, presented a classical Khmer myth. All the dancers had really professional dance outfits and costumes.

Lastly, the really young children, some just toddlers, performed more contemporary Christmas music with simple dancing and gestures, and then each received a stuffed animal Christmas gift. Bishop Olivier always insures that cakes are a major part of the celebrations.

Following all the performances, all the representatives from all the parishes enjoyed a catered Chinese dinner in the outside dining area.

Opening of Jubilee Year

In the Catholic tradition, a jubilee year is a year for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation among adversaries, a time of solidarity, hope, justice, and a commitment to peace with our sisters and brothers. Since the 1300s, jubilee years have been held every 25 or 50 years or for special occasions.

Pope Francis has declared a Jubilee Year 2025 and today Bishop Olivier opened this jubilee year in the diocese of Phnom Penh.

The people gathered outside the parish church at the pastoral center and then process to a gateway erected for the last jubilee. All then processed through the gateway into the church hall where Bishop Olivier led them in prayer and spoke about this jubilee.