Cambodia is 94% Buddhist and especially outside of the cities there is little understanding of Christianity, and Christmas—which people will have heard of–will be seen as just a western holiday where the foreigners wear Santa Claus costumes and decorate their homes with evergreen trees and lots of ornaments and lights. Christmas is not celebrated throughout the culture at all but most western families and groups will mark the birth of Christ with church services and parties at Christian-based NGOs. Click here to see how the English Catholic community began its Christmas season.
Category: Church
The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
Preparing for Sunday
Some Catholic people comment “I don’t get anything out of mass.” First, it is important to remember that the eucharist is not entertainment so we need to temper our expectations about what we feel when we go to mass.
Secondly, because the mass is not entertainment and we don’t approach it passively expecting someone to make us feel good without our doing anything–like going to a funny movie which might cheer us up when we’re down, we might appreciate the experience of the eucharist better if we prepare for it.
I’d like to offer some resources to help us do that. These are websites or e-mail mailing lists that give some thoughts about the readings for the coming weekend. Since many Christian churches now use the same common lectionary (book of Sunday readings) as the Catholics, these resources could benefit Christians from a variety of denominations.
These resources present the readings so you can read them in advance and then they offer some insights about how the readings developed, why Jesus said what he did or the evangelist included it in his gospel, and then some comments to help us appreciate what we will hear on Sunday.
The first resource I’d like to suggest is First Impressions. It’s written by a group of Dominican priests based in Texas. They offer not only thoughts on the scripture readings but several other helpful items that might help you develop your spiritual life. Give it a try, bookmark it, and click on it each week!
Priests Meeting
Today we had another of our bi-monthly priests meeting for all the clergy of the Phnom Penh vicariate (another name for a diocese in a mission country). We had a report on the trip to Myanmar by 126 people from the vicariate to see the pope there and then some time for prayer and then some business items. Then it was time for lunch together and Bishop Olivier (back to us) gave special recognition to the priests who have birthdays or ordination anniversaries this month.
Flavors of Saffron
This evening we had a blessing for the new Flavors of Saffron restaurant opened by a Pakistani refugee family who just recently arrived in Cambodia after fleeing religious persecution in their home country. I have worked with quite a few refugees in my years in Cambodia but have never seen a family work so hard and so fast to get themselves established and in control of their own lives.
Even the church…
We don’t get Christmas carols on the radio starting with Halloween (we don’t get ANY Christmas carols on the radio!) but we do get some decorations around the city. Today I was at St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh and found workmen setting up a LARGE artificial tree and a grotto/ manger on the church grounds. I’m glad they do big, bold expressions of our Christian Christmas practice but, hey, it’s not even Advent yet. Couldn’t we wait a couple weeks to set all this up?
Racism
A Declaration against Racism by the Archdiocese of New York
We are… resolved that there can be no acceptance of the moral positions regarding race, faith and culture espoused by White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups which advocate for the superiority of white persons and the inferiority of persons of color or for the superiority of Christians and the inferiority of non-Christians. We declare that these groups, by virtue of their moral positions, are anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and that they act against the ideals articulated in the foundational and governing documents of the United States. There can be no acceptance of these racist, xenophobic positions within the Catholic community in America. […or anyplace else.]
Time to Change
This is the last weekend of the Catholic church’s liturgical year. Next Sunday, December 3, is the first Sunday of Advent and the start of the new year. Tonight, after the Saturday evening liturgy at World Vision auditorium, we had to take the old green English Missal from the plastic covers that bind them with the music books and replace them with new, violet-colored 2018 missals. We had a magnificent response to our request for people to stay behind after mass and help us make the switch for 320+ books. Here the volunteers put the old green missals into boxes to be taken away for recycling.
Salesian Sisters 25th Anniversary
The Salesian Sisters of Cambodia celebrated twenty-five years of service in education to the kingdom with a very enjoyable program that featured performances by students from their six or seven schools throughout the country. Click here to see pictures of the celebration.
What do priests do?
A not-uncommon question to priests is “What do you do all day?” So many people see us only on Sunday when they come to mass and don’t have any idea about how we otherwise spend our time. Well, here’s what I did yesterday:
One of our parishioners opened the first Auntie Anne’s pretzel shop in Cambodia and asked me to offering a blessing during the grand opening–which I did. Then I got my picture taken with….is it “Mr. Pretzel”?
Parish Anniversary
St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh is the only formal parish in the whole country of Cambodia. There are other Catholic communities but they are known as pastoral centers rather than parishes.
This weekend St. Joseph Church celebrated its 25th anniversary. Starting on Friday evening and running through Sunday evening, there were a variety of activities. Saturday morning there was an anniversary mass presided over by Bishop Olivier. Because our English community has our own worship space in one of the buildings at the parish, we were part of the festivities.
The Saturday morning mass was held outside under a large semi-permanent tent because none of the halls are large enough to contain a crowd of this size.
At the end of mass, there was a procession to the entrance of the old seminary chapel where the bishop blessed a special statue of St. Joseph that was carried in the procession. Bishop Antony and Bishop Kike from the other two Cambodian dioceses were part of the celebration.