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The Catholic Church in Cambodia.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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”?
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.
The LaValla School in Takhmau is run by the Marist Brothers from Australia. Located about ten miles south of Phnom Penh, it offers an education of grades one to six for children with significant physical disabilities. It is a really wonderful school, providing an opportunity for learning that would probably be denied if the school did not exist.
The goal of LaValla School is to take children with moderate to severe physical disabilities and bring them up to their age-grade level so that they can enter government schools for the secondary level back in their home provinces.
Marist Brother Terry Heinrich started the LaValla School more than fifteen years ago and has been a good friend and surrogate father to hundreds of young people who have passed through the school. Here he prepares for the procession of graduates into the hall.
The graduation ceremony opened with a traditional blessing dance. Every girl in Cambodia dreams of being one of these apsara dancers–like teenage girls in the US all dream of being a cheerleader–but only in a school like this would girls with a disability have a chance at achieving their dream.
A government official from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs presided at the ceremony and gave out the certificates. Unfortunately, probably for most of these graduating boys and girls, this is the high point of their lives. Once they leave LaValla and return to their home villages, they will probably again encounter discrimination and find themselves without much opportunity.
Today was the 23rd graduation for the students of the two Salesian Sisters girls technical schools in Phnom Penh. One school teaches food service and sewing; the other teaches secretarial and business skills. Both have two-year programs. This year only three girls came from the school in Battambang in the north of the country. Previously they would have 30-40 graduates but now that school has almost closed because it is easier now to get across the border to work in Thailand and the families of the girls pressure their daughters to work in Thailand to make money for the family–instead of going to school.
The graduates gather, happy and excited, before the ceremony. The sister there to congratulate them is one of the fixtures of the Salesian ministry to youth in Cambodia. She is 96 years old and still active and about everyday.
After the national anthem, these students performed the blessing dance that begins every formal function. Notice the words in red on the wall at the right: Together we Build a Peaceful Society. They are a sad indicator of the unease and turmoil in Cambodia because of the actions of the government.
A special part of this graduation day was the recognition of these women–mothers of students at the school–for participating in a wonderful literacy program. All of them have advanced through Level 1 of the program that enables them to read and write. Another sad indicator–the lack of literacy–of the failure of the present government that has been in power for thirty years.