For quite a few years the Pentecost liturgy at St. Joseph Church in Phnom Penh has brought together the English, French, Khmer, and Korean-speaking Catholic communities at one mass presided over by Bishop Olivier. All of these communities have used St. Joseph Church as their base at different times, meeting in different buildings at different times on the weekend. Today we had our gathering and a central part of the ceremony was the conferring of the sacrament of confirmation on 37 mostly young people. Here, dressed in traditional Khmer garb and traditional sitting position, they listen as Bishop Olivier has an opening prayer. Because of the large crowd when all the communities are together, the liturgy was held on an outside stage covered with a light tenting to keep everyone out of the sun.
Monday was a day for traveling from all over Cambodia (about the size of Wyoming) to Sihanoukville down on the southern coast of the kingdom. The distances are not actually that great but for some of the priests it is a two-day trip because of the difficulty of travel in Cambodia. This is Archbishop Sebastian Francis, our retreat leader. 
Today was the beginning of the annual retreat for all the priests of Cambodia. It is held at the Catholic center in Sihanoukville and for most of us it was a travel day to this southernmost province in the kingdom. In the picture, Bishop Olivier welcomes everyone to the gathering
Many of the international schools in Phnom Penh are giving final exams to their students in May, and in the religious education program for the English-speaking Catholic community, we had our final class this past weekend. There weren’t any exams but rather we had a farewell for Ms. Beata Pratiwi (far right) who has been a coordinator for the program but is now returning to Indonesia.