On Friday evening, the priests had a barbecue outside at the pastoral center.




Charlie Dittmeier's Home Page
On Friday evening, the priests had a barbecue outside at the pastoral center.
I was fully prepared to keep posting updates here for each day of the retreat. It’s just that the wi-fi system at the pastoral center did not cooperate. The last two nights, when I was ready to post photos and comments, I could not gain access to the Internet at the center.
Traditionally all the priests of Cambodia had a retreat together the first week of June. Because of Covid there was a two-year hiatus, but this year the diocese of Phnom Penh organized a smaller gathering of only the Phnom Penh priests at the diocesan pastoral center on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
Cambodians, especially in the rural areas, are a rather superstitious lot. Their world is full of spirits good and bad and there are certain omens and charms to be called upon. Some of these ideas come from the Chinese. Often the number 168 is displayed in shops and situations calling for good luck and good fortune. This practice comes from the Cantonese language. If the numbers one, six, eight are pronounced in Cantonese, they sound like the sentence “One path to prosperity” so the number is posted quite prominently on vehicles, buildings, etc.
“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”
~ Thomas Merton