Lamma-zine - Photo Gallery - Bishop Zen @ Portiuncula Monastery

Bishop Zen @ Portiuncula Monastery (Aug 7, 2005)

Did you know that today is the Feast Day of St Clare, who died on today's date, 752 years ago? "Saint Clare of Assisi:
Virgin, Foundress of the Poor Clares. Patron of: Embroiderers, eye disease, eyes, goldsmiths & gold workers, good weather, laundry workers, telegraphs, telephones, television & television writers"

Lamma's Portiuncula Monastery, just above the Lady of Lourdes Kindergarten, home of Lamma's Poor Clares Sisters, was hosting Bishop Zen last Sunday. As the spiritual leader of all Catholics in Hong Kong, he held a mass to celebrate the anniversary of St Clare's death, as he did last year (Bishop Zen Visiting Lamma feature story/photo gallery).

A Filipina friend alerted me to this year's event one day before. I joined in the bilingual mass given by Bishop Zen and a group of Franciscan priests inside the Catholic Kindergarten. This was my first Catholic mass in over 3 decades and it was much less formal and more cheerful than I remembered. None of the dressing up in suit & tie, kneeling on wooden benches, separated by sexes and age, endlessly patronising & moralising sermons, getting bored and sick from the stench of myrrh & incense in Latin-language Sunday mass - as I remember unfondly from my own childhood. There were over 200 locals from many nationalities, but mostly Chinese and Filipino, with less than a handful of Westerners.

There was even a free buffet after the mass and a kind of cheerful carnival atmosphere all around the celebration. Have a look at my captioned photo gallery! Amen!

(click to enlarge)

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Last updated: January 07, 2008 06:49 PM