This year 2022, the Ash Wednesday, which in the liturgical calendar marks the beginning of our Lenten journey towards Easter, was a Day of Prayer and Fasting for Peace in Ukraine, as requested by Pope Francis.
Here at St Dominic’s in Macau, the community Mass was presided over by its Prior, Fr Javier Gonzalez, during which the ashes were imposed on all its members with the customary words “Repent and believe the Gospel.” The Mass readings of that day highlighted the Lenten itinerary in expressions such as “Return to the Lord…” (prophet Joel), “Be reconciled to God” (St Paul), “When you pray…When you give alms… When you fast…” (Jesus). Our response both as individuals and as a community could not be other than “Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned” (Resp. Psalm). We continue praying for our personal conversion and for peace in the world.
On Friday, 18 March 2022, the University of Saint Joseph in Macau celebrated its 25th Year Anniversary with a Mass in the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady, presided over by the diocesan Bishop, D. Stephen Lee. The Rector of the University, Rev. Deacon Stephen Morgan, assisted the main celebrant as Deacon. Likewise, our Dominican community was actively involved in the liturgical celebration: some priests-professors concelebrated with the bishop, and our student brothers assisting also during the Mass, some as acolytes and the rest in the music ministry as members of the choir. Other members of the assembly participated in different ways, from proclaiming the readings to presenting the intercessory prayers on behalf of the entire community. USJ administrators, professors, staff members, alumni and students alike were also present.
It was a Thanksgiving Mass to commemorate the important landmark of the USJ Silver Anniversary of the USJ, which under the motto “Tradition, Innovation, Vision” continues committed to play a significant role in the evangelization in this part of the world. Bishop Lee, during his homily, highlighted the meaning and relevance of the event. As it coincided with the festivity of St Joseph, the bishop cited the Holy Father’s Pastoral Letter Patris corde (“With the heart of a father”) and encouraged everyone to imitate the fatherly virtues of the Holy Patriarch Saint Joseph. He ended by giving thanks to the Lord for the growth and development of USJ in the past 25 years and requested the academic community present, students and teachers alike, to ask for grace for the next 25 years.
After the Mass, invited guests and participants took a group photo at the nearby Ruins of Saint Paul’s, a place where Catholic Higher Education began in East Asia and a reminder of how the University is rooted in a long tradition of intercultural exchange that has been the hallmark of Catholic higher education in Macau since the College of Saint Paul, founded in 1954.
In honour of St Thomas Aquinas, Fr Franz Gassner, SVD, the Dean of the Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy of the University of St Joseph, delivered a lecture entitled Quinque Viae Ethicae Oecologiae: Five Ways to Care for Our Common Home – Ecological Ethics at St Dominic’s Convent in Macao.
The lecture outlined five different ways to explain how the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation should be using St Thomas’ thought. It gives us an opportunity to rethink how we should treat creation especially with the different environmental issues in our world today.
The Dominican Family in Macao, composed of the friars, sisters, and lay Dominicans, was in attendance. Some friars outside Macao also followed it online. After the lecture, Holy Mass was celebrated for the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas and lunch followed afterwards. It was a great day not only because it was the feast of our brother St Thomas but also that the whole Dominican Family was with us throughout.
We celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family. The Sacred Readings invite us to meditate on the meaning of the Family of Nazareth and on our own family. In Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14, God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. In Colossians 3:12-21, “Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience”, and in the Holy Gospel of St. Luke ( 2:41-52), “Each year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, and when he was twelve years old, they went up according to festival custom.”
We meditate on the Holy Family, on our family.
The family is in crisis today: separation, divorce, abortion, domestic violence, child abuse, pornography, wounded families, broken families, no family. Even the concepts of marriage and family are often ambiguous with the growing reality of same-sex marriages, single-parent families, and so on. The Christian family is also negatively affected by the secular views of man, gender ideology, family and society.
Still, for most people, the family is the number one value in their lives. For us Christians, in particular, the family is a sacred reality, a domestic Church, a community of life and love, the main school of our values and virtues, of prayer. The Old Testament writers recommend the practice of the virtues of obedience, piety, respect, compassion. The Fourth Commandment, “Honor your father and mother”, asks us to respect our parents. To respect them means to revere them, to esteem them, to love them, to care for them all their lives, particularly when they are old.
For us, the Holy Family of Nazareth continues to be the icon and inspiration of our families. On the day of the Feast of the Holy Family, we are asked to contemplate, venerate and imitate the Sacred Family of Nazareth: Jesus (called the son of a carpenter), Mary (the Mother of Jesus, the wife of Joseph and housekeeper) and Joseph (the carpenter of the town, Jesus’s custodian and head of the Holy Family).
I remember the wonderful meditation of Blessed Paul VI on his visit to Nazareth on January 5, 1964. The Pope told us then to continue learning the lessons of Nazareth. What lessons? Nazareth teaches us first on family life: its meaning, its beauty, its core which is communion in love. Nazareth teaches us, second, on silence: on the love of silence, such an admirable and needed habit, particularly today when we are disturbed by so much noise, by so many different voices in the digital world. The silence of Nazareth teaches us on the need for recollection, for interior and peaceful space; on the need to listen to good teachers, to our parents and brothers and sisters and, above all, to God. Nazareth teaches us, in the third place, on work and on the dignity of workers, of all workers. It teaches us about the importance of work in our life (as in the life of Jesus and Mary and Joseph), and its creative and redemptive dimension. We remember today the tragedy of unemployment and the terrible effects it causes in so many families!
Family is conjugal love, and parental and filial love. Its center is the children: we remember them here in this Eucharist with great love! We bring to our attention the vast number of children who are victims of violence, who are made objects of trade and trafficking, or forced to become soldiers and workers. We remember with sadness and hope infants killed in the womb, displaced, due to war and persecution. (Cf. Blessing Urbi et Orbi, December 25, 2014).
Bowing before the Crib we learn the lessons of genuine family life, silence and work. Above all, we learn the perennial lesson of love: we learn that we are loved and understood. After all, a house is where you live, a home, where they understand you.
A painter wanted to paint the most beautiful object in the world! He went to a big park to ask people: What is the most beautiful thing in the world for you? He asked a soldier: Nothing is more beautiful than peace: living together in peace! Then he asked a young couple: Love is the most beautiful thing: it makes the world go round. Then he asked a priest: Faith is the most beautiful thing: it moves mountains. The painter asked himself: How do I paint peace, and love, and faith? After a silent pause, he answered himself: I know what the most beautiful thing in the world is: my family, my home. It is here where I experience peace, love and faith. Jesus, God and man, found at Nazareth as a human being – peace, love and faith through the 30 years he lived at home with Mary and Joseph.
Indeed, the family, our family is the best thing in the world for each one of us. We thank God for the Holy Family, for our family. We offer this Eucharist for our families (for the members who have left us and those who remain with us), and also for broken families. We ask the Sacred Family of Nazareth to help us become more good members of our respective families: loving, caring, and sharing!
We give thanks to God for the unique, incomparable gift of family, of our family.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, pray for us!
On 24 November 2021 Fr Javier Gonzalez accepted his office as Prior of St Dominic’s Priory in Macao. Three days later, he took the office during the community prayer of Vespers. It was a simple, meaningful ceremony, which consisted in the profession of faith and the oath of fidelity. Afterwards, Fr Javier addressed a few words to the community. He first explained that the public profession of faith and the oath taking indicated that he was accepting the office of Prior in the name of the Church. Then he welcomed the newly arrived student brothers from Hong Kong, inviting them to feel at home. He further thanked the former Prior, Fr Paul Fan, for his services to the community during the previous years and wished him success now in his new position as Master of Students. Finally, Fr Javier thanked the members of the community for their trust and evoked those words of St Augustine saying that the superior should strive to be loved by the brothers rather than feared, ever mindful that he must give an account of them to God. In closing, as the moment marked the very beginning of Advent, he encouraged everyone to let the new liturgical season be also the beginning of a new life, while he placed himself at the service of the community.
