ENGLAND, Fr David Musgrave/org. Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the Feast of God`s outreach to all nations, to all people, to all generations, to all walks of life. Solemnity of the mission, solemnity of being set ablaze to spread the reality of Jesus Christ`s love and surrender to the ends of the earth. “Enkindle in us anew the fire of love”, is prayed in the international Pilgrimage Prayer for 2014 (a sentence that inspires to give it lecture as Pentecost Prayer…).
Sunday morning following the regular Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Pentecost a combined Whitsun Service of the Churches on the Mount took place on the car park of Kearsley Mount Methodist Church. Everyone was invited to attend.
Under hot sunshine and very blue skies as truly befits Pentecost, the Parish of St John Fisher-Schoenstatt shared in this open-air ecumenical Service together with the local Anglican parish and Methodist church communities.
The Schoenstatt members of the parish ensured that the four senior altar servers took the large European Pilgrim Mother along to the celebration where she was given a due place of honour.
New life from ruins
Paul Cooper, England`s very own Schoenstatt Shrine artist surprised all of us with a new Pentecostal tapestry; he’d already painted a Lenten Veil, then one for Eastertide and now this one. One of the figures in the foreground on the extreme left-hand side depicts Father Kentenich. Such ruins are a favourite theme of Paul’s: Walsingham National place of pilgrimage and the yearning for a Catholic renaissance recalling a Catholic Britain before King Henry VIII and what followed.
A challenge of Evangelization
Parishioners attending the Mass of Pentecost at St John Fisher’s church in Kearsley, England found themselves challenged by some real questions as they read the Sunday pew sheet.
And the reason on Sunday morning the 17th June a small group primary school learners and their teachers from Yanzhou Primary School, ZhongShan City, Guangdong Province in China will be attending Holy Mass. They will be in Kearsley on a short exchange programme with other local schools. While here, the Group will be staying in our Schoenstatt Kearsley Mount Cottage.
The questions posed were: How do we respond to their presence at Holy Mass? Do we invite them to the Children‘s Sunday morning liturgy? What refreshments do we offer to all afterwards? Do we learn to sing several hymns well? Or one in particular? Do we show just how Lancastrian we are? Or not? Do we build our celebration around the role of Fatherhood in family and society and therefore ensure our young fathers are actively involved in church life and in the liturgy? For example only one Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion is male… what message are we sending out? How do we decorate our church in any special way for this morning? How many of you are able to learn to say ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’ in Mandarin? ‘Hello’: ní hăo (one person), nínem hăo (several people), nín hăo (polite form) and ‘Thank You’: Xièxie, pronounced as “shair-sharir” (spoken rapidly) and: “Peace be with You!”? Héping shi yù nin= Peace is in you! Yes, that`s right : Peace is IN you!
So,do we do this?… do we do that?
We need to move fairly rapidly on this and pool ideas and resources. ULTIMATELY this is real Evangelization and Mission: the delicate sowing of seeds among those to whom religion, Church and faith is probably a total unknown reality.
Beautiful garden – earthly paradise
Father David, a Schoenstatt Father and Parish Priest of St John Fisher’s managed to get children’s Catholic prayer books from Hong Kong and intends, long-term, produce a Mandarin edition of the leaflet ‘What is Schoenstatt’. Getting someone to really translate into idiomatic Mandarin is going to be a mega job but….. Mphc…For example the word SCHOENSTATT should not appear in Roman script therefore it would be essential to find the Mandarin characters for this. As Schoenstatt means a “beautiful place” this gives us the characters 人间天堂 which translates as “beautiful garden or earthly paradise” but obviously doesn’t sound anything like the word Schoenstatt when spoken…
What is the sound of Schoenstatt? What resounds in the heart and soul of those who live the Covenant of Love?
Anyway: On Saturday, June 16, one of the intentions in the Holy Mass “towards 2014” in the Original Shrine, will be this missionary endeavor in Kearsley. And … remember, there was a Holy Mass celebrated in Covenant with China. Because the Pilgrim Mother is already there.
