MACAU (UCAN): Catholics in Macau celebrated the traditional Lord Jesus festival on the first Saturday and Sunday of Lent despite the constraints posed by the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic.
The Diocese of Macau cancelled the popular festival last year due to threat of the pandemic in the Special Administrative Region.
The former Portuguese colony, one of world’s mostly densely populated places, remains relatively unscathed from the pandemic, recording only 48 cases and no deaths.
The Lord Jesus festival, locally known as the Procession of the Great Jesus, is one of oldest religious and cultural festivals in Macau and dates back to 1708 when it was under Portuguese rule.
On the first day of the festival, hundreds of Catholics joined a morning Mass at the Church of St. Augustine celebrated by Bishop Stephen Lee Bun-sang of Macau, to mark the Feast of Five Wounds of Jesus.
In his homily, Bishop Lee said that “the passion of Christ provides spiritual blessings and solace for the faithful.”
In the afternoon, another Mass was celebrated by Father Daniel Ribeiro, the parish vicar of the Cathedral of our Lady of the Nativity.
This was followed by a street procession accompanied by a musical band with a chariot that bearing a statue of Jesus carrying the cross.
Hundreds of people recited prayers in Chinese and Portuguese as they walked with the chariot and made stopovers for reflections.
Traditionally, the procession starts from St. Augustine Church and ends at the cathedral. After an overnight vigil, the statue returns to St. Augustine Church after the Way of the Cross.
However, due to the ongoing renovation of the cathedral, all its services have been temporarily transferred to St. Dominic’s Church, so the statue of Jesus was transferred to St. Joseph Seminary at night for the Way of the Cross next day.
As the Way of the Cross was held in the courtyard of the seminary, the Canticle of Veronica once again was the highlight and one of the most moving parts of the event. Accompanied by prayers and songs, the scene conveyed a sense of grief, reminding the faithful of the suffering of Jesus on the way to Calvary.
Father Daniel Ribeiro delivered the concluding homily, called the Calvary Sermon, in which he stressed the great significance of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection for every Christian and urged the faithful to engage more in prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent.
The festival ended with blessings imparted by Bishop Lee.
According to the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Macau, the festival is “one of the city’s representative religious events with distinctive features.”
