HONG KONG (SE): To mark the 100th anniversary of the Quebec Foreign Mission Society [SME], a thanksgiving Mass was celebrated by on November 21 by then-apostolic adminstrator for the Diocese of Hong Kong, John Cardinal Tong Hon at Mother of Christ Church in Sheung Shui. It was concelebrated by Father Gregoire Vignola sme.
At the beginning of the Mass, Cardinal Tong, on behalf of the diocese, thanked the congregation for its missionary work in Hong Kong.
In his homily, Father Vignola said that that spreading the gospel requires three elements: encounters with people, a spirit of adventure and a mission of evangelisation.
Father Vignola pointed out that, in the logo for the centennial, the human figures in five different colours represent the people of different cultures in five continents, their welcome of the gospel and the missionaries’ passion for evangelisation, “Each of us is called by God to be experts in encounters with people,” he said.
In the Prayer of the Faithful, participants joined in praying for the congregation, and for God’s presence in their different ministries.
Ana Maria Jara Fierro, a lay missionary of the society, introduced the Book Lamp a souvenir given to everyone at the end of the thanksgiving service, which bears the 100th anniversary logo on the front cover and, on its back, the theme of the celebration and the words “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!” (Isaiah 6:8). She said it is designed to remind people to be the “light of the world” wherever they are.
The Quebec Foreign Mission Society now has a priest and two lay missionaries, Fierro and Mary Ann Ofialda, working in Hong Kong.
Fierro told the Kung Kao Po that she came from Chile and was assigned to Hong Kong eight years ago. Her current service includes visiting prisons, taking care of the homeless and refugees, and pastoral work with the English-speaking community at Mother of Christ Church, Sheung Shui.
“I wanted to be a missionary when I was six or seven-years-old,” Fierro said, adding that she believes that the most important thing in missionary work is to observe and find out people’s needs and then to show them how faith can help them address problems. One of her main duties is to visit prison inmates from Latin America, “Most of them speak Spanish and they need to be listened to and accompanied,” she said.
The Quebec Foreign Mission Society, founded in 1921, is now engaged in missionary work in various parts of the world. The first missionary arrived in China in 1925. But the work of the congregation in China was interrupted by the Second World War and the Cultural Revolution.
With the reopening of China to the world in the early 1980s, the society decided in 1983 to return by sending missionaries to Hong Kong. (Sunday Examiner, November 7).
Father Vignola mentioned that the thanksgiving Mass celebrated in Sheung Shui, which is close to the border between China and Hong Kong, was a response to Pope Francis’ call in Evangelii Gaudium [Joy of the Gospel] to go beyond our comfort zones to reach out to the “peripheries” in need of the light of the gospel.
