HONG KONG (SE): Sister Vivian Bok Wai-man of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate (PIME Sisters) made her perpetual vows on December 6 at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Convent, Kwai Chung.
She made her first vows as a religious in 2014 and has been serving as a missionary in Brazil since 2017 and will return there on December 30.
“I was eager to respond the vocation to the consecrated missionary life—a life of encountering Jesus in men and women from different cultures, languages and origins,” Sister Bok told the Kung Kao Po.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing presided over the private ceremony attended by the PIME sisters, two lay associates and members of Sister Bok’s family. A Bible enthronement preceded the liturgy of the Word, during which the sisters brought up a Bible decorated with a five-coloured ribbon signifying the congregation’s missionary presence on five continents.
Sister Bok made her perpetual commitment during the liturgy.
Sister Bok joined the PIME Sisters in 2010 and receiving her religious formation in Italy and making her first prefession in Monza, Italy, in 2014. She was commissioned to serve as a missionary in Brazil on Pentecost Sunday 2016.
The strong religious atmosphere in Bahia, a city in northeast Brazil, where the Portuguese colonists brought many African slaves as early as 1530, impressed her.
“I am the only Asian in the church there. Most of them are Afro-Brazilians. They are very devoted Catholics and the church is always full during lunch-breaks as people make use of lunch breaks to join Mass and the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament,” she said.
She shared that her initial missionary experience has already brought her into indirect encounter with various social problems there, such as early marriages and drug addictions.
She said slums are found near the convent of the PIME Sisters in São Paulo and that she usually went there to attend Sunday Mass hoping to approach the young catechumens. She also tried to organise Bible-sharing sessions for them.
Sister Bok was born to a non-Catholic family in Hong Kong and joined the Focolare Movement with them when she was in primary school and received baptism.
When she took part in the World Youth Day in Rome in 2000, she heard a voice in her heart telling her not to be afraid and follow Jesus closely, which she believes was the calling of God to seek his will for her.
She was once a social worker and had a boyfriend. She later broke up with him before going to the United States to pursue a masters degree in social work.
A month before returning to Hong Kong, she took a month to experience community life with the Focolare Movement, which enkindled her desire to respond to God’s calling, which she believes was a vocation to the consecrated life.
She went on with her discernment when she came back to Hong Kong and joined a pastoral counselling course. She met the PIME Sisters through the introduction of the course instructor and finally joined the community.
She recalls confronting a lot of difficulties and challenges noting that learning Italian was a big trial and she was once afraid of talking to others in Italy due to the language barrier. In Brazil she learned to be a true missionary through the various difficulties she faced and that she needed to accept her own limitations and those of the others, surrendering herself always to God and trusting in his guidance.
Sister Bok chose “For I know him in whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 12) as the motto for her perpetual vow. She said the verse reminds her to dedicate her life to God and trust him completely.
