By Father Peter Choy Wai-man
The annual Clergy Study Camp was held at Holy Spirit Seminary in early January. The theme of this year was “Towards a Community of Faith”. The three-day programme was rich in content. Different groups, organisations, committees, parishes and Caritas organisations within the Church were invited to share their experiences in working with the socially marginalised, sub-divided units, ethnic minorities, as well as ecological and cultural conservation workers.
Although many of the participants had heard about the services of these groups and organisations, I believe it was the first time for most of them to really come into contact with the communities and gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between these services and the Church. Therefore, on the whole, the way of learning this year was not passively through a one-way speech, but rather through an interactive experience of listening to each other both on and off the stage, which was indeed an experience of synodality. Our companions, apart from the laity, also include different voices from the community.
It turns out that synodality is not a new trend. Long before Pope Francis proposed it as a theme for the Synod of Bishops, many missionaries and priests in the Church in Hong Kong had already endeavoured to build up communities of faith on this model.
During the visit to the Epiphany of Our Lord Chapel in Sham Chung and Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel, Pak Sha O, participants of the camp found that many of the churches built by missionaries in the past also served as schools with concerned facilities.
At the same time, the missionaries not only cared about the development of the Church and the sacramental life of the parishioners, but also endeavoured to improve the livelihood of the villagers. For example, dams were built to prevent flooding from the sea and the destruction of farmland. It seems that faith life and daily life in these villages were intertwined, and the church naturally became the centre of village life, forming a typical parish that interacted with the community in synodality.
After more than a century of development, Hong Kong has transformed from a frontier fishing port into an international financial centre. In the face of the social development and needs brought about by urbanisation, the role of the Church in the community has slowly changed from a central position to an open platform for different people who care about the community to work together.
The attempts of Deacon Stephen Kwok Ping-fai and Father Timothy Wan Kwok-kwong are good examples. Aware of the needs of the new immigrants in Shek Wu Hui, Sheung Shui, Deacon Kwok promoted the setting up of the Little Sheep Fold Community Centre. From bartering to distributing food packs and providing homework guidance to primary school students during the pandemic, the centre has once again brought the parish and the community closer together, and has worked together with various charity groups and businesses in the area.
During his term of office as supervisor of St. John the Baptist Catholic Primary School, Father Wan noticed that many of the students lived in cramped living environments and lacked a place to study and a healthy diet after school. To promote the optimal use of the school’s resources, he has provided a space after school for the needy students to study and do activities after coordinating with the school and Caritas’ social workers. In this way, the parish has become once again a church that walks together with the school and the community.
What I hope to leave behind for each participant from this short three-day experience is not an abstract concept of synodality, but a Church model that can be concretely implemented.
