Many attend Mass on Chinese New Year

Feb 10, 2017

By Ken Cham
We need to ask our Heavenly Father for love and to give this love to others. This was the main thrust of St Ignatius Church (SIC) Parish Priest Fr Andrew Wong’s homily during this year’s Chinese New Year Mass at SIC on Saturday, January 28, 2017.

SIC Assistant Parish Priest Fr Lawrence Ng, CDD and Fr Francis Ng, CDD were the concelebrants. The bilingual Mass, in Mandarin and English, to usher in the Year of the Rooster also included Bahasa during the Prayer of the Faithful.

Among the gifts brought to the altar were flowers, representing adoration and admiration, red candles for hope and peace, nian gao, Chinese New Year cakes representing unity and fellowship and fruits for happiness and achievements.

After Holy Communion, the Rite of Commemoration of Ancestors was conducted. It began with a reading from the Book of Sirach 44:1-15 in remembrance and praise for their ancestors’ contributions, teachings and acts of virtue and piety.

Fr Andrew Wong, CDD also read out the following: “The Chinese place great importance on filial piety, so commemoration to the ancestors is an important ritual during the Chinese New Year celebration. Honouring ancestors on the first day of the New Year is a way of fulfilling our filial piety. It is a tradition of our church to offer special prayers to our departed loved ones during Mass.

The rite of commemorating the ancestors is in accordance, and not in contradiction, to the teachings of the Church. Pope Pius XII, in his Encyclical of 8 December 1939, stated that ‘the Liturgical ceremony of bowing in respect to the photographs or the tablets of our ancestors is both reasonable as well as permissible.’ Hence, in accordance with this, Christians can honour their ancestors, as long as they do not worship them as idols, as though the spirits of the dead are dwelling within the tablets.

To pay respect to the tablets with the inscription of the names of the ancestors, is a sign of respecting the dead. By honouring our ancestors, we are merely showing that we have not forgotten our roots and our heritage. So, on the first day of Chinese New Year, the Church can arrange a special ceremony to have the rite of commemorating the ancestors after the Mass is over. It is a way of enculturating Chinese culture into the local Church.”

After Mass, the priests offered joss sticks to honour ancestors, two baskets of flowers representing love, three cups of wine and two trays of fruits on behalf of the congregation. Oranges were blessed and given out together with ang pows (red envelopes containing money as a symbol of good fortune) to attendees. A Lion Dance performance at the church entrance rounded off the celebrations.