Celebrating Migrant Sunday

Oct 24, 2015

By Rita Gomez
Jesus Caritas Church celebrated Migrant Sunday on Sept 27 in a spirit of brotherhood and family with the various ethnic groups who are part of the Jesus Caritas family.

They live around the vicinity of the parish and participate in the activities and celebrations of the parish.

Friends from the African, Indonesian, Myanmarese, Pakistani, Vietnamese and Filipino communities together with Malaysians joined in the celebration. Each community dressed in their traditional attire, performed songs and dances to showcase their rich culture and traditions.

The celebration began with Mass at 9.15am. Flags from the various communities were displayed in front of the sanctuary. The First Reading was read in Tagalog, the Second Reading was in an African language and the Gospel was in English. The offertory procession was full of colour.

The hymns at Mass were a rich blend of traditional sounds — the communion hymn was sung in an African language and the Recessional Hymn was in Myanmarese.

After Mass, there was a sharing of their stories — about their lives here in Malaysia as compared to their own countries and of the difficult decisions they had to make to leave home, family and country to come to a foreign land.

Everyone was then invited to lunch and cultural performances where each community entertained the audience with their traditional songs and dances in their native costumes. Traditional food was also served.

Parish priest, Fr Michael Chua thanked the migrant community for their participation in the celebrations. Representatives from each community thanked the parish priest for accepting them as part of the community of Jesus Caritas. The event closed with songs of thanks and praise.