Part of the crowd gathers for the Lunar New Year Mass at SHC on 1 February 2022 (photo credit Michael Wong)
By Catherine Wan
Feb 7 2022
KOTA KINABALU – After a lapse of two years of celebrating a physical Lunar New Year Mass due to the pandemic outbreak in March 2020, the Chinese-speaking parishioners grabbed the opportunity to attend the physical new year Mass on Feb 1 at Sacred Heart Cathedral. About 800 people filled the Cathedral with SOP compliance on a first-come-first-serve basis.
The church was beautifully decorated with red lanterns and colorful cherry blossoms at the sanctuary, denoting spring time. The vestments and stoles of the priests were in red, as were the majority of the parishioners wearing red, symbolizing the joy of the occasion.
‘Be filled with wisdom and courage like the tiger (in the Year of Tiger)!’ exhorted the prelate, Archbishop John Wong during his homily.
Taking the 2nd reading from the letter of St Paul to Ephesians (4:22-24), he added “You are to put aside your old self, which belongs to your old way of life and is corrupted by following illusory desires. Your mind is to be renewed in spirit so that you could put on the New Man that has been created on God’s principles, in the uprightness and holiness of the truth”
Based on Scripture, the prelate emphasized on the transformation of our inner hearts by living simple lifestyle through readjustment of our way of consumerism and resetting our financial planning or goal so that our health of body and mind will be safeguarded.
He said wealth, power, fame and deceitful desires do not belong to our hearts. Tune our hearts to the Kingdom of God as exhorted in the Beatitudes – the poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake and those who are reviled and persecuted for the sake of Christ – in order to attain true blessedness in life.
Before the dismissal, the prelate blessed the mandarin oranges, which were distributed to the congregation after Mass. The mandarin oranges were blessed as a symbol of God‘s blessing to those who received with good faith, while the distribution of the mandarin oranges was done after the Chinese custom way of thanking the Lord for the past one year and thanking the priests for their services.
After Chinese New Year greetings to each other, ‘angpow’ (red packets) were given to the prelate, priests and the religious sisters by representatives of the congregation.
The Mass concluded with the prelate imploring the Lord to grant us wisdom and courage to live the Beatitudes – to love God, our neighbor and ourselves, and together with the clergy leading the whole congregation to kneel down to give thanks to the Lord.
Parishioners queuing up to receive the Lord’s blessing in the form of mandarin oranges
Parishioners receiving Holy Communion with social distancing
