St. Jerome's Church Silver Jubilee Re-celebration

Silver Jubilee Re-Celebration, October 4, 2020

Good morning, brothers and sisters,
On behalf of all the members of the Parish Pastoral Team and the Pastoral Council of St. Jerome's Church, may I take this opportunity to congratulate you all a very happy and blessed Silver Jubilee. It is such an extraordinary occasion. Last Sunday, in our broadcast on Youtube, Fr. Simon described this as "an already present, but not yet available celebration"! Most of us could only participate on the Internet. It was close at hand enough and yet, so far away and intangible. Fr. Simon reassured us that nothing could be able to separate us from the love of our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:35), and from our close relationships with members of our English Community. This is indeed a special and memorable experience which we'll remember and will be eager to share with other people.

Silver Jubilee is a special occasion. It points to the next 25th anniversary, our Golden Jubilee in 2045. Some people like to say that "I'm 25 always." How sweet it sounds. Yes, we want to march forward with our youthfulness, our ambitions, our eagerness and yet, do not remain at the same spot. Golden Jubilee shall be a celebration of tremendous harvest. But first of all, let us be grateful to our Diocese. Proactively she chose this piece of land, Tin Shui Wai, on which to build this Church to provide us with facilities to pray, to shepherd and to evangelize. Let us also be grateful to God for gathering under His wings, you my dear friends to build up this big family. We are also grateful that one of our young men was ordained Fr. Timothy Yan on January 4, 2020. Let us not forget praying for more vocation for our Church. Priests are in short supply and we are not able to sustain sufficient pastoral care for our members, not to mention spreading the gospel to people around us.

Two years ago on eve of the Twenty-Third anniversary, the Pastoral Council designed many innovative projects in preparation for this Silver Jubilee. One of them was to honour our Patron Saint, St. Jerome with a copy of Bible manuscript. St. Jerome spent 23 years in translating the Hebrew and Greek scriptures into one Latin rendition, the Vulgate. What a coincidence. God is amazing! We are not as gifted as St. Jerome but we are still able to copy. Yes, we were able to organized parishioners, teachers and students in our parish to make a copy of handwritten seventy three books in the Bible. Copying the Bible is spiritually uplifting. Copyists are required to be meticulous. One typo-mistake and the whole page of hard work vanished! God is generous. The words we copy on paper are written in our hearts as well. Therefore, Fr. Simon appeals to all of us to make a personal handwritten copy of the Bible for ourselves in the upcoming 25 years. In so doing, we'll able to equip ourselves with sufficient strength to evangelize Tin Shui Wai and Hung Shui Kiu in the years ahead. With a target, an implementation plan and a determined heart we are certain that we can make it. So, let us make good use of God's blessing to accomplish this target!

In the first reading today, we read of the experience of Ezekiel the prophet. God told him to eat the scroll on which was written God's word, "feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving you." (Ezekiel 3:3) Ezekiel did as instructed and the scroll "was as sweet as honey in my mouth." So, brethren, the word of God is sweet as honey. Don't just read it speedily. Read it slowly and savour it. Copying it is better still. However, sometimes we don't feel like reading it, not because we don't want to spare our time but because the Bible reveals our own weaknesses, faults and inadequacies. We put it down and do not have the courage to face our own sins. No! God wants to save us. He wants to help us become holy. Therefore, He gave us these words. That is what St. Paul meant when he wrote to Timothy, "The sacred scriptures which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction and for training in righteousness." (2 Timothy 3:15-16) Take courage, brethren and make good use of the Bible for our own salvation.

The Internet is like the ocean which is rich in contents and yet not all information is beneficent for us. Jesus Christ taught us in the parable today to select and select wisely. We keep the good stuff in our storeroom and throw away harmful ones. What stuff is good? First of all, the word of God is good in helping us improve our relationship with God. It helps us discern what is good and what is harmful for our life as God's children. Just as what St. Peter says, "Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68) It follows that those which help us go through adversity and uplift our faith are good. Those which encourage us to discriminate, to hate and to divide are harmful. In this time of social unrest and pandemic, we need the word of God more to help us go through such adversity. The word of God should not be hidden away in storerooms and buried in dust. The power of God's word lies in its action. Thus, we have the duty to "bring from our storeroom both the new and the old" (Matthew 13:52), refresh it and to act upon it in order to build the kingdom of heaven in Tin Shui Wai and Hung Shui Kiu.

Brethren, once again we are grateful to God and to you all for coming back and making this re-celebration come true. May the merciful Lord Jesus Christ continue to sweeten our hearts with His words of wisdom. May St. Jerome our patron saint continues to intercede for us before God so that we may not be ignorant of the scriptures and ignorant of Christ. Amen. God bless you all!