Our first Mission trip of the year took us back to where our calling to serve God and His Church started: Queens, New York. We had the honor of participating in the 10th annual Procession of Our Lady of She-Shan sponsored by St. John Vianney Church. During our visit, we met with Fr. Stanislaus Su (蘇達義神父) who we worked with to initiate the Chinese Mass in Flushing, Queens.
We also discussed future plans to develop Chinese Catholic communities around the world.
The most memorable moment was our visit to Fr. Thomas Sung (宋稚青神父) who just celebrated his 100th birthday.
We had the honor to work with him when he was the Pastor of Our Lady of China in Queens. Fr. Sung has written many books and introduced me to his new book “ In Spirit of Thomas Aquinas”. His kind smile and humor has inspired many. God bless him.
It was also a time for us to reconnect with our old friends and meet new ones. Fr. Zheng (鄭學聖神父) who recently arrived from China is the Parochial Vicar of St. John Vianney.
We had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time as he shared some of his ideas with us about serving the Chinese at the Parish.
We had the opportunity to share a meal with our good friend Bishop Paul Sanchez, who is the Pastor of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Forest Hills.
Debbie has known Bishop Sanchez for many years; first as her Parish priest growing up and then later being able to work with him when she was the Director of Religious Education at St. Agatha Parish in Brooklyn.
Finally Debbie had a chance to visit one of her Chinese students from the SSVM sisters at the Precious Blood Monastery in Brooklyn.
Sister Awa (left) was learning Chinese through SKYPE using our “ Go Therefore and Make Disciples of All Nations” textbook. We were blessed to meet the superior, Mother Redentor whom we only knew from emails. We talked about the large number of Chinese living in the area surrounding the monastery and the many who attend daily mass at their Chapel. We also discussed future evangelization plans that we would work on together.