Homework from the Bishop

San Francisco Bishop Ignatius Wang will be one of the guest speakers at a Chinese Catholic Conference in Australia in October.

He wrote a letter to the Chinese Catholic Community, posting some questions regarding evangelization in the US/ Canada among chinese communities. As his daily duties are more on management than pastoral, he wants to know more about how Chinese Catholic communities operate from day to day.

Each Bible Study / Faith Sharing group has already had discussions nights. For the music ministry, since most of the members are already belongs to the Bible Study groups, we will not have any meeting. One of the questions is about the Liturgy. So I thought I would use this space to work on my answers. :) (the letter from Bishop is in chinese, & of course, my brain doesn't do well in translations. so the questions I wrote down might seems a litle funny.

Anyway... first, here are the questions, then my scribles...

1. What is the most difficult challenge we have in evangelizing to the Chinese in US/ Canada?

2. When serving the Lord, in theory & practice. Is the Chinese Catholics Understand that the message of the Gospel and the Chinese traditions are connected?

3. The Chinese cultures and dialects are so diverse. How does this affect the Liturgy and activities? For example, in a very general outlook, just for people from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, there are already Mandarin, Cantonese, & Taiwanese-Mandarin. How do you bring together all these differences? How do you break the dialectic & cultural barrier between them, & harmoniously serve God?

4. Because of the politicl climate changes, the source of Chinese immagrates changed as well. In fact, many Chinese have returned to their countries of origin. How do you deal with the lost of congregation?

5. What are the pre-requisites for Evangelization? How to be successful?

6. Regarding the priests, especially those minister to the Chinese communities. Do they have to be Chinese? What qualities should they have to promote Evangelization?

7. How is the relationship between the Chinese parishioners & those of other ethnic groups? (or with the maority of parishioners?)

8. Many Chinese Catholic Communities have to "borrow" the main English parish for Liturgy & Activities. Sometime there's not enough room or the time is not convinient. How have this affect the community?

9. For the First Generation American-born, the youngsters, since their first language is English. How do you attract & keep them in the community?

10. With all the challenges each community has in Evagelization outside of Chinese Countries. Do you think it is the misattribution of the differences between Catholicism & Chinese Traditions, Thinking and Culture. (Q.2) Or do you think it is the more practice aspect (space & time for activities/ language barriers/ availability of priests)? Which (the cultures & philosophy vs Practical) has more impact on Evangelization? What might be a solution?

----------------------------------------------------

As the music director for the Chinese Community & the member of the Parish Music Committee, there are few aspects of the Liturgy I can address.

Mandarin is the primary dialect used for the Liturgy. Since the majority of our congregation comes from Taiwan, follow by those from Hong Kong, China, and a few originated from South-East Asia countries (Vietnam, Malysia / Singapore). Most members from Hong Kong can understand & communicate in Mandarin without [or with minimum] problem. And since those from Taiwan and China do not understand Cantonese, Mandarin became the primary dialect for the Liturgy.

The availability of priests is also a determining factor for dialect use in Liturgy. Currently all the celebrants are Mandarin-Speakers, including Fr. Gaspar, an Indian priest, who entered seminary& was ordained in Taiwan. Because he is based in L.A. Fr. Gaspar is our primary celebrant (about 50%). We also have visiting priests from Berkeley, Chicago, & Washington, D.C. Many of them are graduate students in Theology.

Few years ago, we have Cantonese-speaking Priest from L.A. to preside Mass once a month, with someone translating the homily into Mandarin. Since most of Cantonese-speakers know mandarin pretty well. The practice was discontinued when priest became unavailable. We also had local English-speaking priests, with a translator helping with homily. It was under the parish pastor’s guidance & suggestion that we began the current practice with the visiting priests.


For the practical aspects of the Liturgy~

LECTORS: 1) The First Reading is always read in Cantonese; 2) Second Reading in Mandarin. 3) Prayers of the Faithful in Mandarin.

Since music is an integrate part of Liturgy, I believe the music ministry is important in providing both sense of diversity and unity within the community.

First, for the Mass Ordinary, we use settings that are familiar to members, regardless where they are originated from. For example, Mass settings by 劉榮耀，劉玉亭，李振邦神父等 are sung in Hong Kong & Taiwan, as well as in here in the US.

Second, we are building our resource for Responsorial Psalm. Instead of drawing from one composer (we know some other communities only use Responsorial Psalms by Jerry Chu, 朱健仁); we sing the Responsorial from Lectionary (English, and translate into Chinese if needed), Chinese Contemporaries, English Contemporary from the Hymnal, etc.

Third, we do not use any particular Hymnal. For the past seven years, we have been using a Hymn Binder for our community. This Binder has music selection of five (5) persons, of the music they know & have used often in the San Diego community & when they were in Taiwan / HK. In the formative years of the San Diego Chinese Catholic Community (est. 1995), the Hymn book 輕歌讚主榮, a worship song book used by university Catholic students in Taiwan. Many of the music are more suitable for Activities rather than Liturgies. We soon realized that, because of the diversity of our community, this Song Book, though familiar to those who came to U.S. in the 80s after college, no longer fulfills our needs.

As the music director, I am undertaking the task of revision/ re-organization of the Hymn Binder. I want to focus on hymns that are suitable for Liturgies; arranging them according to liturgical seasons & subjects; adding music notations, and revising text as needed (some hymns have traditional Chinese lyric, and might be difficult for congregation).

For the week-to-week operation to provide music for the Mass, here are some of the “work format”:
Many hymns are bi-lingual. They are the more universal hymns that everyone would recognize, whether they attend Chinese or English Mass. For example, traditional hymns such as Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (GROSSER GOTT), Praise to the Lord, the Almighty (LOBE DEN HERREN), as well as Chants (sung in Chinese) like Adoro Te Devote, Pagne Lingua, Ubi Caritas, etc. Such hymns can be found in《頌恩》 (Hymnal used in Hong Kong & mainly Cantonese-speaking Parishes), 《光啟聖歌選集》 (Hymnal from Taiwan) AND English Hymnal we have in the pew. This is convenient for the English-speakers (mostly non-Chinese parishioners, kids).

We also use Chinese-only hymns that many grew up with, like上主是我的牧者 by 江文也, or hymns by Fr. Lucien Deiss (戴思) like All the Earth Proclaim the Lord〔普天地頌揚天主, All You Nations〔爾眾萬邦〕; as well as English Hymns from the Hymnal when it is appropriate.

In additional, I try to have common musical element as the English Masses – it could be a hymn, or a meditation pieces. Hopefully this helps to create sense of unity within the parish community, as some of the Chinese members feel that SDCCC isn’t part of the St. Therese community, but that we “borrow” their church for Mass, because we don’t have our own church. Although few of these voices actually come from choir members, some of us are active within the Parish. Personally I sing with the St. Therese choir, which provides music for the 9am Sunday Mass and Feast days. I am also part of the Music Ministry Committee. For some others, because of personal limitations, participate in the seasonal Liturgy (Christmas, Easter, and Lessons & Carols) or Concerts.

Although our choir is small, our backgrounds reflect the unique, diversity of our congregation. One of our most active members is a first generation American-born youngster. Other members are from Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, and a few non-Chinese as well. Our musical tastes range from Gregorian Chants to Classical to Traditional Hymnody to Contemporary Praise songs.

As pastoral musicians, our day-to-day focus is the Liturgy; yet because its ability to transcent linguistic and cultural barriers, music allow us to cultivate diversity and create sense of unity at the same time. And while it helps to strengthen our Liturgy and sense of community, we hope our works also inspire the members to reach out to others and invited them to be part of SDCCC.