The Phat Diem Catholic Cathedral Of North Vietnam -- A Masterpiece Of Art

The church dates back to the 1870s and is the Center of Catholicism in the Northern Region.

The church was built between 1875 and 1898 in the province’s Kim Son District by the Vietnamese priest Tran Luc known as Father Sau, who designed the church without any training in architecture or painting. The most remarkable feature of the Cathedral is that it is made with marble and granite. 

Therefore, it is also known as the Stone Church. The church also includes a complex including several artificial lakes, churches, and artificial caves.

The church design has made it famous, because it is different from other Roman Catholic Cathedrals across the world. The design is a harmonious combination of traditional pagoda architecture of 

Vietnam mixed with the Gothic style of Catholic Architecture. 

The unique building also shows the skillful techniques of Vietnamese artisans since the 19th century.

In front of the church, overlooking a huge pond, where a larger than life-sized marble statue of the Sacred Heart stands upon a man-made island, the upturned tiled roofs of the bell tower’s three belvederes soar even higher than the church.

The 25m-high bell tower is an imposing stone structure made from large marble blocks with a -bas-relief representing Jesus and his followers. In the middle floor, there is a huge drum, while on the top floor there is a two-tonne bronze bell, which was cast in 1890s. According to local people, the bell’s echo can be heard across three neighbouring regions. 

The remains of Father Sau, who died in the same year as the complex was finished in 1898, lie under an inscribed slab at the base of the tower.

The Grand Cathedral is designed as a grandiose Communal House with four roofs and six sets of pillars formed from whole iron trees and sophisticated multi-level rafters. All the church buildings are decorated with lotus, birds, and tropical tree designs. 

The Stone Church is divided into two sections: the church and the clergy house. Everything was built gradually over the years. 

In 1875, the first Cavern was built to test the strength of the foundation. In 1889, the church of Saint Mary’s Heart was erected. 

Then in 1891, the Grand Cathedral and the Belfry were completed. And finally, the Saints’ shrines were finished around 1898. These three stone caves are in the extreme north of the complex, of which Lo Duc is the most beautiful.

The Visitation Of The Blessed Mother

The story of the Visitation of Our Lady to Saint Elizabeth is well known:  When Saint Gabriel appeared to Our Lady during the Annunciation, he informed her that her cousin, Saint Elizabeth, was with child. Our Lady traveled with Saint Joseph to Saint Elizabeth’s house, to care for her until her son, Saint John the Baptist, was born. Although Our Lady had already conceived the Child Jesus, she had not told anyone.

Nevertheless, Saint Elizabeth had a presentment that the Child Jesus was in Our Lady’s womb. Thus, she greeted Our Lady, saying: “Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” (Luke 1:42)  When Our Lady spoke to her, Saint John the Baptist heard Our Lady’s voice, was sanctified by it and leapt for joy, inside Saint Elizabeth’s womb.

This story is rich in applications to the interior life.
       
Saint Elizabeth and the “Catholic Sense”

First of all, it highlights the virtue of Saint Elizabeth, whereby she sensed the presence of Our Lord in Our Lady’s womb. Obviously, this was a special gift. However, every Catholic should have a high degree of this sense, albeit with less intensity and excellence.

Through corresponding to the grace of Baptism, a Catholic begins to perceive, so to speak, where God is and where He is not. This applies less to God’s physical presence, as in the Eucharist, than His moral and supernatural presence.

Thus, the true Catholic senses whether or not something is compatible with God. To do this, he need not have intelligence, culture or theological training, but rather a “Catholic sense” of things.
Saint Elizabeth epitomized this “Catholic sense” when she perceived the presence of the Child Jesus in Our Lady’s womb.


God Gives Glory According to His Unfathomable Designs:

This seemingly creates a problem:  Saint Joseph was unaware of Our Lord’s presence, even though he was greater than Saint Elizabeth. While the Church counsels the faithful not to compare saints, since such comparisons are below the dignity of saints and above human wisdom, the fact remains that Saint Joseph was the most chaste spouse of Our Lady. As such, he had a much greater union with her than Saint Elizabeth, who was only Our Lady’s relative. Since a saint’s greatness is proportional to his union with Our Lady, it would seem that Saint Joseph was much greater.

However, if the knowledge of the presence of God is a virtue and Saint Joseph was a greater saint, one would think he also would have perceived the Incarnation.

Furthermore, he was truly Our Lady’s husband. As such, he possessed a true right over the legitimate fruit of her womb, even though he was not Our Lord’s Father.

This problem is easily resolved. God distributes glory to men according to His unfathomable designs. He glorified Saint Elizabeth by allowing her to sense Our Lord’s presence. Thus, she will be forever venerated for having perceived the Incarnation so early and sung the praises of Our Lady as Mother of the Child Jesus.

However, God also glorified Saint Joseph by hiding Our Lord’s presence from him. His ignorance was glorious because it produced a great perplexity in his soul when he was confronted with the reality of Our Lady’s pregnancy. It forced him to prove his love of God and demonstrate the height of his virtue. No man in history weathered so great a storm while practicing such virtue as he.

Therefore, for all times he will be the patron of those who suffer perplexities.


Immediate Sanctity: A Grace to Ask from Our Lady:

Although it is something the faithful are not obliged by the Church to believe, many authors propose that Saint John the Baptist, being the last and greatest prophet of the Old Testament, synthesized all the glories of official prophetism.

They suggest that he was entirely lucid in his mother’s womb. Thus, he appraised the sacredness of the Mother of God and the Incarnation, heard Our Lady’s voice, felt the presence of God and leapt for joy. At that moment, he was sanctified.

This is the power of Our Lady. The mere echo of her voice instantly converted Saint John to a high degree of sanctity. We too should hope for this grace.

We should ask her to speak to the innermost regions of our souls and instantly sanctify us. One word from her can bring us to a degree of virtue that years of struggle, without her help, would not obtain.

Whenever we lose spirit, feel sadness or are perplexed in our spiritual lives, I recommend we pray, paraphrasing the prayer the priest says before communion:  “Lord I am not worthy that Thou should enter into my house, but only say a word and my soul shall be healed.”

We should pray:  “O Lady, I am not worthy to hear thy voice, but only say a word and my soul will be changed. If thou so will it, I will be changed in an instant.”

We should ask Our Lady to grant us the same grace she gave to Saint John the Baptist, namely that she speak to our souls, make them leap for joy and instantly sanctify us.

The Catholic Church Among The Dayaks

Borneo is one of the largest islands in the world (the third largest). It is part of Malaysia and is two and a half times the size of Italy, but with only fifteen million inhabitants. It is a real paradise of untouched nature. The internal area still remains unexplored, and almost only the areas along the coast are inhabited. It is there that the Dayak dwell. These aborigines are coming out of prehistoric times and entering the modern world.

The most interesting aspect of the trip was the discovery of a church that is being born just like that in the Acts of the Apostles. Of the five dioceses in Malaysian Borneo, I visited three (Kuching, Kota Kinabalu and Keningua, besides the apostolic prefecture of Brunei). Everywhere there are young, lively communities whose growth is held back by a scarcity of priests and sisters: the Christians are recent converts and it is only with difficulty that they bring forth persons of consecrated life. The government forbids the entrance of foreign missionaries.

Father Christopher Laden, of the diocese of Kuching (the capital of the State of Sarawak), explained why the Dayak are becoming Christians: "It is because Jesus Christ and the Church explained who God is and promised eternal life. We Dayaks believe in God the Creator, but we don't know who he is: if he is good or bad, if he loves us or cares at all for us. Our belief is that after death there is nothing. Christianity gives us hope. The second reason is sociological. By becoming Christians, we enter into a community that helps us and creates brotherhood, whereas the old tribal community is disappearing.

The archdiocese of Kuching has around 150 thousand Catholics with 25 priests and ten parishes. Of these, five are in the city. The parish of Serian is very big. It has 36 thousand Catholics and three priests and about 80 chapels. The pastor is Father James Meehan, a Scot, who says that every year he has about 500 adult baptisms of converts. I asked him how he forms them. He said "Everything is done by the catechists and laypeople in various movements."

The Pastor of Bunan Gega, John Chung, has 500 baptisms each year. Two hundred of them are children of Catholics and three hundred are adult converts. He and his assistant have about fifty chapels to take care of. In my visit to this area of the Dayaks, they all seem to be Catholics. There is a chapel in each village. Fr. John says that the aborigines choose Christianity because "when the encounter Christ, they experience a change in their personal, life as well as that of the family and the village."

At Keningau (Sabah) :

The Bishop Cornelius Piong remarked that, "My diocese has twelve priests and ten seminarians for more than 90 thousand Catholics. Every year there are about 1,500 adult baptisms. The priests and sisters are too few. We entrust most of our duties to the laity and to the basic Christian communities: the catechumens who join the community are prepared for baptism by the word, example, and also the commitment to service of the whole parish.

Here in Sabah, Christians are free to evangelize, to convert the aborigines and the Chinese, and to build churches and other religious and social buildings.

Thirty years ago in Malaysian Borneo, there was one priest for every three thousand Catholics; today it is for every eight thousand. The diocese of Kota Kinabalu has 26 priests in pastoral activity for 220 thousand faithful with slightly less than 4 thousand baptisms per year, half of which are of adult converts.

The conversion of the Dayak people to the Catholic Church  is a mass movement, but if there were more priests, sisters, catechists, and financial means, the mission would be able to receive and form all the aborigines that desire to enter the flock of Christ.

Father William Sabang, the vicar general of the Archdiocese of Kuching and rector of the seminary, says that the Christians of Borneo can teach something to our ancient churches. "Our Christians, with only a few priests, organized themselves from the very beginning for the needs of their communities: prayer meetings, catechesis, charity. A tradition was created and Catholics know that they should give some of their time to the Church. Besides that, they are inspired by a missionary spirit and they carry the word of God; they speak of Jesus Christ and the gospel; they invite others to come to the Church.

Every parish has hundreds of adult baptisms each year that come by the efforts of the faithful. When I was in Italy, at times I was amazed at how the faithful complain about the Church, but they do little to evangelize: they don't take any initiatives and expect everything from the pastor.

The reason why our Christians are more active and more fervent is this I believe: in general they are recent conversions, only a few come from Catholic families. Thus they experience in their lives the positive revolution brought by Christ in the families and in the communities in which they live. They feel the difference of living with or without Christ. This makes them enthusiastic in their faith and ready to make great sacrifices to serve the Church.

Credits : Narrated By Father Piero Gheddo To AsiaNews. 

The Catholic Church In The Steppe Lands Of Inner Mongolia

In 2005, there was great rejoicing in the Catholic community in the village of Niu Yao Zi in Tumoteyouqi, diocese of Bao Tou in Inner Mongolia, mainland China, for the inauguration of a new church in the immense Mongolian steppe lands.

The solemn Mass for the re-consecration of the church was concelebrated by 8 priests from the diocese and surrounding area. More than 600 people, nuns and seminarians took part in the celebration.

The first church was opened here in 1906 after two years of construction work. In 1923 the church was enlarged to contain the growing Catholic population. It was the most beautiful church in the steppe land, a centre for evangelisation. Although the building survived natural disasters and war it had become too small and was old and unsafe.

It was pulled down to make way for a new church, the dream of the local people who welcomed the suggestion of the priests and helped in every way with the building offering building materials and their own labour. Priests and laity became brick layers under the hot sun and built a new church in only two months. The new church is 20 meters long and 10 meters wide and can seat 600 people, almost the entire community.

According to the “Handbook of the Church in China 2002” published by He Bei Faith Press, the Gospel was brought to the steppe land in 1724 by French missionaries of the Paris Institute for Foreign Missions MEP, the Lazarists CM and Scheut Missionaries CICM. When the Chinese hierarchy was established Inner Mongolia was divided into 7 dioceses.

Today there are more than 250,000 Catholics in the steppe lands and the Catholic community Bao Tou counts about 40,000 with 7 priests and 14 women religious.

Credits : Fides -- The News From Rome. 

The Montfortian Perspective On The Blessed Sacrament

The French school had a deep insight into the role of Mary at the Incarnation and, therefore, in all the mysteries of Christ. It is not surprising that Montfort experienced a further deepening of the mysteries through the Blessed Virgin. St. Louis Marie highlighted the Mary/Eucharist relationship. The Sacraments, rooted in the economy of salvation, are essentially the actualization of the historical mysteries of Christ. Since Mary gave the Redeemer his flesh and blood, it follows that she cannot but be involved in the mysteries that are a unique memorial of the same flesh and blood, that is, the Eucharist.

In light of these theological principles, Montfort elaborated his teaching, which is full of grateful admiration for the Father, that the Father through the Holy Spirit has entrusted His Son to Mary. This praise extends to Mary as well, as her "fiat" made it possible for us to share the Eucharistic body and blood of her Son: "It was you, Virgin Mary, /Who gave us this body and blood / Which raises our status so high / that it is beyond the reach of the angels. May you be blessed throughout the world / For giving us such a great gift" (H [Hymns] 134:11).

The Blessed Virgin’s motherly care and concern for her faithful servants is epitomized in the fact that "she gives them the Son she has born, the Bread of Life" (TD [True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin] 208, which is full of scriptural quotations and allusions and is concerned with this particular term). It is Wisdom who prepares the table and says, "Come… eat the bread which is Jesus. Drink the wine of his love which I have mixed for you with the milk of my breasts" (TD 208). 

With great sensitivity and in great depth, Montfort draws attention to the presence and action of Mary in the Eucharist without detriment to the excellence of the redeeming work of Christ. Mary is mediatrix of Communion: "As Mary is the treasurer and dispenser of the gifts and graces of the Most High God, she reserves a choice portion, indeed the choicest portion, to nourish and sustain her children and servants. They grow strong on the Bread of Life; they are made joyful with the wine that brings forth virgins. They are carried at her breast" (TD 208).

In the conviction that sacramental Communion necessarily involves the presence of Mary, Montfort concludes TD with an exhortation to receive Holy Communion in union with Mary. She receives in us and for us the Word of God made Bread. The reason for this is that she received the Word of God "in her heart and in her body," as the Church Fathers put it. 

In the last few pages of TD (266-273), Montfort tells us why and how we should unite ourselves with Mary before, during, and after Holy Communion; his aim is to demonstrate clearly that in us and through us Holy Communion binds Christ and Mary together again. In other words, the union between Christ and Mary, which took place at a definite time and place, is repeated in a sacramental way when the faithful united with Mary receive Holy Communion.

In accordance with the thinking of the time, Montfort made no explicit mention of the ecclesial aspect of Holy Communion; if we make allowance for this, we can safely say that Montfort’s teaching on the Christ/Mary/faithful relationship is extraordinarily clear from the theological standpoint. In practice, the relationship reflects the mystery of the oblation and communion that united in one heart Christ, Mary, and John at the time of the supreme sacrifice, which redeemed humanity (cf. Jn 19:25-27). 

It was precisely because he had in mind the conformity of the faithful to Jesus Christ, with Mary playing an all-important role, that Montfort envisaged and introduced the Consecration to Jesus through the hands of Mary, which he meant to be made in close connection with Holy Communion: "They should go to confession and Holy Communion with the intention of consecrating themselves to Jesus through Mary as his slaves of love. When receiving Holy Communion they could follow the method given later on [cf. TD 266-273]. They then recite the act of consecration" (TD 231; cf. also SM [The Secret of Mary] 61, 76).

In the method that Montfort suggests for receiving Holy Communion in union with Mary, the three Persons of the Holy Trinity are clearly involved; the prayers to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit on the common basis of "Lord I am not worthy" (TD 267-269) highlight the relationship of each of the Divine Persons with the Eucharist and with Mary.

Finally, a theme dear to the heart of the missionary: the Eucharistic life of Mary, which he mentions in the hymn to the Blessed Sacrament on Saturdays (H 134). Jesus instituted the Eucharist in order to remain with Mary even after his death on the Cross and his Ascension; so he keeps coming back to her "nourishing her with his own body which she nourished when he was an infant"; "in exchange for the milk of her most pure breast, he strengthens her with his divine Blood"; the Blessed Virgin is the perfect model of all who receive Holy Communion.

Saint Peter Chanel -- The Eminent Martyr Of Oceania

St Peter Chanel was born on 12 July 1803, the fifth of eight children, in a farming family with a small-holding in south-eastern France. The area was still troubled by the political instability that followed the Revolution. That, plus the need to help on the farm, meant his primary schooling was rather fragmented.

In his early teens the parish priest helped him with special lessons in the presbytery, so that in 1819, aged 16, he was ready to begin his four years of secondary education at the minor seminary at Meximieux. He progressed to the major seminary at Brou in 1824, to be ordained on 15 July 1827, at the age of 24, as a priest for the Belley diocese. For his first year of priesthood he was assistant in a medium sized town, already thinking seriously about applying for an apostolate in the foreign missions. Then followed three years as parish priest in a small country town where the Church was still in disarray a generation after the Revolution. With quiet zeal, tact and compassion he transformed it.

Underlying his approach was his personal motto, ‘To love Mary and bring others to love her.’

In 1831, at 28, with his bishop’s agreement, he joined the small group of diocesan priests in the dioceses of Belley and Lyons, who had hopes of starting a Society of Mary. Its most prominent members were Jean-Claude Colin and Marcellin Champagnat, who was responsible for establishing a branch of teaching brothers. There were also sisters, founded by Jeanne-Marie Chavoin, and groups of laypeople. Among the Marists’ declared aims was to undertake foreign missions. At this stage, however, the priests were occupied in giving parish missions and in running the minor seminary in Belley, which also doubled as a college for boys who had no thought of a priestly vocation. Peter joined the staff of this college, where, in 1832, he became its spiritual director.

ln 1833 Peter accompanied Fr Colin and another priest to Rome to ask the Pope’s approval for their planned Society of Mary. They left Rome empty-handed. After Peter’s return, he became vice-superior and effective head of the college at Belley. In this position he was not exactly a success, a fact of which he was himself painfully aware.

Papal approval of the priests’ branch of the Society of Mary was finally given in April 1836 when the Marists accepted responsibility for new missions in the little-known south-west Pacific. Peter was one of the first group of Marist priests who met for the retreat that culminated in the election of Jean-Claude Colin as General and the first professions on September 24th.

Given his long interest in foreign missions, it is not surprising that Peter offered his name for Oceania. He was chosen to be one of the first band of missionaries, four priests and three catechist brothers, who had been trained by Champagnat, under the leadership of Bishop Pompallier, vicar apostolic of Western Oceania and later first bishop of Auckland. Having visited his family and slipped away in the early morning, Peter made for Lyons and on 15 October, with his companions, took part in a service of consecration to Mary before her statue in the shrine of Fourvière.

Finally, after a long wait at the port of Le Havre, the band set forth on Christmas Eve in the sailing ship Delphine. The journey took almost a year, round Cape Horn and up to Valparaiso on the Pacific coast of South America. In March 1837, one of the priests, Claude Bret, contracted a fever. He and Peter had been friends for a number of years, and Peter looked after him in his illness. Despite all efforts to save him, Bret died off the Canary lsles and was buried at sea.

The missionaries sailed into the Pacific, fact-finding and considering possibilities. On All Saints Day 1837, Pompallier placed Fr Peter Bataillon and Br Joseph Luzy on Wallis Island, in an island group north of Fiji. A week later he founded a second mission, leaving Fr Peter Chanel and Br Marie-Nizier Delorme 170km away on Futuna, the smaller island of the two. By then the Bishop had decided to make his base in New Zealand and, via Sydney, landed in the Hokianga on 10 January l838.

Peter and Marie-Nizier were well received by the king of one of the two factions into which the islanders were split and they were allowed to stay. Pompallier left, promising to return with another missionary in six months, a promise he proved unable to keep, and which seriously undermined the missionaries’ position in the eyes of the islanders. On the island were also some English traders, including Thomas Boag, an English Protestant and widower of a Futunan woman, who helped the missionaries, especially with the local language. The missionaries tried to help the islanders with primitive medicine, to discourage tribal warfare and practices such as abortion, and to seize whatever opportunities arose for giving instruction and administering baptism.

Progress was painfully slow and uncertain. For three and a half years on Futuna, Peter and Marie-Nizier battled with language difficulties, strange customs and food, sickness, malnutrition, loneliness.
Hardest to bear was the seeming lack of success in adult conversions. But they persevered, living and preaching the Gospel, in spite of the king’s tolerance wearing thin.

The eventual conversion of the king’s son proved to be Peter’s death warrant. With the king’s approval, a small group of his tribal leaders clubbed Peter to death while Marie-Nizier was absent visiting elsewhere. It was on 28th April 1841.

When he heard the news of Peter’s brutal death, Pompallier sailed to Wallis, accompanied by Fr Philippe Viard, later to be the first Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand.

Viard went ashore on Futuna, refusing any armed escort, and gathered Peter’s remains, which were then brought to New Zealand. These were kept reverently at Kororareka (Russell) till 1849 when they were returned to France. They are now once again on Futuna, venerated in a shrine that has become a pilgrimage centre for the whole Pacific.

Because of the difficulty of getting reliable eye-witness evidence, it took the Church a long time to be satisfied that Peter died because of hatred of the Catholic faith, and not for some other reason. He was officially declared a martyr and beatified in 1889.

He was declared a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1954 and, because of his connection with New Zealand, St Peter Chanel is honored with a Feast Day.

Credits : The Marist Fathers Of New Zealand 

Catholic Evangelization In The Rugged Himalayas

Bishop Stephen Lepcha gasps for a breath in the thin air. He trudges a few more steps along the narrow path etched into the side of the mountain, here in the craggy foothills of the Himalayas, then stops, his chest heaving. We are enveloped in an inky blackness except for the weak beam of a flashlight four of us share. The road we left behind an hour ago is far below, yet the lights of Behga, the tiny village atop this mountain five miles from the border with Nepal, still look distant.

Bishop Stephen, a stout man of 57 with graying hair and a generous smile you rarely see him without, is the ordinary of one of most remote regions of the Catholic and geographical world. He is on his way to say Mass and administer the sacraments. This long and tortuous journey on foot from the barely navigable dirt road below has been made for a single -- albeit somewhat large -- family.
At Behga, a village of a few hundred souls scattered among small plots of terraced farmland, a plastic canopy flaps in the breeze, supported by large bamboo poles.

This is the parish church. Under it sit over a hundred people, wrapped in thick jackets and blankets against the night’s chill, who rise as the bishop approaches. The bishop was scheduled to be here at 4 p.m. It is now 8. This is his yearly visit and at least the day is correct. The actual time of day has little meaning for this special occasion.

William Sherpa, 31, takes a cup from a tray, and as the bishop bends his head back, William pours the warm milk into the bishop’s mouth. This is the traditional greeting of the Sherpas, the storied mountain-dwelling tribe, best known in the West as guides and porters for Mount Everest ascents; many individuals, like William, also have this as a last name. They are traditionally Buddhist, and were all Buddhist for centuries. It was just 20 years ago that Catholicism began making slow inroads in the Sherpa communities of Western Sikkim.

Far removed from the church’s current dilemmas with sex abuse and debates over stem cells, women’s roles, and procreation, Bishop Stephen serves on one of Catholicism’s final frontiers.

Overcoming immense natural and man-made hurdles to bring the church to the people of Sikkim, this is Catholic evangelization and pastoral care in its purest and most direct form. I was able to witness it firsthand traveling with the bishop and the parish priest of West Sikkim, Salesian Fr. George Thirumalachalil, over three days in the spring.

Darjeeling, Bishop Stephen’s diocese, comprises the state of Sikkim, the district of Darjeeling (of the train and tea fame) in West Bengal, and the kingdom of Bhutan. Within it are just over 30,000 Catholics spread out over some of the earth’s most forbidding terrain, an area of some 17,000 square miles. A kingdom until it joined the Indian Union in 1975, Sikkim is wedged between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan and is India’s second-smallest state and least populated, the latest census numbering under 600,000. It is one of the most isolated places in the world, sorely lacking in infrastructure (it has no airport or railroad, and few roads) and economic opportunity.

Average yearly income stands at just $600. Most of Sikkim’s population of 540,000 relies on primitive agriculture and government subsidies to survive.

In 1990 Father George moved to Sikkim and started the Don Bosco School at Malbasey, which is now one of the best in Sikkim. At first, he could claim only one family of converts, but today there are over 300 Catholic families and six churches and chapels sprinkled throughout the rugged mountains and pristine valleys of his parish. “There are almost no first- or second-generation Catholics in Sikkim,” says Father George. “You’re more likely to find first- or second-year Catholics.”

The story of a young church emerging in Sikkim is reflected in the evening at Behga. William Sherpa’s parents, Bhaje and Bhoju, at 78 and 79, are being baptized as Helen and Paul. A decade after their son and his wife, Albina, converted to Catholicism, his parents have followed.

Only a 10th of the audience is Catholic, but they not only attend the bishop’s two-and-a-half-hour Mass, but witness Helen and Paul’s baptism, first Communion and confirmation. It is a prime opportunity to expose potential converts to the Catholic faith, a fact not lost on the bishop and Father George, who set up the bishop’s itinerary. Father George knew the Sherpa family was popular, but even he was surprised by the large turnout.

“The most important thing,” Bishop Stephen says during the homily, looking out over the largely Buddhist and Hindu group, “is to know about God. Forget about religion, religion will not save you. Don’t be afraid to accept Jesus Christ.” Then he strikes a reoccurring theme. “Holiness is not the monopoly of the few, but is open to all who are willing to accept it.”

He is both an inspiring teacher and natural performer, spreading his arms wide, as if to embrace the entire world when he tells his congregants-cum-pupils that God is not just for a few of them, but for all. During a sung Our Father, with a beaming smile he waves his arms in the air to the rhythm, like a conductor before his orchestra. It is a bouncy, joyful Our Father, injecting life into what can be one of more routinized moments in the liturgy.

During Communion, he turns to a statue of Jesus on the cross behind him, the figure bleeding profusely. He points to the host, then back to Jesus, and uses the physical symbolism to explain how Jesus died to wipe away their sins.

In these remote villages that only see a priest once a month, and their bishop yearly, Bishop Stephen is keenly aware that to be effective he needs to instruct and enlighten, not just go through the motions of the Mass. “I must explain the meaning of what I am doing; I want them to better understand what they are partaking in,” Bishop Stephen says after the Mass. “Only then can they fully enjoy it. I’m not great, but God is; I want them to feel that. I take as the gift of God the people that will listen to me.

If I don’t get to speak to someone about God each day, I’m not happy.”