Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Hong Kong (Agenzia Fides) – “Follow the outstanding example of the first disciples” is the title of the Pastoral Letter from Bishop John Tong of Hong Kong, published at the beginning of Lent in Kong Ko Bao (the diocesan bulletin in Chinese). The Bishop of Hong Kong encourages everyone to “continuously observe the best Lenten traditions, thereby also responding to the Pope's appeal in his Lenten Message: to purify the body and soul, to intensify our rapport with God, to abstain from material vices, to love the poor”. In this way “we may experience this time of penitence and renewal” and simultaneously “the time of prayer, fasting and alms-giving.”
In his Letter, Bishop Tong illustrates the three outstanding qualities of the first disciples - Didache, Koinonia and Diakonia - highlighting that : “these are precisely suited for today's faithful, especially to live the Year for the Laity” in the diocese of Hong Kong. Moreover, even in the modern history of the Church “we had lots of people like Blessed Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II, who will soon be beatified, who are distinguished by these three qualities.” Then the Bishop appeals “for the umpteenth time for the faithful to follow the outstanding example of the first disciples to mature in these three qualities.” In other words, he urges “a strengthening of the spiritual life, an enlarging of the heart and the vision of communion, the living witness of evangelisation to reap the fruits of prayer, formation and evangelisation in the Year for the Laity.” (NZ) (Agenzia Fides 11/03/2011)
