SHC organises weeklong activities for parish feast day

KOTA KINABALU – Sacred Heart Cathedral here organised weeklong activities for its parish feast day.

For those who made the effort to partake in Sacred Heart Cathedral’s week-long parish feast thanksgiving, from 23-29 Jun 2014, surely it can only be surmised as a delightful and joyous experience. To those who opted to give it a miss for whatever reason, it is only their loss. Would it not have been even greater if every single parishioner turned up to partake in the assortment of programmes that was thoughtfully laid out?

The celebration ended with a Parish Family Day carnival on Sunday (Jun 29) which saw a reasonable good turnout of parishioners for the mini bazaar and food fair. Again, those who did not show up missed a wonderful opportunity at fellowship, together with fellow parishioners as well as Msgr Primus Jouil, Fr Jeffri Gumu and Fr Rhobby Mojolou, who attended the later parts of the carnival after their pastoral responsibilities.

Given the on-going World Cup soccer fever it was little wonder that a ‘holy men’ team made up of priests from the archdiocese took on a team from Sacred Heart Cathedral at Penampang.

With a defence marshalled by none other than Archbishop John Wong, the SHC parishioners were trounced 6-2 by the ‘holy men’ with goals coming from Fr Clement Abel, Fr Eric Jerome, Fr Edward Raymond and Fr Jeffri Gumu (3). The SHC parishioners said they were overawed to get past the Archbishop; hence they could not score more than the two goals.

Said Sacred Heart Parish Pastoral Council chairman Dr Damian Lee: “We had a little something for everyone – from the serious stuff to the fun and games. Overall I rate the event a success and hope to see more participation from the parishioners in future celebrations. On our part, the organizing committee would surely add more activities to make the feast thanksgiving all the more joyous”.

There were prizes galore for the lucky draw – those who bought tickets can check their numbers at the Parish office to claim their prizes. The top three prizes of a statue of Mother Mary and two 32” LED television sets were however carted off by their respective winners.

While the children enjoyed playing at the inflatables, specially rented by the organizers, the youth had fun at the telematch items as well as the treasure hunt. Perhaps in future, the organizers may consider setting age groups for the telematch, as surely the elderlies would not be able to match with the youth.

The night before, on Saturday, the youth of Sacred Heart entertained the crowd with a ‘musical nite’ where some seven youth groups from within the parish did song and dance performances. The efforts put in by the youths was worthy of a full house, and they certainly deserved better support than a turnout of some 400 people.

A special movie, depicting the life of St Augustine was screened on Friday.

The Parish Feast Day Triduum kick-started the celebration and was held over three days.

On Thursday evening, Jun 26, it was a triple celebration with the highlight being the Mass to celebrate the Sacred Heart Feast day. The Mass was presided by Archbishop John Wong and concelebrated by Archbishop Emeritus John Lee as well as most of the Kota Kinabalu archdiocesan priests.

A procession from the sacristy around the perimeter of the church was carried out before the Mass.

Emeritus Lee, celebrating his 27th Episcopal ordination anniversary continued with the Mass from the Offertory.

Later a thanksgiving dinner attended by some 1,000 parishioners was held.

There were the usual speeches from Damian and one from Archbishop Wong, who in his brief message said he endorsed the vision set out by the Sacred Heart PPC. (For those who want to read the whole text of Damian’s speech can log in to https://www.sacredheartcathedralkk.org/news-events)

Emeritus Lee also gave a few words after cutting his anniversary cake (please see separate story). – SOCCOM SHC