I was so fortunate to be in Rome at the right time. To celebrate the opening of the Second Vatican Council, our congregation organized a brilliant Exhibition of the Church. Among our sisters were some talented artists who created beautiful panels and art-work explaining the meaning of Church. In hindsight, what was displayed was the old traditional face of the Church. And it would be years later that we would come to know the various models of Church as we know it now.
As an English-speaking novice, I was allowed to help at the Exhibition to talk to English speaking visitors. Those who came to see and admire the Exhibition were mostly bishops, their secretaries and tourists. I remember one American priest, secretary to a bishop, who brought so many souvenirs and publicity about his bishop. He talked to me at length introducing the bishop’s profile and trying to give a good impression of him to me. That was the time that I learned and understood church politics and personality cults.
Everywhere we went in Rome, in buses and in the streets, swarms of bishops could be seen talking and hurrying. I never saw so many bishops in my life. Now I saw them running for buses, sitting or standing in the streets and behaving like ordinary people. I discovered that they were so human after all. But I noticed there was such a big difference between the rich Western bishops and the poor Asian and African bishops. To this day, I retain my respect and esteem for all bishops, but I know their human condition could lead them to less idealistic behaviour.
The Vatican Council opened up vast horizons of possibilities in the Church. It emphasized the role of the baptized person whose mission is to carry out the last wishes of Jesus when he said, Go to the whole world and preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God. For many people and for many years, the lay persons believed that this mission is for the priests and religious only. Not only is the baptized Catholic to preach the Gospel to everyone as Jesus instructed us, but Vatican Council urges them to take their rightful role in Church liturgy and administration.
My Experience of Vatican Council II
In a twinkling of an eye, 50 years have passed by.
I was a novice in Rome when the Vatican Council opened in October 1962. A momentous event in the life of the Catholic Church and also in my life as a Singaporean Catholic who like many others, hardly knew what the Church was all about.
Referring to the proper role of the priest and the laity, I can give a very good example of this being done in Malaysia in 1976. I was working in the Kuala Lumpur diocese and had just graduated from a 9-month course in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) of Manila. This was a first-class course on AGGIORNAMENTO or renewal or updating. This buzz word AGGIORNAMENTO was heard everywhere. All the priests and the religious were very eager to be updated and renewed in their spiritual and pastoral life.
The Malaysian dioceses had the courage and the vision to call for an aggiornamento for all their priests so that they could adequately lead their people in the new forms of the liturgy, the theology, the catechetics and pastoral ministry. Instead of sending some priests to the EAPI for this aggiornamento, the bishops gathered all the priests in the Major Seminary of Penang and invited a team of professors from the EAPI to give the course to them.
This had a huge implication for parish life. For one month, all the parishes had no priests to administer the sacrament of the Eucharist. But some selected lay people were trained to become extraordinary ministers of Communion. This meant they would assemble the congregation and lead the Liturgy of the Word including giving the sermons and after proper preparations, they gave Holy Communion from previously consecrated Hosts. The laity did all the administering of the sick and dying and the funeral services. The Malaysian church also formed small Christian communities to allow the Catholics to be Church in their own families and homes and neighbourhoods.
For me this was one of the most outstanding results of the Vatican Council. I saw with my own eyes and experience the meaning of Church – a communion of people and their participation in this Church. To this day many people who were involved in this famous AGGIORNAMENTO course in Penang, have become lifelong friends in the Lord.
In the course of these past 50 years I feel that my life as a Daughter of St Paul became so enriched in new ministries and new graces, all due to the Second Vatican Council. I am so grateful to have benefited from the outcome of the Vatican Council and I thank God for sending Pope John XXIII to open the windows of our Church to the world and to invite all the people into it.
(This article was published in the Sunday Examiner on 10 October 2012).
Bishops leaving St Peter’s Square
Bishops in St Peter’s Square
Bishops gathered in Rome for
Second Vatican Council
The Pope in chapel with bishops
“I am the way and the truth and the life” John 14:6
「我是道路、真理、生命」若14:6
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