By Fr. Louis Aldrich S.J.
We often tried to express that our benefactors are really
sharing in the mission of direct evangelism.
I do not know if each of you really feels, understands and experiences
this truth. Maybe I can use the
Christmas story of the three wise men to help make this truth real to you. These wise men had been searching for Jesus
and finally they found Him. The Bible
tells us that after they found Him, they worshiped Him: that means that in
some way they intuited His divinity.
Finally, the wise men offered Jesus gifts. Some early Christian traditions tell us that
it was by the money raised through selling these gifts that the Holy Family was
able to begin a new life in Egypt.
These "donations", then, allowed Jesus to escape
the death Herod had planned for Him; hence, they made a key contribution to
God's plan of salvation. The donations
of the wise men did not go for the building up of their nations, to the helping
of the poor or crippled or sick (of course, all of these are worthy of
support); rather they went directly to helping God's work of salvation, the
work of bringing eternal life to each person.
In the same way, your donations really are directly helping Jesus to
bring salvation and eternal life to Chinese people, especially in Taiwan. Every year our lay evangelists lead hundreds
of Chinese to know and love Jesus as Savior and Son of God, and to begin to
worship the most Holy Trinity. The
direct evangelism of our lay missionaries would not happen without your
help. So again, I hope that during this
Christmas season you are able to experience the joy that this cooperation in
Jesus' work of salvation should be giving you.
In this issue, we share with you some examples of the fruits
of your generous help. First, we share the story of Liu Fang-yi, who just
graduated in June from the Evangelism Department of the Fu Jen School of
Theology. Because of enthusiastic support from two pastors and two parishes she
is already leading six catechumen courses with thirty-four catechumens. Second,
one of our most experienced lay evangelists, Ying Jr-li, will lead an intensive
two week training course for Catholics in northern China on how to prepare the
lectures for a catechumen course. Third,
Prof. Chiang Tzu-Hwa explains how one of our lay evangelists is forming a small
community of parishioners in Tai-chung to assist in the mission of direct
evangelism. Finally, we report the
fruitful work of Chou Lyan-hwa among non-Catholic Chinese and Aborigines of
Ping-tung area of Southern Taiwan.
We are now starting to raise funds for 8/1/2014 to
7/31/2015. We plan on adding four lay
evangelists during that year, which will make a total of 20 lay evangelists
plus two staff persons: that means we will need a budget of about US$400,000. So we will continue to need the support of
each one of you, plus find new benefactors.
Jesus became Incarnate and was born of the Virgin Mary to
bring us salvation. Again, thank you for
being our partner in bringing Jesus' salvation to the Chinese. May the Most Holy Trinity richly bless you
this Christmas and in the coming year.
