Lin Min

    MORE than 400 people, mostly expatriates from 38 countries and regions, attended Shenzhen’s first regular English mass at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church on Sunday, Father Francis Xavier Zhang said yesterday.

    The English mass, which will be a fixture every Sunday at 11 a.m., is also the first in the Pearl River Delta region except for Guangzhou, Father Zhang said. Many of Sunday’s churchgoers were expatriates from Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhongshan and Zhuhai.

    The Sunday English mass in the Nonglin Road, Futian District, church is aimed at making expatriate Catholics feel at home, Father Zhang said. It is also a prelude to church services during the 2011 Shenzhen Universiade.

    Shenzhen has more than 40,000 Catholics with an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 expatriate Catholics, Father Zhang said.

    Joycelin Morcilla, from the Philippines, was one of the expatriates participating in the mass Sunday. “How glorious to hear the familiar rites in a language I understand,” he said.

    “And with the overhead multi-media screens, I sang with the choir.

    “To top that, I actually got to listen to the homily of Father Francis. When the Reverend Father touched on the First Reading, I couldn’t help but smile,” Loycelin wrote in a letter to the Shenzhen Daily.

    The mass made her feel at home, she wrote. “So, after four years in Shenzhen, I get to look forward to this Sunday celebration...providing a balance between work, leisure and the spirit… almost like home.”

    Father Zhang’s fluent English is one of the reasons that the Sunday mass attracted so many expatriates. He was the diplomacy assistant to late Beijing Catholic Bishop Michael Fu Tiesheng, who died in 2007.

    Shenzhen has now opened at least seven churches or legal meeting places for Catholics and 24 for other Christian denomiations.

    There is English communion every Sunday afternoon at the Christian Shenzhen Church on Meilin Road. A small church in the Jingshan Villas also has an English service.