Sunday 23rd November. As well as being Parish Priest of Saint Francis Xavier, Fr Simon looks after another parish in nearby Subang Jaya, known as CKK. The parish has no church, and has had difficulty getting planning permission to build one.
This badminton hall becomes a church for the CKK community on Sunday mornings (not my photo - by alfaexpressions)
So, the parish hires a badminton hall every Sunday morning and celebrates Mass there at 8.30 and 11.30. A team of parishioners arrives at 7.30 and starts to get the hall ready, preparing the altar, putting up the Stations of the Cross and devotional pictures, and a makeshift confessional. I concelebrated both Masses with Fr Simon and was surprised at how solemn and dignified they were in the circumstances – no corners were cut – there was a team of fully-vested altar servers, incense, music led by an excellent choir. One bonus of using the hall is that is has air conditioning, which makes it much more comfortable than most churches – especially for someone wearing an alb, stole and chasuble on top of their ordinary clothes (it’s the stole that does it, of course – it’s so hot in those things).
It also has a considerably greater capacity than most churches, seating about a thousand. And both Masses were pretty full.
Some of the parishioners took Simon and me out for breakfast between the Masses. I am getting used to this business of being taken out for breakfast, and I have to admit I don’t mind it at all.
After the second Mass, vestments and a host of other liturgical accoutrements were packed away, altars, tables were dismantled, and the hall returned very quickly to its secular state. Quite an impressive operation I have to say, which says a lot about the dedication of the parishioners.
The good news is that the parish finally has permission to build a permanent place of worship (not in a prominent place, mind, but in the middle of an industrial estate – Christianity, I am reliably informed, is not allowed a high profile in this country) so all that remains now is the relatively simple matter of raising the money.
