China: 300 years of the Presence of the Church Celebrated with the Bible

On the last Sunday of the Catholic Church’s liturgical year, Chinese Catholic communities celebrated with zeal the Solemnity of Christ the King by participating in relevant pastoral initiatives. After the Eucharistic celebration at the Parish dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Beijing, the parish priest  Fr. Zhang Xiaozhuo presented certificates and small prizes to parishioners who participated in the daily Bible reading. The said event was an initiative inaugurated on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Church. Fr. Zhang stressed the importance of individual and communal reading of God’s Word and announced that the initiative will continue and the new new annual Bible reading cycle will begin on Sunday, Dec. 3, the feast of St. Francis Xavier and the first Sunday of Advent. In the Beijing Diocese Cathedral, catechumens in the 55th catechism course received a beautiful copy of Our Father from Fr. Pei Dong, head of the course. Fr. Pei expressed the hope that “everyone will memorize Our Father, the prayer par excellence and precious treasure of the Church.” At the end of the liturgy, all catechumens recited the Lord’s Prayer together and received a blessing from the priest and catechists. One of the most popular Chinese-language editions of the Bible is the edition produced by Sobicain and distributed, since the late 1990s, completely free of charge.