作者 Joanne Chao (Hsia) 夏佩聖
This year, I celebrated my 25th birthday. (That makes me only 5 years older than this Chinese Catholic Community.) I can distinctly remember 3 periods in my 25 years of life when my closest friends told me that I’ve ‘changed’. I don’t think they were referring to my physical self, but rather to my entire outlook on life and to my interests. Changing is a natural part of growing up, but it can also be a scary and uncomfortable experience. I have found that with people I once considered as really close friends of mine, we now have nothing in common. And my parents decided all of a sudden that during this phase of their life relocating to China was the step they were going to take. Talk about change there!
Likewise, this Church and community have also evolved quite some bit over the past 2 decades. It has grown significantly, become more formalized, gotten a makeover, and elected a leadership team consisted of a more recent generation of members. Still, despite some of these changes, we’ve managed to preserve some of the old traditions like the annual Christmas party and Easter Egg hunts etc. But there is also one reality that is no doubt going to have a changing impact on this community –and that reality is the challenge for this Church to continue to attract back, retain, and meet the needs of its young adults.
The purpose of forming a Chinese Community was originally to establish a community amongst a growing number of Chinese Catholics who have immigrated to this area. I remember the very first gatherings of this community took place in our living room; we would have Bible Study and invite a priest to say Mass at our house. Over the years, our parents invested tremendous time and resources to build and sustain this community, and as their kids, we benefited from their commitment to this cause. I made most of my best friends in this community and a good deal of my social life has and still revolves around activities conducted with the youth group here. For this I am extremely grateful.
However, whereas this Church continues to be a supporting community for new Chinese members, it is becoming more and more irrelevant for the “American” generation my age. Perhaps that’s an unfair criticism, but definitely a very true assessment. There is a culture, language, and even priorities gap that prevents us from feeling total ownership and belonging in this community. A part of me feels very obligated to give back to this community, but another part of me feels extremely apathetic and inept. Sometimes I want to just “graduate” from this Church and move on to something else just as I have in other aspects of my life.
The truth is, no matter what changes occur along life’s journey, what is home still remains home. St. Clare’s Chinese Catholic Community is home to me. It is where I grew up, it is where I got married. I feel very special to have such a long history with this Church, and I think it’s a blessing from God that I should not just give up on. As this Church enters its 21st year anniversary, there will be a few of us that will need to ask ourselves the difficult question of how we want to serve this Church and what is our long term purpose in this community. Even more importantly, what will we need to do in order to continue to nourish our own spiritual needs so that we can be the most effective ministers possible for the Church. I think this will yet be another year that I ‘change.’
