The Year of Youth in Auckland

By Fr. Joseph Pham, SDB

Massey - Auckland, New Zealand, 4 May 2019 -- Every first weekend of the month the Samoan youth growing around Auckland diocese are invited to come together at the Malaeola (Samoan Chaplaincy Centre in Auckland). Also today, some 200 Samoans, mainly youth with their families, in many cases all three generations, enjoyed their Saturday morning. The Malaeola Centre has been serving the Samoan community for the past 25 years, blessed in 1995 and built with the contribution of all Samoan Catholic families spread throughout the Auckland diocese.

Today, substituting the official chaplain, Fr Mosese Tui, SDB (rector and parish priest of Massey) was invited to guide the morning session, made of songs, animation, Bible reading and conference. As a true Samoan, Fr Mosese peppered the Emmaus spirituality with many jokes, that produce a lot of laughter. As a true son of Don Bosco he also used not less than five video clips for his animation based on the Scripture story (Luke 24) on the Disciples walk to Emmaus -intertwined with the Year of the Youth (2018 - Australia) inviting all to leave their comfort zone and spend more time on the spirituality of the heart and accompaniment (Emmaus disciples discovery of living Jesus). The whole assembly followed very closely in a joyful manner, then followed a short time for some questions and answers related mostly to liturgy and leadership in the Catholic community. After the final prayer a true Samoan 'light tea' (read abundant lunch)was shared in the main hall of the Malaeola Chaplaincy Center.

As a matter of fact, two thirds or 66.5% of Samoan New Zealanders live in the Auckland Region. During the 2014 census about 140,000 declared Samoans, while 50.000 of them already born in New Zealand. And arguably, Samoan is the third most spoken language in New Zealand, after English and Maori. At present there are only 8 Samoan diocesan priest serving the numerous Catholic population in Auckland. In the two parishes entrusted to the Salesians of Don Bosco - Massey and Avondale - we have quitea large number of Samoan Catholics, along with other Pacific Islanders, Filipinos, South Asian and African groups. We pray for the new workers in the vineyard of the Lord!

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