Ulaan Baatar (AsiaNews/UCAN) - For the first day of the Lunar New Year, the parish of Saint Mary in Ulaan Baatar has celebrated two Masses, at 6 and 11 in the morning, in order to permit all the faithful to participate. The New Year, called Tsagaan Sar (White Moon), fell on February 25 in 2009, about a month after the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese New Year.
Many of the faithful participated in the Masses.
After celebrating the first Mass, Bishop Wenceslao Padilla, the apostolic prefect of Ulaan Baatar, said that "It was wonderful to see how many people came. We all expected empty pews, and yet the church was full. We will do this every year!"
Enkhtuvshin, a member of the parish of Saint Mary, says that "for Tsagaan Sar, I used to do what the other Mongolians did: I visited relatives, I gave gifts." "But now, we will go to sunrise Mass, and greet the Lord first of all."
Susanna, a Mongolian lay missionary, says that the young people of the parish prepared special "Word dumplings," steamed meat dumplings with a biblical verse inside, giving them to those who come to Mass during the first week of the New Year. The parishioners are also giving the dumplings to the poor during the holiday period. Susanna explains that "there are many homeless people, and others are just too poor to buy meat even for the holidays." For the new year, Mongolians eat meat dumplings, boiled mutton, and slices of sheep's tail.
This year, the New Year coincided with Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting and abstinence for Catholics. Bishop Padilla gave the Mongolian faithful a dispensation from this Lenten obligation, which will instead be observed on Sunday.