Chapel in Mauritius dedicated to San Pedro Calungsod, young Filipino martyr
Manila (AsiaNews/Cbcp) - On the other side of the world, a small chapel on the island of Mauritius, Indian Ocean, has been recently dedicated to the young Filipino martyr, St. Pedro Calungsod. A holy mass, concelebrated by Fr. Robert Dalais, Couples for Christ (CFC) chaplains Fr. Jacques Piat and Fr. Pierrot Friquin, marked the re-dedication of the chapel on April 14. New members of CFC-Youth for Christ (CFC-YFC) Mauritius, fresh from their first youth camp, and two mission volunteers Mikael Boniface and Farima Figaro from CFC-YFC Seychelles were also in attendance during the re-dedication.
Born in 1654 in Cebu, Visayan islands (central Philippines), Saint Pedro Calungsod was fascinated during his childhood by the Christian message brought by Jesuit missionaries. He later began training as a catechist during his teenage years. In 1668, along with other Catechists, he went with Fr Diego Luis de San Vitores to the Mariana Islands to evangelise the Chamorro people. Despite the danger of persecution and violence, Pedro showed deep faith and charity as he continued to catechise among the many converts; he was martyred in 1672 during a visit to one of the villages that had become hostile to the missionaries.
Fr. Dalais, the local parish priest, got interested to know more about the young saint when he was first asked for permission by a lay CFC missionary family to keep the image in the chapel. The family, which had been staying in the Diocese of Port-Louis since July 2013, brought with them a small image of St. Pedro as inspiration for their mission.
After being given information about St. Pedro's life and martyrdom, he raised the possibility of dedicating the chapel to St. Pedro in the hopes of inspiring parishioners, especially young people, through his example. Permission to re-dedicate the chapel was obtained from Bishop Maurice Piat shortly after, and plans were made to celebrate a mass in honor of St. Pedro and to dedicate the chapel to his intercession.
Despite being located in the far north of the island, and the mass being celebrated on a Monday afternoon, many of the local CFC members came to support the event, coming from as far south as Plaine Magnien and Rose-Belle, as well as a few parishioners from Marie-Reine, Poudre D'Or. CFC had begun in Mauritius in November, 2011. The house provided by the diocese for the missionary family, which is to be the CFC office and mission house, is a renovated convent with a chapel attached to the house.
Mauritius is an island in the Indian Ocean, about 900 km east of Madagascar and has a population of about 1.3 million people, part of the African continent. In the capital Port Louis coexist mosques, churches, pagodas and a Jewish cemetery, as a reminder of its cosmopolitan and multicultural nature. According to a 2011 census, Hinduism is practiced by 49% of the population, Christians are about 32%, followed by Islam (17%), Buddhism (0.4%) and a small community of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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