Fr. Luc Young OMI shares his experience of working in the St. Alfred Parish in Shatin, Hong Kong. In Kowloon City, on the wall of the Baptist School, are written in big Chinese characters the following message: “Believe in Jesus and Be Saved!” On the walls of our church in St. Alfred, there are no such characters and message written, but it seems that the St. Alfred parish football club has re-written that saying that could read as follows: “Believe in Jesus, Play Football and Be Saved!”

St Alfred Parish Football Club is composed of 3 teams, The Children Team (7-12 years old), The Youth Team (13-35 years old) and the Veterans (36 to as old as 70 years old). Parishioners run the club with Fr. Luc Young omi as their chaplain. Fr. Luc is not only the chaplain; he is also part of the Veterans team and regularly trains with the children and youth teams.

Fr. Luc OMI with children from the parish

The parishioners, who started the football club a few years ago, came up with their own rules and regulations as to who can join the club and play football. Anyone is welcome to join the weekly training sessions, but not all can participate in the tournament that is organized annually by the Diocese of Hong Kong. To be able to do that, the rule is as follows: one has to be either baptized, a catechumen or a Sunday school student. As a result, many kids who did not like to attend Sunday school before, because they would like to play in the tournament, they go to Sunday school very regularly and even attend Sunday masses. It is important to note that these rules were not made by the priests but by the parishioners themselves.

In order to create more interaction among the young and not so young people of the different parishes, the Diocese has, for the past 5 years, organized a football tournament. The record of St. Alfred Parish Football Club has not been that bad at all. The Children’s team has won the tournament two years in a row, the 2006 tournament and this year’s tournament. This year before the final, the Children’s Team attended mass and received a special blessing from their Chaplain. One would wonder whether the special blessing had anything to do with the team’s winning! Let us all believe in Jesus, play football, go to Church and be saved!

Fr. Luc Young OMI