PARK SLOPE — Even though she was never baptized and never received any of the sacraments, Ning Wang was always a Catholic at heart.
“My husband and his mom, his sister, they all are a Catholic family,” Wang said during the Rite of Election prayer service at Bishop Ford H.S. in Park Slope on March 1.
“They want me to know the Lord myself. I really felt that the Catholic family is very kind.” Wang volunteered for 10 years at her family’s church in China, but felt that the religious discrimination that the Chinese government, police and public imposed was just too much to bear.
“In China, I can’t do the Mass every week and go to church, we have no chance, sometimes the government won’t allow me to do that,” Wang said.
So she decided to leave everything behind and follow Jesus, no matter the cost. That meant Wang would risk not knowing the next time she would see some of her family, including her mother who lives in the city of Qingdao in the eastern part of China.
Led with an unwavering fidelity in her heart and the motivation from her Catholic in-laws, Wang, her husband and their 8-year-old daughter, Yulu, left China for Queens. That was nearly two years ago. For Wang, becoming Catholic with the community at St. Michael’s in Flushing would mean that she and her family could finally have the freedom to express their faith in public.
The lack of religious freedom in China goes back to the 1950s, under communism, when China’s Catholic churches were surpressed. The Chinese government didn’t begin to loosen its religious restrictions until the 1980s.
“I can’t pray in public place, it’s not good,” Wang said. “Because the government and people tell me ‘don’t do that’ and the police say ‘that is not good.’ They don’t understand what a Catholic is.”
This year, the Diocese of Brooklyn will welcome more than 1,000 catechumens and candidates from 112 parishes into full communion with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil on April 11.
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio led the afternoon Rite of Election prayer service with almost 500 catechumens at Bishop Ford H.S. in Park Slope.
On the previous afternoon, more than 600 candidates, including 84 children participating in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Children, were also accepted during prayer services at four different churches across the diocese, including St. James Cathedral-Basilica, Downtown Brooklyn; Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, Bayside; St. Nicholas of Tolentine, Jamaica; and St. Thomas Aquinas, Flatlands.
The Rite of Election began the final phase of preparation in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), the process that enables adults to enter the church.
Bishop DiMarzio told the faithful that they have been chosen by God and that they have the church’s full support on their journey to receiving the sacraments of baptism, first Communion and confirmation.
“Today we recognize that the time of preparation is coming to a close. A time when you will find the peace that you have been looking for in your time of conversion. So now today we ask the Lord’s Spirit to come upon you as we enroll you in the book of the elect. You have been chosen, not by us, but by God himself, to be part of this holy church. We pray for you, we pray with you, we support you,” Bishop DiMarzio said.
For Evony, Milagros, Leyda and Andrew, four teenage siblings from Immaculate Conception Church in Jamaica Estates, that means they will enter the church as one family, together.
“I love them,” Evony Vasquez, 17, said, “They’re my siblings, and we’re going to do this together as a team. Teamwork.”
Sitting next to each other in the front row of the auditorium, the four expressed similar sentiments.
“It feels good because, you know, God has just been a part of me my whole life,” Milagros Lora, 15, said.