Sunday night, October 16, 2016 - my 70th birthday

 - celebrated at the usual Sunday night gathering for the poor at St Paul's, Yau Ma Tei, and at a local restaurant meal for the Sunday night volunteers and about 60 very special guests: homeless people, drug addicts, ex-inmates, asylum seekers, one blind man, several street women, a number of handicapped people, people fighting big illnesses.

Short YouTube videos of my 70th birthday party on October 16 - thank you Michael!
01  02  03  04  05  06  07

1-5: at St Paul's Yau Ma Tei
6 & 7: at local restaurant

Thank you Lord for a happy night! Please bless the kind people who arranged the night and paid the bill!

To celebrate one's birthday with one's religious community/family/friends is a happy occasion. But a celebration which involves poor people is even happier.
- just as Pope Francis says in "The Joy of Love" (183):

For their part, open and caring families find a place for the poor and build friendships with those less fortunate than themselves. In their efforts to live according to the Gospel, they are mindful of Jesus’ words: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me (Mt 25:40)”. 

In a very real way, their lives express what is asked of us all: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed” (Lk 14:12-14). You will be blessed! Here is the secret to a happy family.

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And ... at end of 8.30am Mass at St Paul's Yau Ma Tei, the parish priest Fr David Lau and parishioners kindly presented me with a lovely birthday cake....which was immediately taken to Temple Street Park and shared with street sleepers:

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