In the late 1970s we said goodbye to Fr Frank Doyle and welcomed Fr Peter Kim SJ as our first Malaysian Parish Priest to SFX. Fr Peter Kim was keen to introduce a new way of Church to SFX. Basic Ecclesial Community or BEC.
Sessions were held to get church leaders to know about it. It helped greatly that Petaling Jaya was a new township with it’s neighbourhood already divided into Sections by numbers. So we became Section 17 BEC. It covered a large mixed area.
Later, for better administration it was divided into A, B and C. A BEC chief was duly selected.
Our first chief was Albert Ng who held it for 2 terms. Those early days saw volunteers going to visit houses and identifying Catholic homes. Road reps were created to help deliver messages to our Bec members:
Sect 17 had our own Children’s group. They were mostly primary school children and they met every Sunday afternoon at 4pm. The coordinator Veronica organised activities.
Mr Leong a school van driver volunteered to pick and drop them off. Someone was on duty as van conductor too. Angela and some others .
These children are now around 50.
Our BEC activities followed the Liturgical calendar of the Church.
The first Advent with our new parish priest.
Fr Peter Kim introduced us to the Advent Wreath.
A wreath of evergreen foliage in which four pink candles are set, one to be lit on each Sunday of Advent
We brought the practice into our homes so our children could learn about
Advent. Then we had our Christmas carolling sessions, practising and visiting homes that
requested for carol singing.
It was an enjoyable holiday activity dressed in red T shirts and Santa’s hats!
Great fellowship!
For Lent the Paschal Triduum was celebrated in church.
As an alternative we had Stations of the Cross on Wednesday nights .
For the months of May to June and October members could open their homes
for rosary nights.
We have a strong devotion to Our Lady!
Come 26th July our BEC charters a bus to visit St Ann’s at Bukit Mertajam.
It is a popular two nights trip. Even babies go along.
Being BEC, we are privileged to have our parish priest saying mass in our homes. Our yearly Blessings. Every year we treat ourselves to a grand 8 course dinner.
BEC is the way to be Church.