Filipino Catholics mark a decade of faith in Utah

Intermountain Catholic

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Ricco and Christina Sese and other members of Misang Bayan, the Filipino Catholic Community of Utah are looking forward to welcoming all who can attend to a Mass with Bishop John C. Wester at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church Dec. 2 at 1:30 p.m. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — When the Filipino Catholics of Utah gather December 2 for their first Mass with Bishop John C. Wester of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, they will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of their founding.

The Filipino Community (Misang Bayan) Mass is celebrated the first Sunday of every month at 1:30 p.m., at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, 1065 East 700 South in Salt Lake City.

"This is a very important Mass for us," said Penrico Sese, coordinator of Filipino Ministry for the Diocese of Salt Lake City. "Not only is this Mass our first meeting as a group with Bishop Wester, but it will be 10 years from the very first Misang Bayan celebrated in the diocese, and we’re very excited."

On the web site of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, the page for Filipino ministry states: "Anywhere we go, we Catholic Filipinos have always had a deep longing to worship God in our very own rich and beautiful way. We recognized the need to help sustain our spiritual growth in places far away from the Philippines where we acquired our particular inculturated brand of Catholicism. And in order to meet this deep desire, Catholic Filipino families living in the Salt lake Valley have thus banded together to create the Misang Bayan (MB) or the Filipino Catholic Community of Utah.

"Our mission is to enhance our Catholic spirituality by recreating the authentic Filipino Catholic community experience here in the Salt Lake Valley. We also come together to allow all local Filipino Catholics to culturally complement, for themselves, the endeavors of the Salt Lake Diocese to take care of the spiritual wellbeing of Utah Catholics in General."

Although the mission of the Misang Bayang may sound restricted to Filipino Catholics, Sese assured the Intermountain Catholic that Filipino Masses are open to anyone who wishes to attend.

"We are a welcoming people," he said. "The wider community is always invited to join us at our monthly Masses and our special Lenten and Holy Week observances of the Stations of the Cross, for which we choose a neighborhood and go from house to house for each station.

"Then, in May we celebrate Flores de Mayo, a ceremony in which we offer flowers to Mary. In the summer we host a fiesta that lasts all day and is great fun. We also pray the block rosary in honor of Our Lady of Fatima, going from Catholic family to Catholic family. With the generosity of Father William Flegge, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Salt Lake City, we also will have a Christmas Mass on Christmas Day at 3:30 p.m."

Elected coordinator of the Misang Bayan for a three-year term from 2007-2009, Sese and his wife, Christina, are eager to see the entire Filipino community gathered for the Mass with Bishop Wester.

"The Misang Bayan, Utah’s Filipino Catholic community, is growing. Each time we meet we find there are new people coming, happy to find a community where they thought there was none," he said.

To learn more about Misang Bayan, go to their web site at: http://dioslc.org/departments/detail.php?idx=39. The Seses can be reached by calling 801-532-2186.