FGS South Island’s Mother’s Day Celebration
Fo Guang Shan (FGS) South Island organised a Dharma Function on 12th May 2018 to celebrate Mother’s Day. FGS South Island Minister-in-charge Venerable Jue Xi and Venerable Zhi Wu led a congregation of about 50 Buddha’s Light International Association (BLIA) members and other devotees in a Dharma Function, chanting Filial Piety sutra and reciting Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s ‘A Prayer for Mother’. The congregation also carried out offering of lighted candles for the blessing of Mothers.
In her address, Venerable Jue Xi talked about the greatness of Mother and enlightened the congregation on the ways to carry out filial piety. Venerable stressed that filial piety is a long-term continuous undertaking, not a sporadic one; filial piety is of substance, not superficial; filial piety is total, not partial. Afterwards, members of BLIA South Island Young Adults Division {YAD} added to the celebration by presenting a happy Mother’s day song and handing out flowers to all the mothers and fathers present. The function ended with Temple presenting a cake to thank the mothers for all their sacrifices. Before their dispersal, Venerable wished the mothers a healthy and happy Mother’s Day.
On the same day, FGS South Island also organised many other activities, such as on-the-spot portrait sketching, and the Ikebana Exhibition by Sogetsu Teachers Association Christchurch. In the portrait sketching activity, members of YAD South Island hand made the small photo frames and fixed these frames onto bases made with Pebble stone. The portraits, sketched on-the-spot, were then installed into these frames. This interesting and unusual method of producing framed portraits was indeed a crowd puller.
In the evening of the same day, Water Drop Café South Island organised a special ‘I Love You Mom’ dinner. The dinner was to allow BLIA members and the public to take their mothers to Water Drop Café for a sumptuous vegetarian dinner on the eve of Mother’s Day. At the end of the night, the patrons commended that the set-dinner was reasonably priced and the food served was delicious; and with its elegant and serene ambience, Water Drop Café was indeed the right place to celebrate Mother’s Day.