Bless Me Father

Confession (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)

When I sit by the confessional booth, awaiting the next penitent. As with each waiting, I wonder if the penitents know the following: there is no such thing as a “bad” confession as long as you’ve come to the Sacrament with a contrite heart.

O dear...

English: Jesus Christ - detail from Deesis mosaic, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I looked at the calendar today and noted that it is the coundown towards Christmas and the appearance of the O Antiphons.

Today's being O Lord or O Adonai. In our Church's liturgical prayer of the Divine Office, the antiphons show themselves prior to and after the recitation of the Magnificat during the Evening Prayer (Vespers). But I wonder if the celebration of Christmas all this while really celebrates the Lordship of Christ as it really should....

I think the latest Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, can offer us a direction in this.

Christmas Break...

Christmas decorations (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you have been wondering what has gone on with this blog, it juts went into a rather long extended hiatus due to many distractions and other work related activities which took my main attention.

Among the many distractions were the renovation at my current that took away, for a while, all forms of communicating on the Net, i.e. phone lines and the Internet connections. We are currently displaced from our usual abode of Block A to  Blocks B and C. I am now currently residing temporarily in Block C and after a few weeks of shifting, packing and unpacking.

O Flower of Jesse's Stem!

Cathedral St. Peter (Dom St. Peter), Worms, Germany - Tympanum - Tree of Jesse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We come to the third element of the O Antiphons, which speaks to us of our spiritual roots: radix, in Latin.

One of the decors that children would be making during this period of Advent is the Jesse Tree. This is in relation to the genealogy of Jesus where is he to come from the House of David. David, or more precisely, King David, is the son of Jesse. When you come across the genealogies of Jesus Christ especially during the readings for Christmas, you will see the names of Jesse and David among the family line.

O Wisdom!

O Sapientia (Photo credit: Lawrence OP)

What is wisdom, really, to you?

What comes to mind when one mentions the word 'wisdom'? Is it all about human wisdom, cleverness, being street-smart and all knowing kind of attitude?

Oh, O!

Image via Wikipedia

The countdown is slowly getting us to the Christmas event and during this week it is being rung, not by silver bells, but by the O Antiphons.

If you go to the link from Wikipedia, you will get the whole description on what we are encountering here. So, since the 17th of this month, we have seen Wisdom (Sapientia), Lord (Adonai), Root of Jesse (Radix Jesse), and today, it is Key of David (Clavis David). These are excellent items you can use for your Advent reflections as we get closer towards Christmas. If you don't also already know, these antiphons are embedded in a very fitting way in a hymn which you may have already sung it at Masses during this period, or perhaps last Sunday recently: O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Being here in Kajang, everything seems to have slowed down. Unlike in Singapore, where everything seems rushed, I can now really feel time slowing down as I savour the seconds and minutes passing by. I don't have to worry much about the next appointment or activity to be done, as there are none here now. So, for now, it is a slow burn towards Christmas with the Antiphons.

Meantime, do keep in your prayers for Deacon David Arulanatham who was recently ordained to the diaconate in his parish in Klang (Malaysia). Deacon David finished his priestly formation recently this year in the SFX Major Seminary, Singapore and will be serving the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur in his parish at Klang. He is among the batch of Malaysians who are studying in the Singapore seminary and has now finished and moved on towards the priestly ministry. His priesty ordination is expected to be in mid-January next year! Praise be to God!

Related articles

• The "O" Antiphons by Ilia Delio, OSF (franciscansisterswdc.wordpress.com)
• O! (wdtprs.com)

The Real Stuff

Image via Wikipedia

"... the best way to maintain a spirit of love is to give beyond yourself. Find a place to give a little of your money, find a place to give a little of your time. It's amazing how much Christ comes back to you when you do that."

Sarah Hart on her latest Christmas album "This Winter's Eve"

Sometimes when you come once again back to the season of Advent and then moving into Christmas, you can get this lazy and, perhaps, a little lost feeling that nothing seems to have changed and there seems no use to continue to welcome this celebration any more.

This is not surprising if we just look at all those secular activities associated with this season as thought Christmas is all only about shopping, Santa, silver bells, snow, tree, lights, Orchard Road, or even carols. When we start going down that way, then it is no wonder it could end up being the same old, same old. This is also giving in to the sentiment of secularists or even atheists who see all this as necessary fluff to feel good about something and nothing else.

The season and celebration of Christmas is much, much more than those shopping bags, presents, lights and glitter that usually crowd out the real message, which, by the way, is a radical and rallying call to claim our identity and true calling as children of God, that we belong to one another, and not slave of the material world and all the sins that ensue in our fallen nature.

"... in truth and the heavenly reality, which is so different from our reality, all is well because God has kissed the world and said 'I love you and here's My gift for you, My gift of eternal life through My son."

Sarah Hart on the song All is Well in This Winter's Eve.

The real Christmas message always continues to ring out tall and imposing because it is about our Father in heaven who came down to us to take us up to Him to see and enjoy His love that none in this world can ever hope to give or achieve. But because we always think less of ourselves we shoot for the second best or anything else, we are always finding our glasses half-filled and therefore always lacking. This is even in spite if the assurance of His son, Jesus Christ, who said, "I come to give you life, life to the fullest".

"For my husband and me, I wanted to paint that picture of . . . bringing our sacrament back to the manger year after year, turning to Christ with our brokenness in our hands and saying, 'Lord, continue to help us. Bless us and walk with us on this path of marriage. We come here to remember where love comes from. It comes from You. Please bless us with one more year of love for each other in our love for You."

Sarah Hart

One of the powerful symbols that continue to carry us into the mysterious embrace of the Incarnation, which is what Christmas is all about, would be the crib and in the Nativity scene. Its very setting is more than enough to tell us that our faith is not of this world and will never seat well with fluffy and light-headed sentiment that knows not the very presence and power of God, in the, ironically, vulnerable and lowly stable, whose occupants include an oxen and an ass.When we do find ourselves in front of a Christmas crib, we should allow the setting there tell us something about ourselves and how much we may need to amend  in order to accept the infant Christ child into our lives today, so that real transformation can take place. I pray that all married couples do take this opportunity to bring their sacrament back to the manger for their love to grow deeper, for that is what the Lord wants.

Related articles

• Christ Is Born and All Is Well (patheos.com)
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Kajang Advent

Image by Ryekatcher via Flickr

Greetings from Kajang!

I am back with my parents and siblings in the quiet town of Kajang just outside of KL. I have also to contend with my nephews and nieces who see me once a year and always make friends more with my iPad than with me..

So far, it has been peaceful and not as hectic when I am in Singapore, which of course has a different surrounding to it all. Here, everything else is slowed down by a factor of 50, at least. That's because I don't go anywhere else nor find myself rushing for anything.

We are also on the second last leg of Advent and Christmas will soon be upon us. Before anyone knows it, another new year will begin and the cycle wil begin again. Will be the same as previous years? Have we done anything to sufficiently make us truly a newer and better person in God's eyes? Are we any closer to fulfilling our responsibility being persons who are sensitive to the presence of God in all things, in events, and in the seeming coincidences that occur in our lives and in our worlds, coincidences that point to the activities of God in our lives and in our world?

Not easy questions to answer. Yet, important ones that will certainly determine the kind of person we will turn out as we come face-to-face with the new year.

Related articles

• Advent (conjecturesguilty.wordpress.com)

Expectations - Ah, The Mystery of It All!

Image by Will Humes via Flickr

It is a only a day away from this point of writing before we really hit the period of Advent. I seemed to have been given this dubious honor of starting this new day in the Church's liturgical calendar by having to celebrate a wedding in the morning followed by the weekend Masses, starting with the Sunset Mass, all tomorrow.

Advent is known as the season of waiting, anticipating and also about expectations. There is something special about expectations, when we are expecting someone or something. It has this air of excitement and mystery around it because you don't know what and how things will turn out. This is so unlike realisation. When we realised something, there is nothing else to consider anymore and we move on to the next.

So, what is or are your own expectations this Advent?

As for myself, I have to expect that:

a. I shall be chanting some parts of the Mass once we begin the 1st Sunday of Advent and I don't know how will all this turn out.

b. Parishioners of IHM, once they realise that I shall be their preacher for the weekend, would, themselves, be expecting a homily that may be substantially different from their usual ones which they would get through their priests of the parish. An unfortunate comparative situation but one that I always have to take in my stride whenever I go to any parish as a guest priest.

c. This Christmas hols, I shall be back with my family in Kajang.

Related articles

• Changes in Mass starts this Weekend's Advent Celebration (ststephensnv.wordpress.com)
• Veni, Adventum! (Come, Advent) (eyesonheaven.net)
• Farewell Old Translation (prodigalreturns.wordpress.com)
• Resolutions for the Church's new year (thepracticingcatholic.wordpress.com)

Real Seasons Greetings...

Image via Wikipedia
Here are some more insightful articles to check up on, in our journey to get a grip on where our faith is taking us and, how, we as Catholics ought to carry ourselves:

Raging Mirth
Christmas Back in Christ
Questioning God
How Not To Fail Your Children

Those above are good meditational pieces do be done in front of the Christmas crib. Enjoy!

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Blessed and Holy Christmas!

Image via Wikipedia
Some fireworks and sounds of crackers can be heard going off in the distance. It is a little after midnight

Merry Christmas everyone and do have a meaningful and fruitful celebration of it for the festivities and season ahead! After all, we have 12 days to thoroughly enjoy them all.

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Like Ice Cream and Peanut Butter...

Image via Wikipedia
From Anon

------
hi fr aloy..

just my thoughts.. what do you think of our way of life in sinagpore? are we pursing recklessly? meaning excessive materialism, selfish culture, addictions of all kinds.. seems to be we are quite close but yet to this "culture of death"? than life.. look at it.. sinagpore seem to have all the ingredients of it.. high abortion rates, excessive materialism, quite high divorce rates.. etc..
While we may progress materially, our life esp morals is decaying day by day..
to me while economic growth is good.. but too much of it is bad enough yr thoughts?
blessed X'mas
tks

anonymous...

----

We are on the threshold of Christmas and tomorrow (or in the night closer to midnight) we will be celebrating the wonder of God's gift onto the world and the birthday of Our Lord and Saviour.

In the midst of the preparations and the festivities that follow, there will always be that niggling thought like anonymous above which can have us pause a little to question the very nature of our being.

Perhaps the following may give us that pause or two. This was written in the heart of 'evil' itself in the early 1940s and during the Advent season, as the writer considered the actions of man in the grip of arrogant power:

"[We] have stood on this earth in false pathos, in false security; in our spiritual insanity we really believed we could, with the power of our own hand and arm, bring the stars down from heaven and kindle flames of eternity in the world. We believed that with our own forces we could avert the dangers and banish night, switch off and halt the internal quaking of the universe. We believed we could harness everything and fit it into a final order that would stand.

Here is the message of Advent: Faced with him who is the Last, the world will begin to shake. Only when we do not cling to false securities will our eyes be able to see this Last One and get to the bottom of things. Only then will we be able to guard our life from the frights and terrors into which God the Lord has let the world sink to teach us, so that we may awaken from sleep, as Paul says, and see that it is time to repent, time to change things..." (Rev Fr Alfred Delp, s.j.)

The Jesuit Rev. Alfred Delp wrote those words from his prison cell shortly before the Third Reich executed him for resistance to Hitler's regime. His words are still very prophetic today, for even if that regime is no longer in existent today, ironically, its very ideology and attitude is now prevalent like ice-cream and peanut butter.


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Is This Too Much To Ask?

Image by Annoysius via FlickrSo, here we are onwards to Christmas and in the midst of the 4th Week in Advent.

From the comments in the previous entry, there seemed to be some varied response to the question 'All I Want For Christmas...' There were also other silent and unmentioned responses, which I am sure are still out there within the hearts and minds of those silent observers who frequent this dubious blog.

For all, here is my own take to that query.

What I want for Christmas is to regain the sense of awe and wonder to the beauty, greatness and mystery of this world that can open up all our inner senses to that glory and mystery of the divine, whom we as Christ followers call God and Father. There. I finally got that off my chest.

This is no small matter. Let me explain.

In April 19, 2005, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was elected the 265th successor of Peter, bishop of Rome and head of the universal Church. He was elected by his fellow cardinals, many of whom representing countries like Argentina, India and Nigeria, who would prefered someone more progressive who can modernize traditional Christian doctrines and to emphasize social issues, but decided in the end, to put in someone who earned a reputation for defending the traditional teachings of the Church and for emphasizing the priority of "right worship" of God as a way towards building a just human society.

Why did this happen? Here is where it gets interesting. Over the past 30 years or so, not only the cardinals who elected Ratzinger as Pope, but many Catholics and other men and women of goodwill around the world, have come to agree with Benedict that the greatest 'crisis' facing the Church and the world is the "absence of God" - a culture and way of life without any transcendent dimension, without any orientation toward eternity, toward the sacred, toward the divine. Benedict' solution to this is simple: the world needs the presence of God!

Benedict was elected by his fellow cardinals, including those from very poor countries, because they agreed with him for a need of a Pope who could preach the priority of God, and in doing so, lay the only secure foundation for a just society.

When reading his memoirs or autobiography, you will come to encounter Benedict as a man who sees the world and everyday life with a sense of wonder, as if all things are crisscrossed with hints and "traces" of God. In this attitude, is Benedict's great message: the world is a sacrament - an "outward" sign of the "inward" reality of God's love and that man would only be happy when he recognizes the primacy of God in his life and in the entire world.

That is what I am asking - reclaim our spiritual senses that will put us right back on track towards all clear understanding of the meaning of life and our ultimate destiny.

(sources from Let God's Light Shine Forth: The Spiritual Vision of Pope Benedict XVI, editor Robert Moynihan)

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Advent Query

In case you are wondering about the recent lack of activity here, it is because I am out of town!

I am vacationing during this December break back at my parents place in Kajang (M'sia). The sparseness and no frills flavour of this entry is not, so much, due to the lack of sophistication of electronic or s/w means of blogging, but an intention of mine to make a point that blogging is still very possible, even with the more-than-average comforts of modern technology being sorely lessened.

Which brings me to the question: All I want for Christmas is?.....

Comment below and let me know, while I work this out myself for the next entry.

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O Antiphons - Oriens, Rex Gentium, Emmanuel

Image via Wikipedia

It is the eve of the eve...

Today the remaining series of antiphons get down to the heart of the person and mission of Jesus Christ and why we, as his followers today, have to be clear as to why we continue his mission which he had mandated: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit... "

Those remaining antiphons put into place what we already have worshipped Jesus as all this while, namely he is the Rising Sun who comes to light the dark corners of our lives and give to us the true freedom as God's children, freeing us from the shadows of death. He is also our King to whom we must allow to matter most in our lives and not the kings of materialism, consumerism and other worldly priorities. He it is also whom we must acknowledge as Emmanuel, being among us, even in a world that doesn't want to acknowledge him.

All this is gathered up in a special day later when he is borned in a manger that is cold, of a lowly estate and vulnerable to the elements of the world, helped and cared for by the parents called by God in a mysterious manner, whose instructions were carried out only through faith for the very hope of Israel which welcomed the love that came down that profound night.

May your Christmas season be blessed, meaningful and joyful!

O Antiphons - Clavis

Image by mtgf93 via Flickr

Isaiah 22:22: "I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder. When he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open."

The key and scepter are traditional symbols of kingly power and authority. Christ, the anointed one, is the heir of David and possessor of the kingdom. Jesus himself also made use of this symbol, showing the prophetic relationship of the earthly kingdom of David to the kingdom of God.  All power and authority was given to him after the resurrection, and he entrusted this power to "bind and to loose" to Peter and the ministers of his church. (Jeanne Kun)

O Antiphons - Radix

What is a sign to you?

We have them all over the place and we have taken them to a level where signs have been taken much for granted. Especially in advertisements, they have been used and milked in many forms and ways, just so they could provide monetary gains for businesses. Some signs do have their learning value and there are those which seem to pervert the notion of goodness and areas of decency (all for the license of creativity).

However, for us, the faithful believers of God, there is one clear and solid sign that we are made known of every time this Advent is here: Christ, himself.

O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presences; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.

The question which Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi continues to ring down to our times today as the implication of the sign of Christ bears down upon us: Who do you say that I am? How you answer this will tell you much about the question of signs in your life.

O Antiphons - Adonai

O Adonai... come and save us with your mighty power!

O Antiphons - Sapientia

Today we begin the last 7 days towards the push before the eve of Christmas and the eventual joyful celebration of the birth of Christ. It is a good opportunity then to consider the "O Antiphons" to help us take us there in good stead as we reflect the intentions that can arise from them.

These are the seven antiphons to the Magnificat in the ferial Office of the seven days preceeding the vigil of Christmas; so called because all begin with the interjection "O". Their opening words are: (1) "O Sapientia", (2) "O Adonai", (3) "O Radix Jesse", (4) "O Clavis David", (5) "O Oriens", (6) "O Rex Gentium", (7) "O Emmanuel". Addressed to Christ under one or other of His Scriptural titles, they conclude with a distinct petition to the coming Lord (e.g.: "O Wisdom … come and teach us the way of prudence"; "O Adonai … come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm"; "O Key of David … come and lead from prison the captive sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death" etc.)

As we see from this excerpt from the Catholic Encyclopedia from New Advent, the first one we will begin to look at is "O Sapientia", sapientia meaning wisdom. The antiphon goes, "O Wisdom, you come forth from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth."

In our world today we are keenly aware how much we need wisdom. We make immediate choices about families and jobs, and we also face life-shaping decisions about where to work and live, even wrestle with crucial end-of-life dilemmas. We agonize over how to take appropriate responsibility in our relationships. On a larger scale, we wonder how to preserve the planet and the best of human culture for our children to be born in the future. It is a delicate balancing act and knowing what to give to immediate and distant family, friends, the needy, the church and the job becomes harder when resources seem limited.

Because we know such great need at a natural level, a plea for supernatural Wisdom should rise from within us with heartfelt poignance. The Wisdom that comes from God must lift us above a plea for holiday sanity or mere survival. It is the Wisdom that will certainly shake her head in disgust and sorrow at the way the world is heading with its so-called cleverness, especially in the area of eliminating babies and the unborn. One can only wish that this was a joke...

O Wisdom... really come and teach us the way of truth!

Rejoice, again I say Rejoice!...

Image by + Alan via Flickr

Here are some fascinating sites and places you can go to as a good way to update yourself on matters of the faith during this period of Advent. We have already arrived to the 3rd Week of Advent and it is within the context of Joy. So what better joy than to give yourself a look at the following links below and get inspired at the same time!... 

Readying ourselves for the Sacrament of Reconciliation at Reflections and Ruminations

A blog by my fellow priest-blogger, Fr Luke Fong, who joined in the blogging scene a few months ago when he decided to throw caution into the wind and followed my urgings to do something about putting his thoughts to the people through this medium, making that leap of faith into the cyber unknown...

"... the Catholic Church is under attack... her story is being told the wrong way... We need to tell our own story..." at The Catholicism Project from Word On Fire.

Fr John Barron has been engaged in this project to make the Catholic faith better understood and known and done under our own terms and away from all sense of biasness and distortion.

Catholic Encyclopedia, Bible, etc, the works, online and free!... at New Advent.

A one-stop site where you can read up on any encyclopedia articles of our faith, and even peruse the whole Bible if you still feel up to it! Selected interesting reads from other sites are also highlighted for your information too.


The Secret of Joy... at CNA.
The Pope's message for his Sunday Angelus. Time to spruce up the Nativity set!


Have a happy and joyful week ahead!

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