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.

Time: Man of the Year 2013

Yes, still in Kajang.

I fired up the iPad and headed straight for the Zite app, a news reader. A few flipped pages and my eyes came across a pleasantly surprising news spread: Pope Francis is Time's Man of the Year.

"It's about time! (no pun intended)", I exclaimed under my breath. Some may not be agreeable with this but I believe this is one way for the Catholic Church to engage the world without at the same time compromising her stand. Perhaps it is the way, for now, to be in the world yet not of the world which our Holy Father, Pope Francis, can afford. Our Holy Father certainly did not ask for this honour but that it was given nonetheless by one of the world's leading international magazine is a feat worth paying attention since his papacy began. He follows in the footsteps of blessed Pope John Paul II who won Time's Man of the Year in 1994.

Our Lady

I seemed to have overstretched my blogging hiatus a little, seeing it was a little under a month since my last entry....

Anyway, for all of us Catholics in Singapore, as well as other Catholics in the world, the special celebration of the consecration of the world to our Blessed Mother Mary was the profoundest moment for the Church as an act of solidarity with the Holy Father in Rome where he did the same celebration.

The Pope Who 'Jokes'

Isaiah 43: 19....

The Lenten period continues as we cross the halfway mark with Laetare Sunday last week.

With the months that went by as we make our way towards the great feast of Easter, we were given experiences that spoke of the work of God that would want to instil in us a proper sense of the dynamics of God's activity - He is still actively working in our world, as I write, and continues in His unique and mysterious manner that always circumvents all human machinations and motives.

The recent ordination of His Grace Archbishop Coadjutor William Goh at the Max Pavilion of the Singapore Expo, offers the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore (clergy, religious and lay faithful) an opportunity to move into the year ahead with renewed vision to face the challenges ahead, with the values of His Grace that spoke of passion and compassion. This stems from his motto of his coat of arms, "Ut Vivant", i.e. "that they may live..." (Jn 10: 10 - 11). Our archdiocese need to sorely return to basics and know how to care for the flock like how the father in the prodigal son parable of 4th Sunday of Lent gospel reading did, when he dealt very magnanimously and with love as well.