Great Hope in the Midst of Mourning

I went over to the town of Segamat today to attend to the the funeral of my second aunt who passed away on Sunday. I went up by car with my godmother and the journey there took us about two and a half hours and close to RM50 for toll charges that came along the way. The funeral and all when well, and the celebrants were my uncle (Fr Joseph Pang) and myself, together with the family members whom my second aunt have lived with and brought up over the years.

Being in a place and situation like that have brought back many memories of my own days as a youngster in Segamat where I would spend my childhood holidays there with my cousins and relatives.

What I want to share here is the presence of an opportunity whereby I was made to realize that all that had transpired in the past and the influence of my second auntie in the family environment has brought about fruits and meaning that are, even now, unfolding with promises of exciting challenges for our current generation within the family.

My cousins whom I have spent holiday times when younger are now all grown up and with families and children of their own, the one on top of the list with the most being 5 kids! Our parents are getting older and some are already complaining about ache and pains in this and that joint. Sitting by the table and talking with 4th auntie, I see in her face and with her other remaining sister, features and resemblance that of my own mother, of whom this family she belongs.

All of us have been touched and graced by the presence of 2nd auntie during her living years and we never forgot her culinary speciality of 'choy pau pan', a savoury dumpling made with rice flour with vegetable mix on the inside.

The whole event this day, while undeniably sad, was still one that allowed the sense of hope of a future that has great promise and gratitude of what had been given for, to and through this family which I am a good part of. More importantly, it has help me appreciate my own family  (at right) and where I came from and what great treasures may lie ahead on our road towards a greater communion with one another and our God who always looks after His people (in ways sometimes beyond our understanding) with great love that surpasses all our expectation.

Mixed Blessings

This week has certainly been quite a sombre affair with two priests passing away. Both Frs Tom O'Neil and Albert Renckens have been called back to the Lord after serving in our archdiocese so fruitfully for many years. They have been great pillars within their respective communities (Jesuits and Sacred Heart Fathers) and contributors to the Major Seminary through their tireless teaching in Liturgy and Philosophy. They will be missed. May their souls rest in peace.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, the celebration of the feast of St John Vianney this evening I (which I celebrated) saw an unusual higher amount of penitents coming for confessions. I was caught by surprise by them when I went to the confessionals 20 mins before Mass and found a long queue. I had to stopped the confessions a little more than 5 minutes before Mass as I had to celebrate Mass. I had told the remaining penitents to come back later after Mass as I would be by the confessional after that too. After mass, the queue was even longer, so much so, Fr Luke had to come by to help out! Must be the effect and presence of John Vianney (the promise of the indulgence may also contributed to this) ...

A day of mixed blessings indeed!

Taking Deep Breaths...

Image by F8th via Flickr

I think I am running on adrenaline here since my return because I have been doing things around the parish almost non-stop without having been able to stop for a deep breath! :-D

Just yesterday, I had to present a session for the RCIA as they started off on their catechumenate. It was a 40+ minute presentation on the first item of the Creed - God, Father and Creator. Along the way the were 2 funeral masses which saw me going also to the crematorium. This parish goes the whole hog with the funeral procedure, as they don't use 'funeral ministers'. So, you go to their wake to do a rite to tranfer to the Church for the funeral Mass, have the funeral Mass, then follow the hearse to the crematorium to complete the sending off.

However, in the midst of all this bustle and the flurry that usually comes with parish life, I have managed to retain much semblance of patience and understanding for whatever shortcomings and limitations that usually arises from situations such as this. Living in Rome, with their utter stupidity and inefficiency, helped a lot as I am much more accepting with the superlative (in comparison to Rome, that is) way things are done here, even if they do sometimes cause some inconveniences along the way.

I do this by way of a little exercise I usually tell my penitents to put into practice: stop a bit, take a deeeep breathe and count slowly 1 to 5....

So Sudden!

I did one funeral mass this morning at 10.00 a.m. Later on, I just heard that one of our parishioner's father living just down the road, passed away today some hours ago!

So, now the family and our Church Secretariat are contemplating the best time to have the funeral. Next week is already out of the question (what with the CNY celebrations and hols and all!) and with Ash Wednesday on the schedule ahead, the best time they figured to do all this would be this Sunday afternoon, the latest. :-P And we didn't even get this notice in time. This was all so sudden! Well, you know who the office won't call to set up the prayer group for the night prayers at this family's place... :-D

Meanwhile, our kitchen is slowly stocked up with CNY goodies as kind parishioners begin to shower us with their New Year gifts. Soon, it will be the ang-pows problem... :-P Boon or bane, I'll leave it to you to decide. ;-)

Convenience

Another week just past and we move ever closer to the Chinese New Year that embraces the Pig for its celebration! :-P

I was speaking yesterday to our secretary at the office and we were looking at the series of funerals which we have been getting recently and she made a comment that there seems to be a trend as to the bulk of these which tend to occur around the following period (where Holy Family is concerned, that is): just before Lent and during Easter Octave. How true is that, still remains to be seen. What is happening now is that we, concerned, have to follow through with the necessary procedures and rites with the help of the relevant funeral ministers and neighbourhood groups.

Our funeral ministers now are down to just two, who alternate to run around, doing the legwork and coordinating all the necessary arrangements between the priest/office and the bereaved family. Two ministers only! And we have requests for such funerals that can come in at any time. The office once had to contact a neighbourhood rep to get a prayer group to go over for prayers for a wake nearby their area.

The rep complained that he had to rush this as he didn't have time, all this being so sudden and that the next round this should be made known earlier! Well, my friend, the next time I go on my rounds to anoint the sick and/or dying, I shall duly informed the dying person to give us a call the minute before he/she leaves our plane of existence... (or do they have any phones attached to the casket, I wonder?)

what have we lost for the sake of convenience?... *sigh*

New Year Bites

Ok, so we have now gone into the a new year and new opportunities to look out for. For one, the first thing annbody need to do now is to begin to get use to write 2, 0, 0, 7 especially on their cheque books where the date is concern. ;-)

Another is this new found fame - or bane - that came along with an innocuous letter to the editor of the Catholic News that highlighted one of my homily which is also on its webpage link. I had given this copy of the homily to a parishioner who then decided to have this publicised in the CN. I've gotten people and friends coming up to me congratulating my fame for having been the first priest to have his homily mentioned in this manner and in such a public setting too! :-P Nope, you won't get that link here as I am not in the business of promoting this item! You just have to read the CN paper and get to their webpage link from there :-D

Anyway, since the new year began, we've gone through the parish feast day, started out on the process to call for new members to the Parish Pastoral Council (PPC) from members of the congregation in the Open Category section and sending off a confrere (Fr Carlo Ly) as he leaves his earthly existence for somewhere much better with the One who called him...

Fr Carlo's funeral was well attended by many who knew him through his 33 years of service over at Queen of Peace. The funeral mass was just about an hour and a half with two eulogies that highlighted the simple and prayerful shepherd that Fr Carlo was to his flock. As another priest goes off to receive his eternal rewards, that sort of decreases the number of us in the playing field of the Lord in the Archdiocese of Singapore. With vocations to the priesthood not likely to jump in leaps and bounds for the next five years, I really wonder how the scene will be next few years ahead?...

Meanwhile, I shall be waiting for clear skies and just put my trusty telescope to good use and scan the heavens for some signs! ;-)