NS and Seminary

I just came from finishing a movie with the rest of the Seminary community. We saw it during our dinner as it was the eve of Hari Raya holiday. This is our usual movie night during such occasions. The movie? Ah Boys To Men (pt 1).

One of the aspirants who attended our last weekend's vocation retreat had commented that life in the seminary to him is somewhat more difficult than life in the army today! If he had come in and join us in the seminary during my time as a seminarian his comments may not have been too far off the mark. However, today, much have changed and the environment has improved tremendously.

Because I Am Human...

... because I am human, I am weak,
because I am weak, therefore I pray.

The above verses came from our retreat master, Fr Michael Casey, OCSO, a Trappist monk from Tarrawara Abbey, Melbourne (Australia). At my last entry, I mentioned we were on our Clergy Annual Retreat from 15 - 19 July. The theme was on prayer that had various aspects of 'faces' to discern and reflect.

Overall, the retreat was a fruitful one because it helped me regained my composure on my own prayer life and the various possibilities of growth and deepening of my relationship with God.

It's 10 Now!

It was 10 years ago when I said yes to my life as a priest after the heart of Christ.

Looking back at all that have transpired so far and the journey that led me to where I am now, I can only remain utterly grateful for this vocation that continues to allow me to unfold my potential as God's instrument to give his presence in the world today.

Certainly, there have been many hits and misses and I continue to learn from my mistakes and mishaps, where I continue onwards to carry out my mission as a minister of God, especially as pastor and mediator. Life as priest in the present times has been very challenging and theer will be no end to what I can already feel, which many times can be between a rock and a hard place. It can always come down to a situation that one can just give up and walk away from it all.

Being Healthy...

I was away for the weekend, out of Singapore. It was a short respite from the haze and a chance to enjoy a slightly new setting. It was nothing that great really, but to be out from the familiar and doing something a little different was a small welcome.

Now that I am back, I see that the haze has cleared somewhat and certainly a far cry from the worst we had last week going into Saturday. That certainly is a blessing! The change in wind direction and some rains over at some hotspots in Sumatra have helped greatly. However, it is duly noted that this clear condition may not last and teh haze can still return. The situation in Muar, Johor is the worst yet that can occur at a PSI of 700+. That would be the worst case scenarion which can hit this city state.

Enhancing Lives

The semester break have started two weeks back and right off the bat, I was busily maneuvering through several Masses, EE meetings, some Spiritual Direction sessions, that I couldn't find the time to sit down to pen any thoughts - till now.

Even so, there are som any things going on and round my mind that it is rather difficult to focus on a particular topic to write on. What seem to be mostly on the top of my mind, however, is strangely nothing spiritual, but have a lot of implications for our faith lives nonetheless.

This came surprisingly from a very secular quarter and one that has inserted itself into the lives of all persons, whether subtly or major way, that in the now is seen as something of the norm and perhaps for many, which cannot be done without.

Life - Death

The Devil's Sinkhole, Texas

I just read the latest post of my confrere Fr Luke on his response to the bone marrow transplant via stem cells which almost happened. It certainly was a blow that the donor Canada pulled out at the last minute  from donating her cells. Life can be frustrating indeed. He was that close to getting the needed treatment to curing his leukemia.

How Are The Ashes After Wednesday?...

We are 3 days into the Lenten season and many more weeks to go before we get to celebrate that great solemnity of Easter.

In the meantime, what we to do with that great call that comes out during this period that urges us into prayer, fasting and almsgiving? What can we do for our spiritual preparation the midst of the Pope's sudden declaration of his resignation and of the coming episcopal ordination of the Archbishop-Coadjutor?

If we follow the series of readings that began the Lenten season, starting with Ash Wednesday and moving to today's, we can draw out several important themes which we can meditate on:

2013 Resolutions

Forget your usual attempts at thinking up resolutions for the New Year. Here are some better and practical manner to get more mileage on any resolutions you can ever make to have a more blessed and fruitful year for 2013:

2013 Ahead!..

The Cathedral of the Good Shepherd is the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Singapore. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is the last day of the year (2012)!

When the new day breaks tomorrow it will be another New Year to go into and what that promises is anybody's guess.

But, thus far, since the past week, we have, at least, been given a sign that 2013 may be a meaningful year ahead. How it will eventually fare still remains to be seen. There was the announcement last week that the Rector of the SFX Major Seminary (S'pore), Fr William Goh, has been chosen as Archbishop Co-adjutor for the Archdiocese of Singapore. He will later be appointed as Archbishop of Singapore at a date which is to be announced later.

Faith Relook and Renew

Crucifix on the wall of the sanctuary. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Much have been said about the Year of Faith and finally it is here. That began in Singapore with a formal ceremony and Mass celebration at the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd on Thursday, 11 October at 8.00 p.m.

During this weekend, in the parishes, there would be ceremonies to enthrone the Creed and calls for a more reflective reading and deepening of the Vatican II documents, as well as a more thorough living out of our faith lives. That this year is the 50th anniversary of Vatican II is all the more crucial that we get ourselves in to this awareness of our Catholic understanding on the way of our faith life in the Church and in the world.

For most of us, that the Church is more than its institution and building, is something that is incomprehensible and a far flung notion that doesn't have much prominent place in one's faith awareness and life. Fifty years ago, the Church has this to say, "The joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well" (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 7 December, 1965, para. 1).

This was the Church's bold and decisive way of saying that it empathises with all of the world's joys and griefs and sees the need for reconciliation and healing. But it is a reconciliation and healing that does not come from or through the world directly: "Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts. For theirs is a community composed of men, of men, united in Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit, press onwards towards the kingdom of the Father and are bearers of a message of salvation intended for all men. That is why Christians cherish a  feeling of deep solidarity with the human race and its history" (emphasis mine).

This Year of Faith has a call that wants to get us out of our complacency and comfort zone to take a good look at what we have done to ourselves in keeping tabs on our lives as Catholic Christians today in the wake of all that is happening in our highly technical, information overload, materially consumed, and God-ly allergic world we live in: "In wonder at their own discoveris and their own might, men are today troubled and perplexed by questions about current trends in the world, about their place and their role in the universe, about the meaning of individual and collective endeavour and finally about the destiny of nature and men" ((Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 7 December, 1965, para. 3).

The Church's stand in this light goes on to say that the following which is unfolding today, making this document a highly prophetic and profound assessment of our world:

a. Ours is a new age of history with critical and swift upheavals spreading gradually to all corners of the earth. They are the products of man's intelligence and creative activity, but they recoil upon him, upon his judgments and desires, both individual and collective, upon his ways of thinking and acting in regard to people and things (para. 4).

b. Increase in power is not always accompanied by control of that power for the benefit of man (para. 4).

c. We have not yet seen the last of bitter political, social, and economic hostility, and racial and ideological antagonism, nor are we free from the spectre of a war of total destruction (para. 4).

d. A change in attitudes and structures frequently calls accepted values into question... In the past it was the exception to repudiate God and religion ... nowadays it seems a matter of course to reject them as incompatible with scientific progress and a new kind of humanism (para. 7).

A good practice to take up, during this Year of Faith, would be to go to this particular Church document and reflect deeply and honestly as to one's state of faith today and make those relevant and needed changes so that, with the Church, be able to dialogue to all "... in order to unfold the mystery that is man and cooperate in tackling the main problems facing the world today" (para 10).

Related articles

• Inside the synod: Celebrating Vatican II, launching Year of Faith
• In Time for the 50th Anniversary of the Vatican II, New Book 'The Good Pope' is a Comprehensive Profile of Pope John XXIII
• Vatican II and the Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger
• Hungry for change: Food and the Year of Faith
• ANALYSIS: 50 years ago, Vatican II changed the Catholic Church - and the world - Articles
• Card. Brandmüller on the liturgical reform of Vatican II

Is There Any Proof?...

I came across this video and saw it as a compelling piece that, somehow, mirrors very closely the state of affairs among our own teens before and/or after their confirmation.  On a bigger scale, it really is about all of us in the faith. Do we know that we are Catholics and show it? Is there any proof to exhibit that state of life?....

To Infinity!....

At around 1.00 p.m. this Monday (August, 6th) afternoon, the latest NASA Mars vehicle, Curiosity, landed on the surface of that planet in a rather complicated maneuver that is akin to "flying through an eye of the needle" and touching down onto the spot directed like a golfing hole-in-one!  A remarkable feat indeed! It is a feat that not even an accomplished gold medalist Olympian can achieve.

Something like this within the realm of science certainly ought to be celebrated and our faith has a few things to say about it, too. This can be nicely summed up by Vatican Observatory's own astronomer, Br Guy Consolmagno who can help frame our perspective of faith and science in a balance manner that says and shows how our faith can take us beyond Earth. One can say, it is towards infinity!....

Related articles

• NASA's rover Curiosity lands on Mars
• Vatican astronomer says 'God particle' is misnamed, but exciting :: EWTN News

Any Change?...

'Tis less than a week away before we ramp up the activities a little, as we move into Holy Week and the great Easter celebrations.

At this juncture, I ask myself this well-worn and used question: have I changed for the better?

Having to look back, I have to see if the Lenten preparations and their great traditional practices of prayer, fasting and almsgiving able to transform me into a better child of God, a much more responsible Catholic, a better priest after the very heart of Christ?

It is a tough question to answer as the results vary and have many different shades of nuances that do not necessary border of preciseness and clarity. In general, I see some level of improvement but the main journey is still tough and usually demands a deeper honesty and sacrifice which I don't always abide by. Nonetheless, this Lenten period has been meaningful and have shown or offered me several important insights that were learning experiences which speaks of the power (dunamis) of God's love and light.

How was it for you?....

Christ in the Media?....

Image via CrunchBase

In the past, I have often lament about the lack of understanding and discerning approach towards teh area of socail media and networking and was wondering if there was a Catholic pespective in this to help us wade through the flotsam and jetsam of this media culture whose wave of influence have affected practically every spectrum of a person's life, whether they be infant, the young or the old.

Recently, I went to a talk at the Singapore Pastoral Institute given by Dr Eugene Gan, who teaches interactive media and communication arts at the Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio). The talk was organised by the Archdiocesan Communications office and Dr Gan shared with the audience about how to use the media rightly, and through it to engage people and bring them to something better. This was the best and insightful starting point for my grasp to this dilemma of a Catholic Christian perspective on social media and the likes.

His session - Infinite Bandwith: Encountering Christ in the Media - outline several points that any one, parents especially, who is serious in making sense of what the culture of social media is all about (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc...):

It is as old as Creation itself

It is all about communications. God is himself the greatest communicator and since the time of Creation has been using social media in varied ways to get our attention to respond to Him. Of course, how He does that will be in line and pertinent with the times and era of humanity in history. For us today, it just happens to be in the forms of Facebook and other related items. Thus such forms of communications are gifts from God and must be used appropriately and wisely.

Media Keys

This then brings us to the need for a good and discerning tool in order to have a balance approach to the use of the social media elements that proliferate within most aspect of the societal's lives and experiences. Hence, we speak of media keys, 7 of them as proposed by Dr Gan:

a. Balanced - practice balanced on interacting online, interactin in-person, managing my responsibilities.

b. Attitude - my attitude, who is the intended audience?

c. Personal - do I uphold human dignity? do I promote individualism or support a communal spirit?

d. Truth-filled - is it grounded on the Word of God? make a distinction between truth and accuracy, am I representig myself authentically online?

e. Inspires - media is a sign, not an end; do I inspire others to seek the truth?

f. Skillfully developed - is it creatively, skillfully and artfully produced or communicated?

g. Motivated by & Relevant to Experience - does it engage or interest you? do you use online social media to build bridges?

His book, which the title of his talk was derived from, is on sale as an ebook online (e.g. Amazon) or can be gotten as a paperback from Emmaus Road Publishing, and should form an indispensible and engaging read for parents, catechists, teachers or anyone who is interested in dealing with the effects of social media in one's life.

Another equally engaging book that looks into this arena is "The Church and the New Media" by Brandon Vogt. The premise is similar and it asks this probing question: How can Christians harness these new tools to reach out, to teach, to build community, and to change the world? Too often we, as members of the clergy and lay faithful are slow in engaging the social media effectively in really "changing the world". This book wants to offer a right step in that direction to cultivate community and form the faithful, among other things.

If you are searching around for something engaging, soul-searching and faith-filled to read and yet be in touch with the realities of the daily life these are the two you ought to get your hands on!

Related articles

• Social Media...bad for educators?! Not!...and Why? (adaptivelearnin.wordpress.com)
• How Do I Evangelize? (catholicjules.net)

David or Herod?

When you read up on the passages given for the mass celebration of Friday, 4th Week in Ordinary Times, of this month (February), we come across two men who have wielded great influence over their subjects or people's life but from opposing values between them.
 

One, David, though not a perfect human being, was always concerned about his relationship with God. He may not always got things right in his life as king of Israel but David understood acutely that God sees the heart. David understood that evil cannot be hidden from God. David chose ruthless honesty when he evaluates himself and begs God’s forgiveness for his wrongdoings and sins.

The other, Herod (Antipas), never understood what evil was in his life and allowed it to swallow him, through the many ruthless atrocities and engagements with people whom he labeled as enemies or threats. On one occasion, not wanting to lose face in front of his guests, he had a prophet beheaded.

We can learnt quite a lot from these two men. They can help us come to terms with what kind of life do we want. Is it a life that allows us to engage in the rubrics of happiness or is it that which oppresses us in the cycle of never ending rubrics of suspicion?

Today, more than ever, we need to come to terms with our own brokenness and like David, throw ourselves in God's embrace of healing love, so that all our fears can be cast away. We must learnt to allow God's grace to help us fight fear with faith and to actively use goodness and truth to overcome the temptation to compromise with wrongdoing and falsehood.

"... choose this day whom you will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24: 15)

Related articles

• David's Choice: Vengeance belongs to God (thoughtsonscripture.com)
• David, A Great King, Yet With a Critical Flaw. What is the Lesson for us Today? (adw.org)
• On Ordinary Time (acatholicdad.wordpress.com)
• The Demonic Jezebel Spirit and Its Rabid Hatred of God's Prophets (getrealchristianity.wordpress.com)

Journey to the Heart of the Christian Faith

I was patiently waiting for this series that opens up great possibilities for it to be a good teaching, sharing and evangelistic tool for Catholicism. It is now available and Fr Robert Barron has done a wonderful and masterly work in giving this series a clear and insightful journey to the very heart of the (Christian) faith!

It is available online or you may order it through the help of Wellsprings Singapore.

Related articles

• Father Barron's 'Catholicism' (archden.org)
• Groundbreaking series on Catholicism to air on PBS this fall (onecatholicnews.wordpress.com)
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Limits

Image by Ferran. via FlickrAnother week ends and as one more week goes by, I get closer to another week that would eventually end the semester break (2 months) and herald in the final semester before we end the academic year for 2011.

Throughout the break thus far, much matters concerning the human person, one's frailties, potential and dignity were never far from my consideration and, to put it honestly, is a real messy affair because we are all complex and complicated creatures.

When dealing with people, whether in spiritual direction or researching on priests' resources for the diocese, the one common factor that crops up is the willingness or unwillingness of the person or priests to concretely have a bold faith that doesn't place limits upon God in one's life. All that has transpired thus far in our own lives may come down to answering the following: Do we have a living relationship with God, or are we just practicing religion?...

I believe that much of our problems in the parishes and the archdiocese can be resolved if we answer that question brutally and honestly. There is a great need to undo all limits that we may have thrust upon God and allow ourselves to be invited to believe that God is bigger, much bigger than we can imagine and whose love truly knows no bounds. Much of how we go through life now as Christians can be liken to an experience of the divine which is static and predictable, bringing about a relationship with God that is small and confined. That is if we still have a religion that we say we go to!

The true purpose of religion, the one which we follow through, is one that must open our hearts and minds in a manner we can personally experience the infinite breadth of God, an experience that will really cry out, "Abba!", Father!

Related articles

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• What would it mean to waste my life? (lingle1.wordpress.com)
• There Comes a Day When Our "No" becomes Permanent: On the Mystery of Iniquity and the Stubbornness of the Stiff-Necked (adw.org)

The Brand

If we have a gram of this guy's vision and will, I am sure we can move more than mountains with what we do with our faith and in our church...

Who IS Our God?

Image via Wikipedia

The recent highlight in the papers recently (The Sunday Times, 6 February 2011, Home section, pg 8) on the issue of dress code in the Catholic churches have brought out some burning thoughts from my mind as I ponder on this tension of how we present ourselves before our God.

First and foremost, it is an issue that falls solely upon us Catholics Christians as believers of God we call Father. It is also an issue that only within this recent decades have emerged as a challenging dimension in one's spiritual life or lack of it in the context of our calling into the discipleship of Christ. It is also an issue that will determine whether we can effectively work out our baptismal calling and vows that want us and is pointing us to being truly people of God who are 'salt of the earth' and 'light to the world'.

It is therefore telling upon us as Catholics, in particular, that much of this brouhaha and tension arising from this matter can be encapsulated into the following statement that was towards the end of the article: "We are taught that God loves us no matter what we are, so why should the church discriminate against our attire?"

It is certainly true that God loves us no matter what we are. The whole of our Bible attest to that, Old and New Testament alike. But to stop at that or to simply choose to bracket our faith solely on that loving  action of God, is like seeing life and the question of God and the way we celebrate and express our faith with blinkers or with just one good eye. The view is myopic and half-truthful at best, disrespectful, distorted and on the borders of heresy at worst.

Much of what we encountered and are influenced by in the world of modernity of today, we have in some way living a life that is somewhat based on a measured freedom that, to some extend, allow us to do, say or acknowledge whatever one chooses. This is also an influence that has affected ourselves as a people of God who is '... in the world but is not of the world'. We are seeing that happening through this article in the papers recently.

Which brings us back to the question of God who '... loves us no matter what we are'.

I wonder just how each of us see or know God for who he really is.  With the kinds of images and responses which we can give to the question of who God is for us, there are many that is not truly the God I know that is revealed to us in the Scriptures and '... in the last days... has spoken to us by a Son' (Hb 1: 1 - 2).

This is because we seem to be rather lackadaisical about our faith that everything becomes relative to the secular dimension which in turn dilute the very power and glory of God which we are continously called to proclaim (1 Pt 2: 9 - 10). If we truly experience the real and active nature and presence of God in our lives, an experience of being taken out of darkness and into His wonderful light (and life), there would be no fighting over as to how to worship Him and what attire we wear. We would know what is the right thing to do. Our attitude, however, seems to have placed God, which is summed up in the following words by a German Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart: "... you are acting just as if you took God and muffled his head up in a cloak and pushed him under a bench..."

What it boils down to, is our response to the fact '... that God loves us no matter what we are'. It is precisely because of that love that we ought to be able to give the necessary reverance and respect in return, which will form the basis of a decent and right ATTITUDE to use for any Mass or Eucharistic celebration.

What kind of a God that deserves such reverence and respect that we  quibble over? The whole of Scriptures have given us generous signs and clues and spiritual footnotes, where the few given here, can help us reconsider our attitude we now possess towards God.

In Genesis, as with the readings we have during these weeks, we see the Fall of man and woman in their disobedience to God and their lost of supernatural life that placed them into a state where they had to hide from his presence and the sound of his voice. Commentors have said that besides hiding because they were naked, it was also this presence and voice which they now could not bear. Psalm 29 gives us this idea what commentators are hinting at:

... the voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.


The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon...


The voice of the Lord flashes forth flames of fire...
the voice f the Lord... shakes the wilderness of Kadesh...


The voice of the Lord... strips the forest bare...
and in his temple all say 'Glory!'

This is the God who, also in his reply to Job, gave a sweeping and majestic account of his powers and glory that signifies He is in charge: 

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?...
... who laid the cornerstones when the morning stars sang together...
... who shut in the seas with doors when it burst from the womb...
... entered into the springs of the sea or walked the recesses of the deep?...
... cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunder bolts...
... know the ordinances of the heavens... establish their rule on earth?...
(Job 38: 1ff)

One can go on and on to see how much we have misjudged the very nature of God and by our lazy manner in addressing our relationship with Him thinking he is like any other things we use and put back to the shelf when we tire of him.

Seriously, I think we are like the disciples in today's gospel reading (Mk 8: 14 - 23) who were clueless about Jesus' identity and his power when he had to question their understanding after the feeding of the crowd on two occasion: "Are you still without perception?". The disciples were thinking about food when Jesus talked about the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod, while he meant them to look at the signs given that point to the message of the Kingdom and who the messenger that is in their midst.

I think we are doing just that today - ignoring God in our midst and immersing ourselves too much in the material realities of the world and being influenced by them. I believe we can do better than that. After all, He has given us, who believe, the power to become His children and what greater deed can any child to do than in honouring this position and gift by offering back a reasonable semblance of reverance and respect for our Creator who continues to love us and sustain our existence, no matter what we are.

Related articles

• Blessed be His Holy Name (wdtprs.com)
• Reflections and Ruminations: The beatitudes - Jesus' Real Hard Truths (frlukefong.blogspot.com)

Sold!

Image via Wikipedia

I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass this afternoon over at the Catholic Archdiocesan Youth Center (CAYC, Lorong Low Koon), for the youths and young adults undergoing the School of Witness (SOW) program.

In my homily, I mentioned something about Steve Jobs and his way of 'selling' a product, from an interesting read here. When he first introduced the iPad into the public's eye and subsequently the world, he sold us the idea that this device is “magical” and how it is a great way to experience the Internet. He also gave practical examples of using the iPad and emphasized its ease of use and how fun it is, basically for anyone, to use. When his competitors jumped onto the bandwagon recently and started selling their iPad killer tablets, they talked about how they had dual-processors, included so many gigs of memory, and ran the latest Android OS. They reiterated the great tech specs their tablet had compared to the iPad and other tablet devices. Time will tell whether these tablets will 'kill' the iPad.

However, noticed how Jobs sold his iPad that captured the imagination of millions of people worldwide that his competitors had to play catch-up to. While the competitors spoke of technical superiority their product may have over the iPad, Steve spoke of how his product will change people’s lives. It is as if, the article mentions, while his competitors were trying to sell toothpaste, Steve was selling white teeth! Between white teeth and toothpaste, it is a no-brainer which most people would gravitate to!

What's this got to do with our faith life?

The article which is one of the items where my homily runs on, mentions that the method of Jobs sales pitch can teach us something about how we evangelize our faith to others. Certainly, we do need to know and pass on the technical details and teachings of our faith - the hows, whys and what-nots. But these are not the main first things to use to get people's attention. Instead we must proclaim that Christ has changed our lives and that he can change yours/others as well. Those who are in most need of Christ will be drawn to our experience and it will lead them to want to know more about this Jesus Christ and his Church that have so radically changed our lives.

I am assuming that we ourselves, who are in this evangelizing mission, have lives that are radically changed by Christ, or that we have experienced Christ profoundly to be able to share this experience.