I Take My Leave....

It is the last night I am spending in IHM parish and tomorrow, after the morning mass, I shall take my leave and move on to my new posting at the Seminary. It has been a colorful and quite an eventful year and 3 months in this parish and though the shortest stint in my life as a priest, it is one that will capture my attention and memory for the longest.

I have no expectations of what will be next in my life as formator and teacher in the seminary and I am open to any event that life can offer there. For now, all I can say is that for all that I have been through, thank you and for all that is to come, amen.

Interim Time: Bags All Packed!

This is it! Now my bags are all truly ready and packed! Soon I will be in the airport and off I go to Rome...

I had to celebrate the farewell mass for Holy Family this morning and the response and farewell wishes after that was totally overwhelming! I had not much success with the buffet lunch by the carpark after that as I was thoroughly busy with shaking hands and receiving gifts and best wishes from the parishioners of all walks of life. There were also many, many photograph takings and when all this was over, I was already feeling half dead and numb to the world around me!

So, another chapter closes and a new one unfolds before me. I leave by Qatar Airways to Rome at 7.10 am, from Terminal One. Till the next entry from Rome, wishing you all peace and joy and abundant God's blessings!

Interim Time: YC

The Youth Council (YC) members got together and gave me a farewell dinner over at June's Restaurant (Seafood) this evening. This place is along the Tg Katong Road before the Queen of Peace parish.

It was an enjoyable affair for the food was good and the company pleasant and engaging enough. The youths and young adults that formed the YC had been with me the past 4 years and we saw some interesting times together.

They are a strong and committed people that continue, in their own quiet way, to give opportunities for the youth scene in Holy Family to grow and find its appropriate contribution to the community there.

One member gave me something that came from his father's storeroom which contains many knick knacks. It came from the Phillipines - a GIANT SIZE rosary! Another bought a small little fan that has lights which play on your eyes that can be rather hypnotic if you stare at it too long! :-D

All in all, a good night out after all that running and prepping about. Thank you, guys! I needed that break. Keep the good work going and the YC flag flying! :-D

Interim Time: Melancholic

It's very quiet around here in this Seminary, especially during their mid-term break...

I feel a little lonely sometimes with the lack of noise, people and the sights that I would be usually accustomed to when I was serving at the parish of Holy Family. Sometimes it can be rather unnerving to note that I am the only person moving about in the block with no one to care about me making any noise or movement. :-P

Anyway, it is the last days of my stay here in the Seminary and in Singapore, before I fly off to the other part of the world for my studies. Since staying here a while, I have been moving up and down, in and out of the Seminary to run some errands in relation to my preparation for studies. All this is really be a tiring affair.

There have been friends who have been generous to give me some help in alleviating my transport woes in bridging the gap between Ponggol and where I need to go. To them I am utterly grateful. Nonetheless, this whole affair of waiting and doing all this nitty-gritty items can be quite a chore and somewhat 'miserable'.

The thought of leaving family and friends, places and homes so familiar to me and to have to go off to a foreign place is all so frightening... I am still a little numb by all this. The thought of leaving hasn't hit me yet and am sure I would only react accordingly when I am there!

I guess the situation here now is what we would call 'melancholic'. I am getting all kinds of feelings that somewhat overwhelm me with many different flavours: excited, happy, sad, frightened, uncertain, ambivalent, anticipation.... I don't know what to feel anymore! :-P

Saying goodbyes also doesn't help and I have gone through a few leading to this week. Today was one with my aunt and uncle whom I had lunch with this afternoon. I spend some time there with their household members and I was a little sad because there is a strong chance that I may not be able to see my uncle again when I return as he is suffering from an incurable illness. There are also other people from the parish, who are in the same position, that I know and talked to who I may not be able to do so in two years time.

To leave in this state can be quite traumatic, to say the least.

Life carries on. I am not being stoical here, just practicing being a realist. This entry won't be the last one from Singapore before I leave. There will be another and there, I hope to close an era in this virtual log properly before I open a new entry from Rome. Till then, hold them tears first! :-D

Interim Time: Seminary, Ponggol

The stars over here at the Seminary are more pronounced!

I am now staying here while waiting for my departure on the 25th June. While here, I am enjoying the solitude and peace which I have not experience since, oh, the day I left this place for the parish some 4 years ago. :-D

I finally could take a dip in the pool whose water was clear and lukewarm after the day's heat was over with it. The weather was overcast and looked liked it was going to have a storm. I can see the clouds rolling in and the thunderheads were clearly making its presence felt. As I lay in the pool soaking in the coolness and quiet around me (nobody's around as it is the term break here, except perhaps the seminary staff and the formators), I could, for the first time in a long time ever, feel the sense of total relaxation creep all over me as I savour the total peacefulness around me. Heavenly!

Oh, I am able to do up this entry because they have a room with Internet access. This is a far cry from when I first came in here and the only computer then was a Intel 2 machine and only for word processing purposes! :-D

Anyway, I have already unpacked and put all my stuff into the room allocated for them during the 2-year absence from here. Most of what I have to do now is just to slowly enjoy the last remaining days here without having to worry about any church responsibilities or people to deal with. :-) I do have a few last loose ends to do, though, and then I am on my way!

Meanwhile, I shall enjoy some well earned R&R! ;-)

(map from sg.pagenation.com)

Interim Time: Holy Family, Kajang

I concelebrated with Fr Julian (celebrant) along with 4 other priests: Frs Michael Teng and Valentine Gompok who are from the Capuchins, Fr William Michael and Fr George Harrison. Fr Julian was the parish priest of the parish of Holy Family (Kajang). He shall be leaving soon for his studies in Rome and he will be succeeded by current assistant Fr William who will take over the parish priest responsibilities. Fr George Harrison will be the new assistant.

Yesterday was the farewell mass and dinner organised by the parish community. Mass was the usual affair with some obligatory best wishes, speech and a slide show. The dinner was quite a long drawn affair with too-long a speech from various leaders of the community, along with the heavy background noise of the crowd talking among themselves. By the time I got home with my family it was just after 10.00 pm and all feeling very tired, sweaty and sleepy. :-P

Meeting up with the priests there was a pleasant affair, since the last time we met together was at our Young Priests' Gathering in Sabah some months ago. Now, two of us will be heading for studies which none of us will know how it will go. So, for now we all acknowledge our respective roads we travel on and pray that all will go well.

Interim Time: Kajang

It's been three days here in Taman Kajang Central. The apartment is a walkup with 4 floors. Since arriving here, I have been:

a. Eating, eating, eating! All my favourite and other familiar/well known foods have been presented for my consumption - pongteh, thunder tea (lei char), steamboat. It's as if I won't be having these kinds of cuisine when I go to Rome and now would be the best time to savour all these before I forget how they smell and look like! ;-)

b. Resting and sleeping! I don't get much of these when I was in the parish. So, now I ain't complaining about the abundance of them, at least for now...

c. Playing with my nephews. There are 4 of them and all equally fiesty and full of energy that apparently is gotten from sapping some from their uncle, i.e. yours truly!

I have yet to tuck in the roti canai and teh tarik from the coffeeshop downstairs. Then, there is still this nagging thought at the back of my mind telling me of some little tying up of things to do when I get back to Singapore and before I fly off to Rome. :-P

(ps - my naughty nephew is disturbing me now, so I have to end here.. :-D)

Get Up and Go #4

Finally completed my project to get up and go from the parish of Holy Family... :-D

After vacating the office and the quarters upstairs, I left for Kajang on the Aeroline coach service with a journey that took about 5 hours in all. It was a little cloudy when the bus left Singapore and along the way as it got nearer towards KL, it began to rain.

Having to leave the parish after 4 years there has been a little sad. I would miss the East Coast setting with the food, the beach, the parishioners and the Katong lifestyle that is so unique and at the same time diverse. I can understand how some priests can get rather emotional with leaving their parish after being there for so many years! :-P Getting all those farewell wishes after the last official mass that Sunday, shaking hands and wishing one another farewell can leave one's eyes a little moist... ;-)

So, here I am now at my family's place and just enjoying the last few weeks of rest and consolidation before flying off to another part of the world. Heaps of thanks go out to all who have send in their best wishes and prayers. Life carries on, so let us face the future together and see what we can transform together, regardless of distance and time!

Get Up And Go #3

The office has been vacated for the new replacement to the parish to use and I am almost clear with all the packing. I spend the whole of yesterday, together with two other friends, packing things from the office. I just had all the boxes send out this afternoon to the another friend's place where he will store them in the factory space which he has.

That leaves my clothings and other miscellaneous that will end up at my godmother's place for the duration of my studies. They will go out by tomorrow morning. So, after all these, I am all ready to vacate the parish and on to a fresh start in the life of being a student - of sorts... :-D

This weekend's Catholic News highlighted on the movement of three priests, namely Fr Luke, Fr Brian and myself. Our nice mugshots graced the front page of the paper and the word is therefore out concerning our new postings/transfers. Meanwhile, there have been a lot of speculation as to who will come into Holy Family to replace me. For now, we'll have to wait till the 4th June to confirm his presence. Still, that did not stop many 'seers' who made predictions as to who he might be. Whoever they have place their bets on, I am sure my replacement would make a worthy substitute that may bring added value and good to the parish.

Amen and May the Force Be with You!

I guess it had to happen. The situation begs that questions too. I have been putting this off for many reasons and one obvious one is that I never want to really spend too much time to dwell on a subject that I wasn't concern about. Then, too, I was busy with both packing and carrying on with normal duties in the parish that is really impossible to pull through without some divine gift of patience and understanding for the community I am still serving :-P

The query was: what are my thoughts concerning my impending studies in Rome?

Firstly, it is a welcome break from the helter-skelter of parish life and signals a significant transition to another portion of life that is both exciting and yet challenging. Yes, I will certainly miss the people and place that I have served for the past four and half years as seminarian, deacon and priest here. :-) Looking back at all that has transpired and experienced, I can only say that my continued existent thus far is only because of the works, inspiration, power and generosity of the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, two incredible items popped up this year, as if to remind me that I have to move on and that God is still with me, regardless of my failings and other faults, to take me towards the reality of who I am to be. My response to all these is a quiet assent that comes in only two syllables: A-men!

One item is the returning to the night skies where I am once again made (painfully, I must say...) aware of, is the constellation Crux or the Southern Cross. This particular constellation was crucial and played a significant role that led me to my current vocation. Now it is placed brilliantly in the southern heavens that twinkle back at me saying, "It's time to go!". The other item is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars since its inception way back on 25th May 1977. That was an incredible movie that started all this moving leading me to a life that I never expected at all.

Now these two signposts of my fairly colorful life are back that beckon me to Rome. What can I say but "Amen, may the force be with me!" ;-)

So, yes, I am sad to have to move on, to have to uproot and go. Yet, I am hopeful for what the future holds, despite its uncertainties and potential problems it can throw at me. This is because a friend said to me that I need not fear the unknown when I have a God who is Known. :-)

Perhaps it is true when we say that good things never last. Yet, even when the vase is broken, the sweet smell of the roses remain and those will be the memories that I take with me in appreciation and gratitude for all the goodness that is shared and experienced at the parish of Holy Family.

It has been an enriching stay and as mentioned or implied in Scriptures, nothing gets wasted with God, whatever the life or situations!

Get Up and Go #2

All my bags are packed and ready to go... (Leaving On A Jet Plane, John Denver)

Well, actually, not yet... :-P

It has been a rather stressful 2 weeks or so since my last writeup when I was preparing to get up and go for my studies in Rome. I started off Operation Get-Up-n-Go but that has been moving on very slowly and now has stalled a little. This was due to other parish work that came along the way and farewell appointments that took much of the time away from packing. But I still manage to get some going and have put those already processed into the boxes/cartons. You can assess the situation for yourselves with this flickr set here.

Meanwhile, it has been very heartwarming hearing from all who have sent in their best wishes and greetings on my impending trip to Rome and mentioning how this blog have been points of inspiration to them. This is exactly what I had set out to do when I first created Life Crosses with the tag line above stating about shared inspirations. :-)

It has been a good four and a half years here at Holy Family and there will certainly be a lot that I will miss, despite my ambivalence about this whole studies affair and the transfer. Still, good things don't usually last forever and we all have to move on to other things in life to conquer...

Just hope I am still sane enough to be there to see them through! ;-)

Get Up And Go #1

I have managed to pack some amount of stuff away since I started Operation Get-Up-n-Go yesterday. I still have a long way to go before this whole place gets its space ready for the next occupant. :-D

I have wanted to put up a picture of the state of my packing here, but there seems to be some major problem at Blogger that messed up the menu items on the editing feature which prevented me from uploading anything. :-P So, that will have to wait till little later. However, you can check my pics here. Meanwhile, do be assured that this blog continues even when I am in Italy. There will be a lot of many other interesting tales that may be forthcoming while I am there - besides the usual exams, studies, mugging and all things relevant to studying! :-)

Earlier this afternoon, a group of elders from the Melaka BEC (Basic Ecclesial Community) dropped by for a day visit. They were from my hometown area of Ujong Pasir and came to see me, being their 'old boy' of that Christian community. I had lunch with them and showed them the sights of all the possible eating places within the Katong area. It was so sweet of them to have remembered me and still kept in touch this way, even with their parting angpow gift for my studies in Rome, before they left for People's Park and then back to Melaka.

It has been quite an interesting day thus far! ;-)