As we are in this New Year, I would
like to wish you once again compliments of the season and Happy New
Year. Our children are back to their schools and colleges. Most
of us have started our daily routine after a long holiday season. At your work
places, you may be updating one another on what has taken
place during the holiday season. The life momentum
has slowly picked up in our lives as we move forward
with our daily routine.
The season of Christmas will come to an end on Monday,
8 January 2018 with the celebration of the Feast of
Baptism of the Lord. Unlike the past years, the Christmas season ends a week
earlier, after which we will be entering into the Ordinary Time. It will
go on for six weeks till we start the Lenten season
on Ash Wednesday, 14 February 2018.
Many countries started the
Christmas decorations even before the month of November, and it is amazing to
see these decorations all over the place. Every year,
I admire how beautifully hotels, malls and sometimes even streets,
are decorated. As for our parish, we have decorated our church
compound and parish office quite well with Christmas lights,
displayed nativity sets and Christmas trees. All these will be
taken off early next week. In fact, many of the shopping malls have
removed them immediately after Christmas and they
slowly put up Chinese New Year decorations.
Last year our parish was so blessed and
united, as we completed all our work and events successfully. This year we will
be celebrating 110 years since the establishment of our
Church. It is so exciting to
see Jesus move in our parish. Ever since I came
to St. Joseph’s Church, I have seen great spiritual growth in many of
you. On my part, I too can proudly say that I have grown in
maturity of my priesthood. All of us have in one
way or another shown our spiritual progress. God has been very
gracious to us all this while and we hope He will continue to empower
us and guide us in our faith journey, so that we may faithful in His
calling to be His disciples of hope.
For the next three
years (2018-2020) our parish has set a vision to journey in
faith towards New Evangelisation. It is an invitation to ALL parishioners
to commit ourselves to share the Light of Christ and to build the bridges
with every member of other social strata. We will be shining the
Light and building bridges in three main clusters, namely
the Youth Ministry of our parish, Inter-Religious Dialogue with the
Ecumenical Churches and Other Religions as well as Outreach with the poor
and marginalised. We shall put ourselves, our lives and future of our
parish in order to be transformed according to God’s will. As
we engage with EVERYONE, in full commitment of love, we shall become
stewards of patience, kindness and gentleness.
We shall continue to pray that God will
show us how to achieve our goals and that our parishioners will truly
have the desire to grow in Christ Jesus. No matter the
challenges that come along our way, we shall devote ourselves to be disciples
of hope to Pray Together, to Celebrate Together, to
Fellowship Together, Serve Together and Stay Together as we bring
our parish mission and vision into reality. As we move forward, may the Lord
bless us with His presence.
“Do
nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value
others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you
to the interests of the others,” (Philippians 2:3-4).
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