PREPARING OURSELVES TO BE WITNESSES THROUGH THE SPIRIT

We had some significant celebrations during the time of Lent and Easter season and Feast of St Joseph. The joy that the Risen Lord has prepared for us, “something that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived,” (1 Cor 2:9). After seven weeks of celebration of Easter we come to an end with the celebration of the Feast of Pentecost - Christ’s Passover is fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in us.

“When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed as resting upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit…,” (Acts 2.1–4).

The apostles received “the power from on high,” (LK 24:49) and they began to preach and bear witness to Jesus as the Risen Christ, the King of glory. This moment has traditionally been called the birthday of the Church.

As the St Joseph parish community, we should be proud when we look back these past three months where we were so intense and busy with many events and formations and even draining for some of us. I believe strongly that Jesus was really working in us through our commitments in various ministries to lead everyone into a deeper relationship with Him. Today we have come to celebrate the birthday of the Church once again with the hope of continuing to build, animate and sanctify our parish life.

We have learned that God’s Spirit is a Spirit of transformation, to bring about a personal change in us so that we could do much better in our lives. As true Christians we must let the Holy Spirit really change us from the inside out. We must grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, (2 Peter 3: 18) and focus on loving one another. As St Paul says, Spirit-filled Christians should be “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,” (2 Cor 10:5). True Christians should obey God from the heart more deeply than ever have before, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Pentecost!

Every ministry in our parish is working “Towards Strengthening Our Faith Community” by preparing and enabling every parishioner to be active disciples of Jesus Christ, who realised that God calls them to witness to and share their faith. The Spirit of God is working in us and the joy of His work will allow us not to be short-lived but to be renewed in our faith and to grow, glow and go in the Spirit in our ministries. We hope to encourage more parishioners to be involved in all areas of preparation for our vision and mission 2017.

Our parish vision and mission will continue with the next most important event of the year which is the Parish Retreat. It is scheduled to be held in September 2017. The Parish Retreat committee led by Mary Bernadette Peters has started their ground work preparations. They will officially announce the details soon. Let’s pray that God’s plan for all individuals and families may be strengthened to be living witnesses to the Good News.

TEACHERS WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

On Wednesday, 24^th May, I was invited for the celebration of retirement of Puan Tan Tee Hwa, who is also known as Puan Debbie Yeong at SMK Covent Sentul, Kuala Lumpur. She has served in this secondary school as a Headmistress since 2011. In these last seven years of her career she gave her total sincere dedication to the school. She really lived out her motto of “God has gone ahead of her to prepare the way.” She truly believed that her excellent achievement these past seven years is truly God who went ahead of her in her career to prepare the teachers, students, the school and society in large. When we look back at our SMK Convent School, Sentul, Catholic mission school, we can see how she has brought her school to great heights in the Federal Territory.

I have known her since June 2014 and we have worked hand in hand and through mutual understanding to achieve the needs of the school and students to a certain extend. She is very hardworking and has given the best for her schools and students in her previous schools these past 30 years as a teacher and finally as a Headmistress. Her husband, Jason Yeong, has been very supportive in her teaching career. She has stressed in her speech that all teachers and students should not stop learning at any point of their lives and all the good things should be passed down to the next. Some lessons that pass through our lives can be painful or priceless but somehow, we learn something through someone. Whatever lessons we learn will help us live our lives more meaningfully and surely will make us happy.

Puan Marzita who is from SMK Convent Bukit Nanas, Kuala Lumpur, will be the Assistant Administrator of SMK Convent Sentul until the new appointment, which comes from the Federal Territory Education Department. There were a few Christian teachers whose names have been proposed for the SMK Convent Sentul by the school board but their names have not been accepted yet. We pray and hope through God’s intervention that SMK Convent Sentul will have a Christian Teacher as a Headmistress. This has been the tradition in all our mission schools in our country.

A few weeks ago, Ms Cheryl Ann Fernando, our own parishioner from Sri Gombak, presented me a complimentary copy of her self-published book “T For Teacher: Navigating The School Front, 2017”. I was really fascinated with her writing describing her actual teaching experience which has made a difference in the lives of her students in Sungai Petani, Kedah. Those experiences in school have inspired her to release a Malay movie entitled “ADIWIRAKU”, one of the first few education-related films in Malaysia. Kudos Cheryl!

This month we have been celebrating Teacher’s Day. In Indian culture, a teacher has been given a prominent place above God. If you realise every successful individual always recalls his or her teachers from their schools, colleges or universities. Teachers have played a very important role towards shaping every aspect of the life of their students. In fact, our Catechism teachers in our parish too play a vital role in making their faith and education lessons more effective and interesting as they facilitate students learning. Every teacher should acknowledge his or her vital role in the society and nation.

“HAPPY TEACHERS ARE ALWAYS PRODUCTIVE TEACHERS.”

ONE IN CHRIST

“May They Be One Just As We Are”. This weekend Gospel reading (JN 17:1-11) is part of the high priestly prayer that Jesus prayed the night before he died. He prayed this part of prayer for the unity of the disciples, unity of the Church and unity for His people.

His priestly prayer is for all people to be united in Him, regardless of race, gender, age, nationality, social background, politics or abilities. His focus is on “inclusion” not “diversity.”

Through our faith and continued relationship with him, we might become one with each other. It is His prayer that we might grow in faith to truly care for one another, as he has cared for us.

We are one body in Christ (Cf. Romans 12:5). We are with a variety of backgrounds, abilities, interests, and needs make up Church of Christ. We need let the Lord do His work among us, shaping us and we become part of a strong community.


Do I look to Christ as the source of unity between myself and others?

LET’S PRAY FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION

On 16 May 2017 (Tuesday) a group of seven individuals from Malaysian Islamic Party, well-known as PAS (Party Islam Se-Malaysia), from the Parliament Constituency of BATU led by Ustaz Azhar Bin Yahya came to pay a visit to our parish in the morning. Tuan Azhar is head of finance in Kolej University Zulkifli Muhammad (KUIZM) at Batu Caves, Selangor. Batu is a parliamentary constituency, which includes Sentul on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The current Member of Parliament of Batu is YB Tian Chua of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR). On 12^th May, Hishamuddin Ghazalli, the PAS secretary of Batu constituency met me with a letter for an appointment with his group in order to have a better understanding and collaboration working together with people particularly in his constituency.

The PAS group shared with me their objective of meeting all the religious leaders in their constituency before the next General Election. Their first meeting was with the Catholic Church and then they will move on to meet all the other religious leaders in Batu constituency. They too have shared of their new concept and vision of their party in building up good values, harmonious, free speech, peaceful nation and unite all races in our country. They have their ambitious goal of winning this parliamentary seat in the 14^th General Election. They are looking forward for more meetings with parishioners in the future. I was so impressed with their sharing and we had a healthy dialogue session.

Ever since I came to Church of St Joseph, I had many opportunities to meet with groups of students from the local Islamic universities and lately with these Islamic religious and political leaders. Through the conversation with these groups I notice that they all express their strong support for democracy and freedom of religion in the country. In reality we have hardly established a harmonious dialogue with one another and till now there is not much freedom in practicing our faith in our nation. One thing I realised is that when political matters influence religious sentiments then we have imbalanced thoughts and extremist groups exist.

The 14^th General Election will be a very essential election for us Malaysians. In his book entitled “Malaysia 14^th General Election”, Dr Kua Kia Soong (an adviser to human rights movement Suara Rakyat Malaysia – Suaram) said, “It will be a hard struggle for Malaysians to take back the country from the hands of corrupt and indifferent politicians.”  We as a Malaysian society should take a drastic action as we learn from the mistakes in the previous General Election. We shall look forward for a more brighter future for all Malaysians with justice, peace and prosperous.

Our Bible always encourages us pray for our governing leaders (2 Timothy 2: 1-4) and to respect in authority (Roman 13: 1-7). When we look at the situation of our country right now we find it hard to respect our indifferent political leaders. However, we should not despair but follow what God has commanded us to do – that is pray for our leaders especially for their wisdom, for their loyalty to people and country and for their hearts to be led by God.

JESUS LOVES US NOW and ALWAYS IF...

Jesus says, “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” (Jn 14: 15).

If we say we love Jesus but continue to think or act in a way that is the opposite of Jesus then we do not put Jesus in first place. We do not truly love Jesus because we do not keep his commandments. We cannot have both a pure love of Jesus and sin in our lives at the same time. If we love Jesus we will strive to give ourselves totally to Him. When we love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength we will not want to put anything before Jesus. We cannot fail if we love and obey God’s commandments.

It is the Holy Spirit that empowers us to obey God’s commandments. The Holy Spirit is the source of our strength. He teaches, guides and promotes us God's will in our lives.


Jesus loves us now and always and He wants us to live the commendments that he thought us.