PARISH RETREAT: A NEW STRATEGY ON DISCIPLE MAKING

Our Parish Retreat will be held on 22-24 September 2017 at two locations: our Church hall and at the adjacent Chi Man School Hall. It is an opportunity for every parishioner to take time away from our normal activities and to spend more time getting to know God and to love Him; to examine our priorities in life, make concrete and practical resolutions and to commit ourselves to a life of purpose and service.  Making a good retreat can be a powerful step towards individual conversion.

The Church in Peninsular Malaysia conducts periodic retreats every year during the month of September requesting all bishops and priests to make their yearly retreat for at least 5 days. We take time off from our parish activities and pastoral duties to be in solitude with the Lord. These past three years our parish has been organising retreats but these were only one-day sessions. This year however the committee is organising a 3-day Parish Retreat for all parishioners.  This time round we will be bringing distinguished speakers from a well-known retreat centre  – the Divine Retreat Centre, Potta, Kerala. Every parishioner is encouraged to register and so to discover how they may rekindle their relationship with Christ Jesus and learn the secret of successful and joyful families!

In every part of the world, the Catholic Church organisation offers many types of retreats for their members. Retreats can be a single day or a whole week or even a month. They can be silent retreats, preached retreats, directed or guided retreats with various spiritual topics and daily meditations or conferences. Initially, we planned to have our retreat for two days over the weekend but the Lord blessed us with another day when the Muslims shifted the “Awal Muharram” from Thursday 21^st to Friday 22^nd September this year. That is why we have added another day to make it a 3-day retreat over the weekend. It will be more dynamic and charismatic in tone with many spiritual insights, Praise and Worship and healing sessions, Confessions and the Holy Eucharist. A special room will be prepared for you to spend time in silent conversation in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament during the course of the retreat. It is a time for you to listen to the Holy Spirit and to get to know Jesus better as you get into your truer self.

When you come for this weekend retreat with our POTTA priests retreat masters, it will be a special time of the year for you to get away from all your daily activities, to encounter God and to deepen your relationship with Him. Too often, in our daily life, we are overwhelmed with many distractions and we may fail to hear the voice of God. So we encourage you, when you come for the retreat, please do turn off your hand phones and unplug yourself from all social-communications. The Lord wants your full attention in this upcoming retreat.

As your parish priest I strongly recommend you to attend this retreat and do not give reasons or excuses but take the trouble to register soonest. It is a retreat all about seeking, finding and loving Christ and you too will gain many spiritual enlightenments and insights. The Holy Spirit will prompt you as you participate in this retreat. He will provide special graces to lead you to true and lasting spiritual progress. As the retreat days draw closer, we invite you to pray that the Lord, “Give success to the work of our hands, and may His kingdom come and may His will be done!”

For more information about the Parish Retreat 2017,  do visit the Parish Retreat counter in front of our Church before and after every weekend Mass. My best wishes!

SUFFERING UNITES US WITH JESUS

“… Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me…,” (Matt 16:24). Carry your Cross means embrace it or make it your own or endure it.

None of us likes cross or suffering. Our natural inclination is to avoid cross or suffering at all costs. In realities we are not free from physical, mental illness, poverty, worries, boredom, anxieties, failures, frustrations and death of those dear to us. These problem of suffering will be solved by the person of Christ when we are willingly take hold and carry them.

We put all our crosses and suffering on our back of Jesus then we shall see Jesus in our actions. We need to be patient, trust and confidence in the Lord. Be a Jesus disciple.

 “When you have many kinds of trials, you should be full of joy, because you know that these trials test your faith, and this will give you perseverance,” (James 1:2-3).

BUILDING BECs THROUGH SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Every parish in Peninsular Malaysia is struggling to build and revive the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BEC) in both urban and rural areas.  In our parish our BECs are doing quite well relatively speaking, but we can still do a little more. I make every effort to be present at the BECCOT meetings (BEC Coordinating Team) every first Wednesday of the month. The BECCOT team is working hand in hand with the BEC leaders by animating the monthly meetings and solving issues that arise at the BEC level.  The team also assists and trains the BEC leaders and revives the leaders’ roles by giving them formations especially on leadership quality.

Some leaders are happy and joyfully serve their BECs without qualms even though they have been serving in their BECs for a number of years.  At large many leaders are not too happy about serving in their BECs and are just waiting to hand over their batons or tasks to someone else.  Some members are not willing to give it a try to take up the leadership role by giving excuses such as: fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of uncertainty, fear of responsibility, fear of making mistakes, lack of confidence, lack of time and so forth.

When we don't eliminate a life of excuses, we hold ourselves back from recognising opportunities and discovering our talents, skills and potential. We paralyze ourselves from growing in our spiritual life and this prevents us from moving forward in all areas of our lives!  If we don't challenge ourselves to reach new heights, we will never really know what we are capable of.  Opportunities lie hidden in front of us and in every corner of our lives - so it’s best that we don’t crack our heads by constantly finding reasons to make excuses.

What I request from the BEC leaders and the BEC core teams is that they bear the burden of leadership and responsibility and to genuinely care for one another in their respective BECs.  You are not alone working in the vineyard of the Lord, “For you are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s farm, God’s building,” (1 Cor 3:9).  You need to first and foremost focus on your spirituality and making efforts to increase your faith life.  In the long run, these will grow your personal strength and expand the scope of your ministry in the BECs. In fact, your BEC members will gain their trust in you and they perceive you guiding them well.

I suggest that you develop your leadership quality by sharing your responsibilities with your core teams as well as members of your BECs. If you are willing to let others share in your responsibilities, encourage the caring for one another and to make decisions, (even if you think they do things a bit differently from you), perhaps this kind of shared leadership will attract your BEC members and new leaders will be in the making!

On my part, I too look around for leaders and volunteers from the BECs and also among the weekend congregation who can really do the work of serving and caring for one another in the life of the Church, without having been given a title. Every now and then I do try to identify potential leaders and pray to the Lord that He will provide individuals to come forward to render service to the Church.

Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) is not another ministry or organisation but it is the Church at the grassroots.  The members are considered as a new way of “being Church”.  Every ordinary Catholic is called to be disciples of hope and to actively participate in the life and mission of the Church and to live in the spirit of the Gospel.

BUILD MY CHURCH!

“… on this rock I will build My Church…” (MT 16:18)

The Gospel tells us that the nature of the Church is a family, fellowship, Body of Christ and people of God. Our priorities are to build relationships with one another and to live together in peace and harmony.

We are living in a world where more and more people are saying that the Church is not no longer important. Each of us needs to be committed to Church attendance and participation. We need to be committed to our Church growth.

The Church is made up of people that Jesus loves. For a body to function properly it needs all parts and likewise the Church needs all its members to be united in diversity. God gives us the gift of faith and along with it the responsibility to spread his Gospel. We must take this responsibility seriously. We need to make sure that the good news is shared with the lost, least and the last.

DRAW CLOSER TO GOD THROUGH WORSHIP IN CHURCH

These couple of months I have noticed the attendance for our weekend Masses dwindling.  I don't know about other churches but I tend to be too obsessed with this troubling thought. I try my best making my homilies and celebrations interesting so that you may stay connected when you come for Mass. Some of our parishioners don't feel that it is important to attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.

Church attendance is important. We attend Church to meet with God. God is worthy of our worship.  As Catholics, Church is a place where we can all come together to worship. It reminds me of one of the hymns, which goes, “Enter His gate with thanksgiving in our hearts…” (cf. Psalm 100:4). Every time when we enter our Church doors we come with thanksgiving in our hearts and we sing praises to God.

We come to Church to be part of our Church and to be one with Jesus. We submit ourselves to Him and draw life from Him. We gather in the Church where the Word

of God is faithfully proclaimed and the Sacrament of the Eucharist is celebrated reverently for us. Our gathering in the Church for weekly worship will encourage us, strengthen us and nourish us.  We listen and learn from Jesus, Mary and Joseph in order for us to grow spiritually.

It is very important that Catholic families should start to form their children in faith while they are still young. We attend our Sunday Masses or any other spiritual formations in Church to enhance our spiritual and psychological growth. Our participation in the sacrament, prayers and formation each week will deepen our belief and our faith in the “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Church,” (cf. Eph 4: 5).

There is no excuse on Sundays. Often we hear that “Sunday is my only day to sleep in.” Church no longer holds the priority in our lives. We are too occupied with our daily schedule. When weekend comes we would like to go for vacation or away from the town just to get some relaxation. One of the greatest advantages we Catholics have in KL city is having Churches nearby – within 20 minutes drive!  It will be most pleasing to God that we fulfill our Sunday obligation before we entangle ourselves with other agendas during the weekend. God will be happy when we come to Church and worship Him. When Jesus sees His Church attendance is full and His Church is growing in numbers, surely He will be rejoicing in Heaven as He rewards us with His overflowing love.

Today’s culture is changing where we have become very individualistic. Both Church attendance and fellowship with communities are equally important. The Holy Spirit leads us to unity with the Body of Christ, which is the Church. “Without Jesus Christ, there can be no Church; and without the Church, we cannot stay united with Jesus.” We need to bring ourselves closer to Jesus and to reach out to the people in the community. It is for our own good that Jesus wants us to have fellowship with one another. The more we develop our friendship in the Church, the more we want to be together.  We are to be disciples of Christ.  We need each other to grow up in the faith of Christ, to learn to serve, to love one another, to exercise our spiritual gifts, and to practice forgiveness.