PREPARING FOR A MEANINGFUL ADVENT

On Sunday, 26th November on the Solemnity of Christ the King, 27 of our students received their First Holy Communion. They have encountered the real and true presence of Jesus in the Holy Communion. My heart felt thanks to our catechism teachers especially Assunta, Gregory and Michelle and the parents of the students for preparing them for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.

In my homily on this solemnity, I was sharing with our First Holy Communicants about Jesus, the Head of their lives based on St Paul's letter to Ephesians who invites everyone to fit and join together into the Body of Christ (cf. Eph 4: 15-16). For instance, when we draw a picture of a man or woman we first draw a sketch of a head then slowly we add one by one other parts of the body. We never draw a picture of a man or woman first with other parts of the body and finally we fit the head into them. The head is the first and foremost a part of the body. Once the head comes out well then, the other parts surely turn out to be right.  During the Sunday morning Mass they have chosen Jesus as the Head of their lives and they themselves have fitted and joined together into the Body of Christ. Jesus will be in control of their lives and will show them the right path in life. As they grow they will grow in love and peace.

My dear parents of the First communicants, I urge you to assist your kids in their faith life. It is your responsibility to bring them for the Sunday Mass to fulfill their obligation and for the Catechism classes. Please do not deprive them from these commitments. It is your duty to guide them in their faith education and their spiritual life. They need to grow and learn maturely in faith. It is our commitment to help them grow maturely in faith and wisdom. This will direct them to love the Church more and more as they grow in age.

Advent begins this Sunday and with it comes our short four weeks of the Advent season. My dear parishioners as we look forward a favourable Christmas and dawn of New Year 2018, we shall expect a Christmas and a year full of new hope and a meaningful one that sparks rejuvenation in our families and parish at large.

I will be a little occupied with a few important commitments during this Advent season. As usual I shall be making my visit to the home bound, the sick and the elderly to administer to them the Sacraments of the Holy Anointing, Reconciliation and Eucharist. Besides this I shall be going around from parish to parish to help out in the Penitential services practically every evening. I am also thinking of how to beautify our church compound with Christmas lightings, putting up the nativity set and other decorations to create the atmosphere of Christmas and New Year. Your ideas are most welcome.

Once again, this Advent we are given an opportunity to begin anew and to prepare ourselves receiving Christ Jesus more deeply into our hearts and our homes every day. To receive this gracious gift, we have to open our hearts to the light of Christ. The Prophet Isaiah whose words we read and reflect through much of Advent, tells us of the coming of Messiah, who is to be the Saviour of the world. He brings us the light into darkness and peace and justice into the world. Isaiah's words help us to walk through Advent with hope and expectation.

Let us pray during this Advent Season for the grace to allow the Light of Christ to enter into our hearts and our homes. We shall live this time of grace in a watchful and prayerful way while we await the coming of the Messiah this Christmas.

"O Lord, we are the clay and you are the you are the potter: we are all the work of your hands." (Is 64: 7).

ADVENT: A SEASON OF HOPE

The central point of the parable (MK 13: 33-37) reflects the motto: “Be prepared! And Stay Awake!”

The next four Sundays we will be celebrating Advent. Advent is the season of hope, and the season of repentance. During this season of Advent we are to prepare for the coming of Jesus and how do we prepare, we repent! Jesus tells us to watch, to wait for He is coming.

Jesus is coming into the world. Jesus is coming at the end of time. He is coming as a babe born in the manger. He is coming to us through the word and sacraments. He is coming!

This season of Advent reminds us again of the great love God has for us through His Son. That love changes us, and bring hope into our lives.

When Jesus comes lives change. When Jesus comes heart change. When Jesus comes the world around us seems more hopeful.

Let us prepare ourselves to meet with him through prayer. “Lord make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved,” (Psalm 80).

Have a Blessed Advent!

THE PARISH THAT WORKS TOGETHER WILL FLOURISH TOGETHER

Three years (2015-207) vision and mission statements “Towards Strengthening Our Faith Community” has inspired and motivated and gave us the direction for our parish and parishioners to grow spiritually. We as parishioners have brought life to our parish and fostered a sense of belonging for all parishioners through various activities, faith formations, events and fellowships. These have provided both building and strengthening our community within the parish and through the outreach efforts. Our three-year faith journey with vision statements have brought our parish to the height of celebrating the First World Day of the Poor cum Parish Family Day on 19 November from 10.30 am to 5.00 pm. On this auspicious day there were more 2000 people who walked in and out through out the day.

When the Holy Father announced about the First World Day of the Poor on the feast of St Anthony of Padua (13^th June) with the theme, “Let us Love, Not with the Words but with Deeds” I was thinking and reflecting what shall I do at the parish level. After much thought and prayers, I called upon few representatives from five ministries to work towards this event. Among the five ministries were the Fundraising Committee, Catechetical Ministry, Parish Integral Human Development Ministry (PHIDM), Basic Ecclesial Community (BEC) and Youth Ministry.

Initially, we just wanted to celebrate the First World Day of the Poor by inviting 1000 poor people who are staying around our parish vicinity - the local as well the foreigners and not forgetting our own Myanmar Zomi community. The PHID members were assigned to collaborate with the Catechetical Ministry to coordinate on the arrangements of food and other activities for the poor children and their families. We served lunch for 1000 poor people. In addition to this, each individual was given free coupons worth of RM10-20 for them to participate in various games and to purchase food/drinks and other items from jumble sales. They were also given 2-4-raffle tickets worth of RM4-8 each to win more than 100 exciting prizes. Our own catechism students too had an opportunity to mingle around and have a meal together with these poor families.

The Fund-Raising committee was solely in charge of selling of the raffle tickets and coupons. They sold all the tickets by distributing them to the BEC leaders and some individual parishioners. They managed to sell all the 30,000 printed raffle tickets just before the first draw took place. All those who came for the event purchased the coupons and participated in games and bought food/drinks at reasonable prices from the various booths such as ice-kacang, ice-cream, hot and soft drinks, rojak, burgers, etc. The assigned BECs managed to sell off all their food and beverages. These sales of raffle tickets and coupons will proceed for the installation of air conditioning units in our Dewan Monsignor Anthony Thomas and other refurbishment. This project is expected to commence in January/February 2018. We also invited three live bands to entertain the people who came for the event through out the day. All of them enjoyed their performances.

These past two months the Fundraising and 1^st World Day of the Poor committees worked around the clock to make this occasion a memorable and significant one. “Well done, good and faithful servant,” (Mt 25:23). On behalf of the organising committees I take this opportunity to thank everyone who supported, contributed, donated and prayed for the success of this event. I too would like to express my heart-felt gratitude to all parishioners for assisting and working with me since June 2014. Let’s commit ourselves as parishioners of St Joseph, “As for my family and me, we shall serve the Lord,” (Joshua 24:15), with the spirit of New Evangelisation for the next three years (2018-2020).

OUR CHILDREN ARE SPECIAL

These past couple of weeks, the Catechetical ministry has been busy with various camps, formations and activities for their Catechism students. The ministry organised one-day stay-in camp for the First Holy Communion students at the Formation Hall from 4-5 November 2017, with the theme ‘Christ Our Joy’. There were 24 English-speaking students and 3 Tamil-speaking students at the camp, which was facilitated by Sister Mary David, FDCC. This camp prepared the students for their first Sacrament of Reconciliation, which will take place on Saturday, 25 November 2017. The students will celebrate their Sacrament of First Holy Communion on 26 November 2017, which is also the Solemnity of Christ the King.

On Saturday, 11 November 2017, the ministry hosted a formation at the Formation Hall entitled ‘I Am Special’ for the teenage catechism students. Several Catechism teachers and youth from the Church of the Visitation, Seremban, led by Peter Tee, facilitated the formation for our teenagers. There were about 57 youth present that day, and it was amazing to watch them present and participate in the activities and discussions. I know most of them since I was ministering in Seremban, as they were my catechism students and it was fascinating to watch them embrace their sessions. They have really grown in their knowledge of God.

The next day, 12 November 2017, there was another formation for the primary school catechism students on the Eucharist. This formation was facilitated by Tomson Scaria, and it was held after the Sunday morning Mass, from 10.30am to 5.30pm. The session ended with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and benediction.

My special thanks goes out the catechetical coordinators and teachers who prepared the camp and formations with great enthusiasm and dedication. It truly is an exceptional closing to their Catechetical Year 2017.

The Holy Father, Pope Francis, declared 19 November 2017 as the First World Day of the Poor with the theme ‘Let us love, not with words but with deeds’. He suggested that all Christians communities find ways to “create moments of encounter” with the poor. In conjunction with that, St. Joseph’s Church will celebrate World Day of the Poor, as well as our Parish Family Day. Our catechism students will have the opportunity to mingle with the poor children and their families, in our Church compound. There will be raffle draws, games, a jumble sale and live bands performing throughout the day and it promises to fun time for everyone. These two celebrations mark the end of our three-year (2015-2017) faith journey with the vision ‘Towards Strengthening Our Faith Community.”

There are so many heart-breaking stories of poverty and hopelessness in our community, and as a fitting ending to their faith education for the year 2017, the World Day of the Poor will bring a kind of exposure to our catechism students, as they share their day with them. This celebration will help our children hear the voice of the poor and the marginalised. I am sure this experience will become an eye-opener for our catechism children, as they learn and share their day with these children. It is also a step for them to set a way of life in reaching out to the needy in the future.

BE DILIGENT

In this Gospel (Matt 25: 14-30), two of the three individuals have started trading with what they have been given to them. Sadly, the third individual makes no effort to invest what he has been given and instead, buried it. He placed what God has given him in the wrong soil and that is why it did not grow.
We learn that God has called us to be good stewards and faithful servants with our time and our talents. Choose to invest your time and talents in God’s Kingdom and be a good steward of everything He has entrusted to you. Do not waste your time building the kingdoms of this world.

Our talents are on loan from God. They are to be use

d to build God’s Kingdom because His Kingdom will remain forever. It is not simply giving things away or keeping them safely in trust, but use them wisely.

How are you spending your time doing? Are you using it to serve God?


“Each one of you has received a special grace, so, like good stewards responsible for all these varied graces of God, put it at the service of others’” (1 Peter 4:10).