"NOT PEACE, BUT DIVISION!"

“Jesus said, “I came to cast fire upon the earth not peace, but division! …,”  (Luke 12:49-53).

Jesus brought the fire of division. There will be division between people. We should not be shocked by the division that comes within communities, churches and between Christians and non-Christians.

Where human beings are division is inevitable. We cannot always run and hide from it. When conflict comes around, and be prepared for it when it does. Conflict can be good for us. Like fire purifies metals, conflict can purify us.

The whole world will divide into two sites, for and against Christ. People want peace and harmony. We want peace and harmony for our families, for our communities and for our world.

We are looking for love, peace, grace and mercy. We need to live moral lives and help the poor. We need to both announce the good news and be the good news to those in need.

We need to follow the guidance of God's Holy Spirit. Let’s the Holy Spirit build a fire inside us and inspire us to work with Christ to let the fire burn brightly.

http://www.stjosephsentul.org/joy-in-gods-presence-through-formation-1/

GIVING HOPE WILLINGLY AND LOVINGLY

Life without hope is difficult. Troubles, suffering, physical health, illness and eventually death, comes like a thief to rob a person’s life. Jesus Christ is our hope and our joy. He brings forgiveness and hope for the future. He changes our lives and He will give us a new heart with renewed strength. He will give you the strength to live a dynamic life of faith. The Great God who lives amongst us will bring hope through the Word,  Sacraments and in all events.

When we look around us, there are many things that perhaps cause us to lose hope. But when we look at God and his promises, there is great hope for the future. As you keep your hopes high, St Paul says “do something each day that gets you closer to your goal of life.”(Ephesians 5:15-16). Make the best of the present time.

Hope changes our lives. The hope that we have through Christ transforms how we think and how we act. This living hope helps us to see the world with the eyes of Christ. As long as we have faith in Jesus Christ, we will always have hope. Other people see only a hopeless end, but we Christians rejoice in endless hope.

Our Parish Integral Human Development Ministry (PIHDM) will have a facelift. It is a ministry that identifies and locates the destitute and unfortunate within our community. Its brings hope and gives aid to the poor through its outreach - regardless of race, ethnic background, social status or faith. Under the umbrella of PIHDM, we have various ministries / desks - Migrant Ministry, Women’s Ministry, EduCare, Eagel’s Wings and Distribution of groceries to the poor. 

From August 2019 onwards, the office for distribution of groceries to the needy will officially be known as the Ministry of the Poor (MOP) under the Supervision of Aloysius, George D’Cruz, Teresa Shaun, Jacquline and Dorothy. They will look into the needs of the poor and prepare aid kits containing essential rations such as rice, cooking oil, sugar, sardines, noodles, biscuits, etc. and distributing them to the poor every month.

The MOP will continue their annual school uniform project and Christmas Campaign. This year, the fundraising for these two projects will commence  in August 2019. For the past 6 years, we have carried out these annual projects and campaigns successfully, and once again we have the opportunity to work together, bringing hope and joy to underprivileged children and their families at Christmas.

Annually, we target to distribute school uniforms to between 350-400 students, at an estimate cost of  RM100-RM120 per child. The uniform sets comprise 2 sets of uniforms, a bag, shoes and socks, stationaries, etc., for each child. The total cost for this project will amount to approximately RM35,000-RM45,000.

We also will provide groceries to poor families, as a part of our Christmas campaign. We need your support and encouragement to make these projects a success, and we hope parishioners will not hesitate to volunteer their time and resources in assisting us with this fundraising projects. Our faith in Christ, who became poor, and was always close to the poor and the outcast, is the basis of our concern for the integral development of society’s most neglected members. (Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel, n. 186).

Jesus has special place in His heart for the poor, so much so that God Himself “became poor” and lived among us. He stood among the poor - comforting sorrows, healing their wounds and bringing the message of hope in their lives. It is a challenge for us today, as we seek to follow Jesus and to live as He lived, and not remain unmoved - but to reach out to them willingly and lovingly.

GREAT HOPE THROUGH PRAYER

The month of July has come to an end. We are in the midst of the second half of the year. The remaining months will move fast and we can’t control the passing days. Perhaps you have not done enough in the first half of the year but there is always the opportunity to re-adjust the second half in the light of Christ.

When we look around, there are many things that may cause us to lose hope in life. However, when we look at Jesus and His promises, there is great hope for the future. St Paul says that we should do something each day in order to get closer to our goal of life(cf. Ephesians 5:15-16) so make the best of the present time till the end of 2019!

During the feast of St Joseph, our Patron Saint (1May 2019), our Parish Catechetical Team was meant to declare a day off for the catechism students. However, classes continued on as usual. So in lieu of that, we have carried forward this day off to Sunday, 28 July 2019, so that our students may spend time with their families or go for St Anne and St Joachim’s Feast.

Generally, many Catholics throughout Peninsular Malaysia make their pilgrimage to the Shrines of St Anne and St Joachim either in Bukit Mertajam, Port Klang, Alor Gajah or Semenyih. The devotion to St Anne and St Joachim has always drawn throngs of people from all over. This feast of St Anne and St Joachim falls on 26 July 2019 and their novenas and celebrations go on for 10 days. St Anne and St Joachim are parents to Mother Mary and grandparents to Jesus. Although we know very little about them, they are truly remarkable people because they nurtured a wonderful daughter, Mary - who played a very important role in the work of the Redemption.The Feast of St Anne and St Joachim is well known feast which precedes three other feasts, namely, St Anthony, St Jude and Our Lady in our nation.

Prior to our parish being dedicated to St Joseph, the Worker, it was a chapel named after St Anne – built by Rev Fr Louis Duvelle. In 1908, the chapel was rededicated under the patronage of St Joseph, the Worker. Our neighbour, the Tamil School was named after him too, because the majority of parishioners and its surrounding residents were railways workers. If the name St Anne remained till the present, I believe it would have been another pilgrim shrine in Kuala Lumpur. But it was wise of the priests and parishioners in Sentul to keep the wonderful name of St Joseph, the Worker so as to remember not only railway employees but workers in general, who toil tirelessly everyday.

 

Last year, we celebrated the 110th anniversary of our Parish, faithfully honouring St Joseph, the Worker as our Patron. It is the only Church named after St Joseph, the Worker in the Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese.

Next weekend (3-4 August 2019) we will have a Durian & Mangosteen Fiesta in our Church grounds. We have ordered about 300kgs of durian, including Musang Kingand 150kgs of mangosteen from Raub, Pahang. Prices start from RM10 onwards. If you plan to do a take  away, please bring your own containers and bags. This fun-filled event is being organised as form of fellowship among parishioners and of course, the profits from the sale will be utilised for the needy. We invite all durian lovers to join us next week, and if the response is good, we shall have this Fiesta every yummy season!

PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

Our Gospel reading (Luke 11: 1-13) this Sunday Jesus teaches us how to pray with faith.

In all our sins we often find it most difficult to seek God but He waits for us, worries about us, and is eager to respond with His mercy. 

When we ask, He always answers our prayer – “On the day I called, You answered me, O Lord,” (Psalm 137). Whenever we pray, the Holy Spirit connects us to the Father and to Jesus. Therefore, we have to pray persistently, identify our sins and repent. Every prayer increases our holiness, brings us closer to God and empowers us to be more like Him. 

The life of discipleship is a life of constant and persistent prayer. As Paul say: “Pray without ceasing,” (1 Thessalonian 5:17). We must continually rely on God’s Spirit in order to grow in faith and holiness.

Prayer should lead us into a life of radical discipleship. Even in the worst of our troubles, Jesus is with us.

How often do we humble ourselves before Jesus in prayer and ask for an increase of faith?

http://www.stjosephsentul.org/great-hope-through-prayer-1/

HOPE CHANGES OUR LIVES

Jesus Christ is our hope. He brings forgiveness and hope for the future. He changes our lives and He will give you a new heart with renewed strength. He will give you the strength to live a dynamic life of faith. The Great God who lives amongst us will bring hope through the Word and Sacrament.

Certain things in life are absolutely necessary. Air is one of them. We need air to breathe. We need water, too. Humans can only live about three days without water. We also need hope. Life without hope is difficult. 

We are in difficulties on all sides, we see no answer to our problems, we have been persecuted - but they never corner you, never knock you down or kill you - because the life of Jesus is still alive in your body. Death is at work in us but life is in us because Christ lives in us! (cf. 2 Cor 4:7-15).

One of my favourite lecturers in the seminary was the late Fr. Regis (passed away in 2002). During my philosophy year in 1996, he recommended a book entitled “Man’s Search for Meaning”written by psychiatrist Dr. Victor Frankl - whoseparents, brother and pregnant wife were all killed in the Nazi camps in Auswitz, Poland in 1944. He lost everything. Some asked him, “Why do you not commit suicide?” So in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, he said that a “loss of hope and loss of courage can have a deadly effect on man.”

As a result of his experience in a Nazi concentration camp, he said that when a man no longer possesses a purpose for living, no future to look toward to, he would usually curl up in a corner and die. But for him, he restored his inner strength in the camp and that was his first step towards building courage and hope.

Dr Victor Frankl wrote a total of 33 books. He became the first non-American to be awarded the prestigious Oskar Pfister Award by the American Psychiatric Association. Victor Frankl was correct when he said that to restore or to bring back a person’s inner strength or peace, he or she must first have hope of attaining some future goal. 

Even St Paul stated that the only goal that cannot be crushed by this fallen world is the living hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. We may face all kinds of difficulties in life with seemingly no answer to our problems, but Christ lives in us and that gives us hope.

Hope is necessary for our well-being. In a fallen world where pain, suffering and injustice are the norm, hope gives significance to life’s choices and enables us to endure them. Troubles, suffering, physical health, illness and eventually death comes like a thief and robs a person’s live. During suffering, pain or illness, we often focus on what we have lost, rather than on what we still have.

The Holy Father, Pope Francis has released an Apostolic Exhortation entitled “Christus Vivit”– CHRIST IS ALIVE, on 25 March 2019- for our young people.In this document, the Holy Father encourages the youth not to abandon the Church. He reminds the young people to stand beside the Church because “Christ is alive! He is our hope, and in a wonderful way he brings youth to our world.”He wants them to be alive since Christ is alive!

As only 20% of youth stay in the Church, and as a commitment to their personal vocation, the Holy Father encourages the youth “to discern their pathway”, “to grow in holiness”, “to make an effort to grow spiritually” and “to seek righteousness, faith, love and peace, (2 Tim. 2:22).”

He also warns them on the use of modern technology which can lead them to isolation, selfishness, lack communitarian aspects and expose them to the worst evils. Instead, he encourages them to pray in silence - discern and listen to God.Finally, Pope Francis wishes that young people “keep running the race”. The Church “needs your momentum, your energy, your intuitions/insights, your faith.”Find your faith and lead our Church to new life! And bring new hope.

We live in a world where people are really afraid about the future. Parents worry about the future of their children. We hope our kids and grandkids will grow up well. How many parents hope that their kids will live as disciples of Jesus? Unfortunately, I don't think we worry too much about  their spiritual aspects.

One day, Jesus is going to return to this earth. This is a truth that is taught in the Bible. And the return of Jesus is not just wishful thinking. As in the Gospel reading (Mt 20:20-28), we have James and John asking to have the privileged positions in the final kingdom. The disciples are indignant because they feel they deserve the position.But Jesus asked them – “can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” The cup that Jesus offers is the cup of service – willing service in the way of Jesus and Mary. Service all the way to death. Through service and suffering, we will make our Jesus’s will to come true.

When we look around us, there are many things that perhaps causes us to lose hope. But when we look at God and his promises, there is great hope for the future. As you keep your hope high, St Paul says “do something each day that gets you closer to your goal of life.”(Ephesians 5:15-16). Make the best of the present time.

Hope changes our lives. The hope that we have through Christ transforms how we think and how we act. This living hope helps us to see the world with the eyes of Christ. As long as we have faith in Jesus Christ, we will always have hope. Other people see only a hopeless end, but we Christians rejoice in an endless hope.

(Homily on 25 July 2019 @ 7.30 pm at Church of St Anne, Port Klang)