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.

MOTHER - A WORD THAT MEANS THE WORLD TO US

Being a mother is a great privilege, but also a great challenge.

There are many troubled mothers in the world. There are many mothers with broken hearts today.

Mothers, you may not receive the thanks or praises here on earth for all your sacrifice and for all that you give. One day sure you will receive rewards in heaven. Until then do continue to radiate the love of Christ from your heart.

On this Mother’s Day we must recognise the ability of mothers to shape the minds and hearts of tomorrow’s generation.

Today, I just want to say how wonderful you are. You have shown me your love right from my birth. You are the one who nurtured me, prayed over me, worried about me, guided me and supported me every moment of my life. Thank you mom for everything that you have done and keep doing for me. Just want to thank you for all the love and care that you give me.

Thank you, Mother dear.

Saints Jacinta and Francisco pray for our mothers!

REMEMBERING THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF FATIMA

Pope Francis has canonised two Fatima visionaries, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto when he visited the Fatima Shrine on 12 and 13 May 2017, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and the 100th anniversary of the date when the two children along with their cousin Lucia who had experienced the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal.

Our Lady appeared to these three poor children several times between 13 May 1917 and 13 October 1917. The two children died in childhood. Jacinta died on February, 1920, at age 9 while her brother Francisco died on 4 April 1919, at age 10. During Saint John Paul II’s pastoral visit to Portugal, he beatified them in Fatima on 13 May 2000, 83^rd anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady of Fatima. He was teaching us that even young children can become saints.

Their cousin Lucia was the only one to reach adult life. She joined a convent in Coimbra, Portugal. Later she became a Discalced Carmelite Nun. She was born 1907 and died in 2005 at the age of 98. Sr Lucia’s beatification is now being examined for the canonisation process in Vatican since 13 February 2017.

Pope Francis was the fourth pope to visit the Fatima Shrine after Blessed Paul VI, Saint John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. During his pontificate since 2013, Pope Francis has canonised 36 saints and these two children will be the 37^th and 38^th saints in his list of canonisations. These two peasant brother and sister would become the youngest non-martyr children in the history of the Church. Their canonisation would help us “to give credibility to the apparitions and the message of Fatima.” The appearance of Our Lady was asking these three children to pray the rosary, make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners and an increase in love for God.

As we celebrate the 100^th anniversary of Mary’s first appearance in Fatima and on this month of Rosary, we too are encouraged continuously to pray the rosary, make conversion and increase the love of Christ. When we pray the rosary with our BEC members, families and individuals we make the change in the lives of our loved ones, parishioners and friends. I hope by praying the rosary will help you to live our faith more stronger and make us happy. Whenever we leave home for work, office, school or travelling to overseas just remember to carry your rosary along as your companion of your journey. We should be great devotees to Our Lady and listen attentively to Her and ask for peace in the world.

Parents and grandparents, you need to encourage your children and grandchildren to pray the Rosary and to help them grow in their friendship with Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Grandparents of Jesus, Sts Joachim and Anne are honoured by the Church because they were instruments for Mary’s YES to the Angel Gabriel to become the Mother of Jesus in Her younger age. Whereas Mary and Jospeh nurtured Jesus to grow in wisdom and age during his childhood. So, parents and grandparents do commit yourselves to teach your children and grandchildren to always say something to Jesus before going to school, work, anywhere and even before sleeping. Do tell them too that going for Mass and catechism classes during the weekend are also important in order to strengthen their faith. Be their teachers of wisdom of God and courage that they may be pass on to future generations to grow in the fear of God. Mary, Mother of Hope, Pray for Us!