Our Lady of Lourdes

This week we went to the parish of Our Lady of Lourdes. From Chinese community last week to Indian community this week. Maybe it might have inspired my brother to pick up tamil for his ministry ;Þ

Our Lady of Lourdes is a very different parish from most other parishes in Singapore. Firstly because it's in the city area, surrounding it are mainly commercial buildings with some flats here and there, so in terms of local population it is quite small. The catechism classes total 30+ from pri 1 to Sec 4. Meaning that there are only like 3-4 students per level. So the levels have to be combined together.

The other difference is that the community there has a high number of migrant workers, from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines, and recently Nigeria. And so the parish faces a whole different set of ministries. New people come and go, some of them stay and work far away, some only have off days once a month. The parish also does help them a lot in terms of administrative needs. Ever so often, they are abused or cheated by their employers, and we as church cannot say to them "Ok brother, we will pray for you." Like in last friday's first reading.

"If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well," but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?" Jm 2:15-16

It's quite nice to see that the parish has been catering to the needs of these fellow brothers and sisters. After the tamil mass at 8am, they gather for prayer sessions, the sri lankan maids have been allocated a room also for their gatherings. There is the soup kitchen that provides free meals, and starting a computer training centre for them to pick up new skills.

One thing which Deacon Jivan who is attached there was telling us, is that these migrant workers are more devotional in their worship. They are not looking for theological inputs, scripture study. What they are looking for is the experience of God in their lives, to be able to praise, to pour out their sorrows, to seek comfort and healing.

And so I thank God for these opportunities to see the different cultures and needs of the different parishes in singapore. Knowing that there is no one standard "solution" or way to run a parish. Next sunday, we are off to St Stephen's, which is another poor parish. Haven't been there for mass before, so would be another eye-opener.

Ok, gotta go and study my latin. The declensions are really a headache. Masculine nouns decline one way, Feminine nouns another way, Neuter yet another way. Worst still I'm mixing up my latin and greek. Both languages, similar in structure yet so different. I might actually take a stem from one language and combine it with the root from the other to form new words.