It is Me lah!

Yesterday's reading (Jn 20:11-18) about Mary Magdalene's encounter with the Risen Lord reminded me of my experience at this year's Easter Vigil.

Before the Liturgy of the Light, everyone was gathered around the fire at the entrance of the church. I was standing with the Fr Brian and the Altar Servers, waiting for it to start. I looked around and saw a priest in his chasuble standing at the back. I didn't recognise him, and I thought it must be a visiting priest come to join in the celebration. So I went up to him and said "Father, we are about to start, would you like to join us near the fire. He gave a laugh and said "It is me lah!". Then I realised that it was Fr Bosco. He had shaven his head and beard. He looked totally different.

I have heard that Fr Bosco had done this before during Easter, but still the sight before me left me in shock. I found myself staring trying to figure out how the hair and beard could change one's appearance so drastically. I recalled the Mas Selamat posters with him in a beard and clean shaven, and it did not look so different.



Back to yesterday's reading. As I compared Mary Magdalene's experience of the Risen Lord, with my encounter with Fr Bosco's new look, I realised the similarities.

Mary was looking for the dead Jesus' body. I was also expecting a bearded Fr Bosco, the one I was used to.

Mary recognised Jesus when he called her. I also recognised Fr Bosco by his voice, when he said "it is I lah!".

Mary would probably have known that Jesus had said that he would rise on the third day. I knew that Fr Bosco had previously shaved his head for Easter, and many people did not recognise him, and yet when I saw him, it didn't cross my mind.

Looking forward to the last day when I brought before Christ, I know that this scenario will play itself out again.

Though I know that Christ will be different from what I imagine him to be, I will still be clinging on to my image of what Christ should look like, and may not recognise him. I just pray and hope that when that day comes, I will be able to recognise his voice when he says to me, "It is Me lah!."

Here's a video to bring you some joy and laughter.
Jesus Christ is risen indeed.


Click this link if you cannot see the video.

Palm Sunday - Short Film

Just saw a great short film on Palm Sunday.



Click this link if you cannot see the video.

What was going on in your mind during the "long" passion reading?

Get Clean

I just saw this video on Youtube.



Click this link if you cannot see the video.

Just thought that it is a great reminder of how liberating the Sacrament of Reconciliation can be.

So for those of you who haven't gotten clean yet, there are still penitential services this evening and monday evening. Click here to see the schedule

Let's prepare ourselves to celebrate the wonderful mystery of Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection that gives us Hope.

Fall on your knees

Merry Christmas to one and all!
I just want to share a wonderful encounter I had with the Lord this Christmas.

I was at Mass on Christmas Day, it was just after Communion, and I was praying when the choir started to sing O Holy Night for the Thanksgiving Hymn. As I reflected on having just received Christ, the words of the song started to strike me. How we in the world wearied by sin is pining for the Lord, and His coming frees us and fills us with joy and light. And of course when the choir sang the chorus, I trembled with the awe of just being on my knees before our Lord, imagining what the shepherds might have felt kneeling before the baby Jesus in the simple manger.

I hope that this Christmas was as good for you as it was for me. God Bless.

O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the Spirit felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
O'er the world a star is sweetly gleaming,
Now come the wisemen from out of the Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!

Becky Kelley - Where's the Line to See Jesus

Just saw this music video on Youtube.
Found in quite appropriate for reflection on the spirit of Christmas



So where is Jesus in your Christmas this year?

Reflections on the Solemnity of Christ the King

As we come to the last Sunday of the Liturgical Year, it is always the celebration of the Solemnity of Christ the King. And I would like to share with you an interesting clip I saw that highlights the Kingship of Christ. It is from the movie 300, which is about Leonidas, king of Sparta, who led 300 men to defend his land from an invasion by the Persian army led by their "god-king" Xerxes. In this clip, we see a negotiation between Leonidas and Xerxes.

The video clip can't be embedded, because it is copyrighted. So click on this link to view it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaTcZWBfC0

There are a few points in the dialogue between the two which struck me, highlighting the contrasting ideas of what kingship was. And I found that I could relate Leonidas' kingship with Christ's kingship of love, self-sacrifice and freedom. In contrast Xerxes kingship can be equated to the devil's kingship of false promises, fear, oppression and pain.

Xerxes / Devil	Leonidas / Christ
- would gladly kill any of his own men for victory	- would die for any one of his men
- has slaves	- has warriors who were free men

What Xerxes does, is like what the devil did to tempt Jesus after his forty days in the desert: a promise of power and fame, if Jesus would only bow before him. And just as Leonidas stood up to Xerxes, Jesus stood up to the devil, because he knew who was the true source of power and good.

This is what we need to reflect on today - Is Jesus really our king? We know that he was willing to die for any one of his men, to free them from the hands of the evil one. Have we then experienced his kingship in our lives? Are we marching in his army, under his banner, following his lead? Are we as Leonidas says, free men who stood against a tryant, the evil one?

Let us then today truly acknowledge Christ as our king, bending our knee before him, pledging our allegiance, following his commands, and be his army in establishing God's kingdom here on earth.

How one generation loves – the next generation learns

After finishing my 30-day silent retreat in June, it took some time to get updated on what had been happening in Singapore, and also clearing all the emails that had piled up. One email I received was on the new video that the National Family Council has produced and currently showing on TV. For those of you who haven’t seen the ad, watch the video below before reading on.

This ad struck me because of the tagline at end – “How one generation loves – the next generation learns”. During my retreat, we were given many passages of the life of Jesus to pray and reflect on. And on one of the days, I was given the passage from Luke 2:39-40 to reflect on.

“When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.”

This passage comes after the child Jesus is presented in the Temple. After that we see Jesus as an adult at his Baptism and starting his ministry. So my Retreat Master, told me to reflect on the life of Jesus growing up. The life of Jesus from the time that he was 12 up to 30 is not talked about in the bible. So I had to imagine what Jesus did during that time.

As I was praying, an image came to me of Mother Mary teaching Jesus, his Hebrew ABCs, maybe some mathematics, and St Joseph teaching him how to use the carpentry tools. Then I imagined Mary & Joseph teaching Jesus to pray to God. This was a bit surprising and funny, because I started to wonder, would Jesus need to be taught how to pray? After all he is the Son of God. But then I thought why not? Jesus would not only have learnt how to pray from His parents, but also their example of their love of God in their lives would also have been something that He learnt as he was growing up.

This led me to reflect on my own life. And it made me think of what I have learnt from my parents. Sure they taught me how to speak, how to write, how to ride a bicycle. But more than, that I was grateful for the lessons which I learnt from the example of their lives. I learnt about the faith and how to pray. I still remember once when I asked my mum about being a godmother, and she told me how she prays for all her god-children every night. It made me wonder, if she prays for her god-children every night, how much more must she be praying for me. From them I learnt how to be generous with my time, energy and possessions. And I came out of that prayer session feeling really blessed by God for the wonderful gift of my parents.

So today I would like each one of us here to reflect on two things. Firstly, what have we learnt from our parents? What kind of values and what kind of faith have we learnt from them?

And secondly, for those of you who are parents, what are you teaching your children? Not just by what you say, but by how you live your lives. I know of parents who will tell their children to pray and to obey God. But when it comes to their children’s studies, that will come before God. The children can have many enrichment classes, but Catechism class will be the first to be sacrificed if there is a clash.

So often we hear of parents telling their children to stop watching tv or playing the computer and to do their homework. How many parents tell their children to stop doing their homework because its time to read the bible or to pray? And this is not just for parents of young children. Even if your child is an adult, parents do play a role in the salvation of their children. St Monica prayed continuously for her adult son to change his ways, and God answered his prayers, he not only converted, he became a bishop and now we know him as St Augustine.

Let us give thanks for our parents and all that they have taught and inspired us. And let us ask our blessed Mother, to help us be good Christian examples for our children, the way she was for Jesus. Amen.

Are our Radios Tuned?

In the recent Superbowl, Budweiser came up with and advertisement about a group of plane crash survivors stranded on a deserted island. One of them managed to salvage the plane's radio, and there seems to be a glimmer of hope that they can make send out a distress signal and be rescued from the island.



Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjPDlAroblI

But another guy finds the plane's beverage cart, and it is filled with Budweiser beer. And we see the group lose interest in the radio, and start to drink, party and have fun. Budweiser probably intended the ad to emphasise on how beer brings fun and enjoyment in the now moment. But I don't think they realise that it also sends a message that beer drinking distracts people from the important things in life - Here being to be rescued off the island.

The ad reflects the current day mindset and culture that is being promoted, spend the money that you have earned or even before you earn it. Enjoy the pleasures of life. Live in the Now, let tomorrow worry about itself. Just like how just as the woman got the radio working, the guy tunes it to play music to liven up the party. The ad might seem funny and exaggerated, yet its scary how real it can reflect the lifestyle we are living, where we let ourselves be "controlled" by our need for "pleasure".

In life we can sometimes get distracted by the needs and pleasure of the present moment, and forget about the important thing in life - God and his promise of salvation. That there is a "tomorrow" that we are looking ahead, and not just about enjoying the "Today". It is thus that our Lenten practices help us to realise how we are controlled by our needs and pleasure. Fasting helps us to transcend our fleshly desires, Almsgiving helps us to not be ego-centric and to think of others in need, and Prayer helps us to remember God our salvation and our final destination.

Now that we are 10 days into Lent, lets look at what Lenten practices we have undertaken, and whether they are helping us to be in control of our earthly desires, and tune our "radios" to the salvation that God has graced us with.

Offering video by eXcess

The eXcess Youth Ministry in Christ the King recently posted up a video that was made by their Media Team. Quite a simple theme and very catchy background song.



Youtube Link to watch the video

It brought to mind the movie Pay It Forward where one act of kindness results in another act, and it goes on and on. Ironically I also saw an ad today titled "It all comes back to you", on how our bad acts can eventually come back to haunt us.



Youtube Link to watch the video

So the question is, are we passing on acts of love, care and kindness or acts of hate, anger, selfishness?

Butterfly Circus

I just saw this video from a link on XT3.
Yup I still do check that social network site once in a while.
Cos it has great stuff like podcasts, videos and articles on the faith, that I use for my own personal spiritual growth as well as for my sessions.

Anyway I saw an article on the site about a short movie which won an award on the theme of hope. Then I saw that the lead actor is Nick Vujicic, and I knew it would be a good one. Nope, Nick Vujicic is no famous actor, he was born without limbs, but has found God's purpose for him in his life and goes around bringing hope to others through the faith and strength that he has coping with "situation".

So I watched the movie, and found it inspiring and it is actually quite a good one to show as an introduction to the other clips of Nick that can be found on Youtube.



So enjoy the movie and spread it around.
You can even download it if you want.
The Low Res Version is 109MB (but still very good quality)
The High Res Version is 193MB

Violence Against Women

I saw this post on Sr Rose's Blog about the Our Lady of Angels Cathedral in LA having a Chapel of Violence against Women. It brought to mind the first time someone shared with me that she was verbally and physically abused by her husband at home.

The sad thing was the fear and shame that had prevented her from letting anyone know about it. Fear of how her husband might react if he found out that she had told someone. A fear so strong that she wouldn't even consider stepping into a counselling centre, afraid that the husband might find out. Shame of how others might see and judge them, their marriage and their lives which look perfect by worldly standards. And so she has had to put up a strong front, as if nothing has happened, when she is around her friends and even family.

As I spoke to her, I went from feeling the pain she's been suffering silently these year, to the anger at a man who would do that to his wife, to the helplessness of what more could I do, other than listening and offering her some professional options to find counselling and support.

As I kept her in prayer, the thought also occurred to me of how many more other women, whose marriages look perfect on the outside, but are suffering silently from an abusive husband. I used to think that it was a problem which was easily identifiable...if the husband is alcoholic, there's a high chance of domestic violence. But now I realised that anger and rage does not need alcohol to fuel it. We've seen in the papers in the last few years many cases of maid abuse. But the subject of domestic violence has not really been highlighted in our media.

Talking about media, there have been campaigns against domestic violence in the US, UK and Australia. A recent ad in the UK featuring actress Kiera Knightley caused a controversy for being to graphic and violent.


Youtube Link - Kiera Knightley - Cut Movie

Here's another ad from Australia


Youtube Link - Domestic Violence Commercial (Australian)

And another one from Canada


Youtube Link - Domestic Violence (Restaurant)

In Singapore we also had a series of ads on Verbal Abuse


Finally if you do know of families with domestic violence issues, here are a few places that will be able to provide help.

Counselling

• Family Life Society
  Tel: 64880278
  Website: familylife.sg


• PAVE (Centre for Promoting Alternatives to Violence)
  Tel: 65550390
  Website: www.pavecentre.org.sg

Shelters for Abused Women

• Good Shepherd Centre Crisis Shelter
  Tel:67556496
  Website: www.catholicwelfare.org.sg/rosevilla.htm


• SCWO Star Shelter
  Tel: 68370611
  Website: scwo.org.sg/wp/?page_id=31


• Singapore Anglican Community Services
  Tel: 65861069
  Website: www.sacs.org.sg/centres.htm

Growing Old

Ever since watching Tuesdays with Morrie, the idea of growing old has been something that has puzzled & intrigued me. How will I grow old? Grumpy? Eccentric? Lonely? Forgetful? Hard-of-hearing? Dependent? Child-Like?

That last 2 question was something that came to my mind as I watched my little baby niece grow over the last few months. And I realised that the needs of a infant change inversely with age. While a baby grows stronger and more independent, the elderly return to being weak and dependent on others.

I recently saw this short film on youtube which was really touching and highlighted the similarities.



It also highlighted how blind we are to see it in the realities of our lives, reflected in the different attitudes we have to the young and the old. How easy is it for us to be patient and loving to a small baby, but quick to be frustrated at the elderly. How fast we forget the care shown to us by our parents when we were babies, probably because we can't even remember it, when it is the same care that they need from us as they grow old.

Maybe some think economics when it comes to family, seeing children as an investment for the future, while the elderly are burdens or losses that need to be cut. Not everyone is going to be like the father in the film, keeping a diary of these little events with love, and be of sound enough mind to show it to their children.

This is a wonderful short film, with a real powerful message. Do pass it around. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNK6h1dfy2o
God Bless.

Why Wait?

Just saw an article on xt3.com about Lent and Confessions. In it the writer talks about what has been happening in various dioceses in the US, and the steps that they are taking to encourage the Sacrament of Reconciliation, especially during ths time of Lent. Some examples are adverts on billboards and in the papers to encourage reconciliation with God, having 24-hour confession days, dedicating one evening per week for confessions and even the priest going out into the street to invite people in.

While reading it, it just brought to mind some things that I have realised about the Sacrament of Confession in the last few years since I started to take my faith more seriously.

Firstly that I was brought up with the "Tradition" that we have to go for confession twice a year - before Easter and before Christmas. Then I discovered that the Catechsim of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that we are required to go for confession at least once a year. But that's like the mininmum requirement.

As I continued to grow in my faith, I realised that my sins were the obstacles in my relationship with God. And I discovered the beauty of the sacrament and the graces that flowed from receiving it strengthened me on my journey and my struggle with sin. While it is definitely uncomfortable to have to confess our sins to another person (especially now that most of the priests know me), it makes me confront the sins in my life. No longer can I sweep them under the carpet as if they did not happen. By voicing out my sins, I'm bringing these sins into the light and not allowing them to have control over me - Confession sets me free.

Pope John Paul II made his confession daily, Mother Teresa weekly. While I'm not saying that we all have to be at that frequency now, it would be good to increase our frequency of confessions from the once or twice a year to maybe once a month or once in two months. And grow from doing it out of obligation (easter & christmas), but because it helps our soul in our relationship with God.

The second "Tradition" that I had from young, was that I had to go for my confession during the penitential service held in church before Easter and Christmas. I would never miss it, and if I missed the one in my parish, I made sure I went to the one held in another parish. Of course for me, it was because confession was a tradition to be done before Easter and Christmas, so if the parish organises a penitential service, that would be the best time to go for it. Whats more there were priests from other parishes, so I didn't need to go to my own parish priests. Also because all my friends will be there, and we will go for supper after that.

But with my change of mindset of confessions, came the realisation of why should I wait for the penitential service to go for my confession. There is confession available before every weekend mass, or daily at Novena church (WARNING: Long queues). Why add to the number of people coming on that one night? I still go for the penitential services though. Not for my confession, but to celebrate the many people who are reconciling with God, and to pray for them. Also because it is "Tradition".

For those who still need the small push to take the first step to go for confessions, watch this video of the song by Phillips, Craig And Dean - When God Ran. We may be taking a step towards God, but He is running towards us. Why wait any longer?

Jesus Knew

As I was preparing for the Holy Thursday Session, I was looking for a video on the last supper, and I found this ad on Youtube



While it looked interesting at first, but the tagline "3G - Changing the course of history" just doesn't make sense, for us Catholics at least. As if Jesus finding out about Judas' betrayal would have changed anything. Because Jesus knew, with or without 3G technology, He Knew what was to happen and who it was that was going to betray him. That was one thing that struck me in yesterday's Gospel reading

For he knew who would betray him; for this reason, he said, "Not all of you are clean." (Jn 13:11)

And despite this knowledge Jesus continued to do what he had to do, is something that has been coming to me this Holy Week, from Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem, which the people saw as political freedom, yet Jesus knew what lay ahead, to the betrayal and the agony in the garden. Each and every action and decision Jesus made, was with the passion and death in mind. And yet he still carried on. We all know the dread we feel in our hearts when we know something bad is coming. And we do all we can to siam. But here Jesus shows us the courage, faith, obedience, total surrender and self-giving, which we are called to emulate in following the will of God. So difficult.

To end on a lighter note, I much prefer this humourous interpretation of the last supper, which shows Jesus really knew what was to come.



Going for the 3pm Good Friday Service now. Hope it storms, or at least the sky will darken.