St. Anne's Church - 125 years

St.Anne's Shrine 

Statue of St.Anne with the Blessed Virgin Mary

Blessed Sacrament 

Procession

The crowd

Lord, teach us how to pray?

I was once the president of the catholic society (now consider myself as the advisor to the society) in my campus. All of us (the members and I) will meet up every week to have prayers & devotion( eg: rosary, novena to the mother of perpetual help). Before we start our meeting on a particular day, usually, we will start it with an opening prayer. I think most of the students don't really like to lead in prayer, regardless of whether that is an opening prayer or closing prayer. The reason being is that most of us do not know what to pray or what to say in front of the crowd. Same like me, as a facilitator, when I first stand in front of the crowd to lead in prayer. I think most of us are facing the same problem together with the disciples in those day. we have the same commonality that "WE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO PRAY". Precisely, I guess most of us do not know what is the correct word that we should utter or using in our prayer. We want to pray, but how can we pray?

In today's gospel," Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him,
“Lord, teach us to pray just as John taught his disciples.”  He said to them, “When you pray, say:Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.” (LK11:1-4)

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray he gave them the disciple's prayer, what we call the Our Father or Lord's Prayer. What does Jesus' prayer tell us about God and about ourselves? First, it tells us that God is both Father in being the Creator and Author of all that he has made, the first origin of everything and transcendent authority, and he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only begotten Son who, reciprocally is Son only in relation to his Father (Matthew 11:27). All fatherhood and motherhood is derived from him (Ephesians 3:14-15). In the Lord Jesus Christ we are spiritually reborn and made new, and we become the adopted children of God (John 1:12-13; 3:3).

Jesus teaches us to address God as "our Father" and to confidently ask him for the things we need to live as his sons and daughters. We can approach God our Father with confidence and boldness because Jesus Christ has opened the way to heaven for us through his death and resurrection. When we ask God for help, he fortunately does not give us what we deserve. Instead, he responds with grace and mercy. He is kind and forgiving towards us and he expects us to treat our neighbor the same. We can pray with expectant faith because our heavenly Father loves us and treats us as his children. He delights to give us what is good. His love and grace transforms us and makes us like himself. Through his grace and power we can love and serve one another as Jesus taught with grace, mercy, and loving-kindness. 

Now, do you treat others as they deserve, or do you treat them as the Lord would with grace and mercy? Jesus' prayer includes an injunction that we must ask God to forgive us in proportion as we forgive those who have wronged us. Are you ready to forgive as Jesus forgives?

If a neighbor can be imposed upon and coerced into giving bread in the middle of the night, will not God, our heavenly Father and provider, also treat us with kind  and generous care no matter how troubling or inconvenient the circumstances might appear? Jesus states emphatically, How much more will the heavenly Father give! St. Augustine of Hippo (340-425 AD) reminds us that "God, who does not sleep and who awakens us from sleep that we may ask, gives much more graciously." The Lord Jesus assures us that we can bring our needs to our heavenly Father who is always ready to give not only what we need, but more than we can ask. God gives the best he has. He freely pours out the blessing of his Holy Spirit upon us so that we may be filled with the abundance of his provision. Do you approach your heavenly Father with confidence in his mercy and kindness towards you?

Pope John Paul II, at the end of his first encyclical letter, The Redeemer of Man, maintained that our prayer must be "great, intense, and growing." He also emphasized that the Lord wants our prayer to be combined with fasting, for the Lord has decided at this time to make prayer and fasting the first and most effective weapons against our culture of death (The Gospel of Life, 100). According to these criteria, is your prayer life satisfactory to the Lord?

To pray as the Lord wants us to pray, we must see God as our loving Father. That is the first thing Jesus taught us about prayer (see Lk 11:2). We must be aware that our Father sees our prayer and fasting (Mt 6:6, 18). Abraham stopped short in his prayer for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared destruction. His prayer was limited because he:

• wasn't sure whether God was just (see Gn 18:25),
• was even less sure of God's mercy, and
• projected his own interior conflicts onto God and thereby accused God of being impatient (Gn 18:30) and angry (Gn 18:32).

Abraham had little concept of God being a loving Father, and he prayed and did not pray accordingly.

We who are in Christ can and must pray always with loving, tender confidence in our Father. In that way, we will pray as we ought (Rm 8:26).

God Compassionate love for all person

Prayer Service: In Loving Memory of our Departed Brother, Brian Lim Beng Choon

For an economic student, the term “opportunity cost” is one of the most familiar term that we use throughout our degree study in university. Consider this as a technical term or not, the meaning of opportunity cost, simply put, it refers to the second best alternative that we have to forgo in effect of choosing the first best alternative. Basically, this is the term used in decision making. For me, this term is also applicable in life, apart from our decision making in an organization. We can either choose God, whom bring life to us and lead us to a happy joy or the devil that brings ultimate destruction that lead us to death. If one were to choose, as the term opportunity cost here suggest by choosing the best alternative, we as a human, we will definitely choose God that send us abundant blessing.

Recall Satan’s promise to Eve when he tempted her to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). “That is,” the tempter was saying, “you can decide for yourself what is good and what is evil. You can be your own boss.” This is the sin of pride: the illusion of self-sufficiency, the illusion that a person can be his own source of his fulfillment. This is the root of all sin.

We are living in this secular world, the world that blur our vision of God. Religion might not be the first priority in life as a young adult like me, what concerns me the most, perhaps, getting a good job with a good salary, good wife—beautiful, nice body & etc may be at the top of the list. However, we fail to recognize the relationship that we should have in life, that is the life with God, our creator. We fail to recognize that He can provide everything that we need in life. He is our creator, He create us out of His abundant love and blessings, of course, He also know that what we need in our life.

One may ask how can we deepen our relationship with God? The answer is simple: PRAYER. Prayer is the best way that we can communicate with God. We can leave all our sorrow to God, I guess this is the best way to deal with our inner feelings that make us feel so depress in life.

Today, as we pray for our brother who had passed away last week, it is also re-awakening for each one of us the importance of relationship. The importance of reaching out the love, the abundant blessing that we received from the lord, to the people out there. What is the greatest commandment of the Lord? I guess most of you would know the greatest command is “Love your God with all your heart and with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself” (Lk10: 27-28).

In today's gospel on the Gospel reading of the Prodigal son, The Parable of the Prodigal Son is probably the best-known and most-loved of all of Jesus’ parables. It has been called “the pearl and crown of all the parables of Scripture.” It has even received the title Evangelium in Evangelio, “the Gospel within the Gospel.” Together let’s savor some of its richness. The younger of two sons asked for his share of his father’s property (Lk. 15:11–12). We know from Deuteronomy 21:17 that under Jewish law, the younger brother’s share would be half of what the elder brother would receive. This request by the younger son expresses a desire that has plagued us human beings from the beginning. I mean the desire for independence from God, the desire to be in charge of one’s own life.

That’s how it is with us and God. By His creation, God gives us a free will. When we begin to think we want to be free from God’s service and find our liberty somewhere else, God lets us make that vain attempt. Eventually we learn that in turning from God’s will we inevitably become slaves of our own selfish desires. Our God-given free will gives us our grandeur, but our misuse of that free will gives us our misery. Immediately, it seems, the younger son went into “a far country” and spent all he had. For us, says St. Augustine, “the far country” is forgetfulness of God. In the slavery of his own desires, the younger son used up all his resources in a vain attempt to find happiness.
A famine arose in that country, and the younger son was broke and hungry (Lk. 15:14) That prodigal son’s suffering in that far country is itself a parable of the suffering which sin always brings.
And then the man “came to himself”—opened his eyes to the truth about himself (Lk. 15:17).When we come to our true selves, the selves God created us to be, we have to come to God through His Son. As the Second Vatican Council reminds us, “Christ the Lord, . . . in the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love, fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his most high calling” (Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 22). Having come to his senses, the prodigal son decided to return to his father (Lk. 15:18). Why would he dare go back home? Probably because he knew he had once been a member of that family, and perhaps still was. When you and I turn away from our sin and back to God, we know we shall not be rejected. At our baptism we were adopted as sons and daughters of God, and nothing—not even our worst sins—can cancel that adoption.

Notice that the father welcomed back the prodigal son even before the son made his confession. Imagine the son’s surprise. And imagine his immediate awareness of how totally undeserving he was of such mercy! In our return to the Father, the more we receive his love, the more grievously do we look on our sins. Repentance is a continuing process: As we grow in understanding God’s forgiving love, we mourn that we have sinned against that love. When the saints urge us to bemoan our sins, they’re not talking about remorse—”why did I do such a thing?” No, indeed! Bemoaning our sins means sorrowing because of the suffering our sins inflicted on our Lord Jesus on the Cross. The more we know and love our Lord Jesus, the more we despise our sins.

The Church proclaims this parable to us, not to entertain us, but to hold up a mirror to us. Let us now reflect, in the prodigal son, can we see an image of ourselves? Who of us has not turned away from the Father? Who of us has not put great distance between ourselves and the Father, by our sins? Or take the scornful, self-righteous, unforgiving elder brother. Who of us has not harshly judged persons who grievously distort their own lives? Who of us has not withheld forgiveness—or at least been reluctant to grant it—to those who need our forgiveness?

In these and countless other ways, you and I too often wander off into far country and squander or grossly misuse God’s good gifts. That’s what sin is.
God grant that every time we go away from God, we will accept His grace to come to ourselves. Come to our senses, and turn back to the Father. His Son has made it perfectly clear that the Father is always waiting for us, always watching for us, infinitely eager to welcome us back home.

"Ignorance of scripture is ignorant of Christ"

Last Sunday we celebrated bible Sunday. In today's world,  reading the Bible may not seem as attractive or enticing as reading a best selling novel.  This beautiful event reminds me a beautiful quote stated by St. Jerome, which he once said " ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ." Saint Jerome is the doctor of the church where the church remembered for his great work in translating the bible into Latin, the edition known as vulgate. I guess for many people, the thought of reading the bible from cover to cover comes across as a daunting task. As a young adult like me, my enthusiasm was slowly waning as I found it more difficult to understand the Old Testament. I have heard over the years that other people also faced similar hurdles.

In the past, there were few opportunities for the laity to attend bible study. But, today there is a renewed desire to know the Word of God seeing that there are many programmes like prayer meeting that we have each week in our campus, faith formation in our parish, bible knowledge for school goers. Even though these programmes have rekindled the desire in many to understand better out scriptures, those attending are still only a fraction of the general catholic population in our campus. 

Programme organizer might be wondering why is it that people are not rushing to understand the scriptures. I guess many do not see the need to read or even study the Word of God and choose to remain ignorant.

This is a very sad reality that probably captures the general apathy shown by many Catholics. This lack of knowledge is also seen when many "good" Catholics give up their faith when challenged by Bible weilding Christians or other faith believer for that matter.

I guess one of the reason why many Catholics throw in the towel easily is because they do not realize that we Catholics actually quote scripture all the time. Yes, nearly everything we say at Mass has its roots in sacred scripture. When we attend mass, we hear a reading from the Old Testament, we recite or sing one of the Psalms; we listen to a reading from the Epistles and followed by a Gospel reading. The whole structure fits together so that the Eucharistic service is focused on Christ in the Gospels. The church's liturgical calendar follows three years cycle of scripture reading. So a catholic who goes to church faithfully will have heard almost the entire bible read over the three years.

Furthermore, the responses, and the words of the communion service are almost all from scripture. So a church going catholic does know and use scriptures for their primary meditation and worship (ps.119:48), but they failed to recognize that it also act as a personal information and instruction for life. Even our catholic doctrines and moral teachings are biblically based and permeated and upheld with scripture. We need to understand the scriptures better to see how our faith is rooted and grounded in the bible.

Pope Francis once said, "to live according to the Gospel is to fight against selfishness. The Gospel is forgiveness and peace; it is love that comes from God."

So don't be ignorant, read and understand the Bible.

Sharing is Caring

"Sharing is Caring" This quote might sound familiar to you. We can share things in many ways. Sometimes we can share it verbally or non-verbal. Both ways seem fine for me. Writing is one of the non-verbal communication for me to convey a message to the audience that I'm dealing with. Now, writing has become part of my life, is just like someone who like to keep a diary of their own, in which each of the events in his or her life can be recorded through words. A friend of mine once ask me this, why do you like to write? Don't you feel bored when you write? I guess his meaning was I need to crack my head and think something to write, and I will get exhausted soon! Well, this is hobby my friend. I like to write and I like to share. I strongly believe that writing can share some of the experiences that you and I might face in life. 

Writing is never tired! yes, sometimes I might run out of topic even if I feel like writing something. I guess that is part of the obstacle that I face as a blog writer. I doesn't mean that everyone might experience the same situation like me, but it might applicable for some writers who are just like me. 

If you have been reading and following my blog, I guess you know that lately I will share more on my belief. The belief that I'm having now. The belief that I can express it in words. The belief that I can share and express it through words. Awesome right? Often, the power of words can bring you a great imagination. 

To further analyst on writing a blog and a diary, one might differentiate it by saying blog is a public thing, which everyone can read, comments or even quote you for saying something. Well, sometimes we must be careful on what we are writing and saying, of course, I don't share anything private about me and sensitive issue for that matter. I'll share something in general. 

Writing is never tired for me. However, Writing has given me an opportunity to share! To share something in general, to share something people are discussing or we known it as a hot topic issue, because I recognize the fact that "Sharing is Caring".

Follow Him with Joy

I'm happy that I was able to partake the Eucharistic celebration with the students in one of those university that located in Kuala Lumpur. It is a great honour and pleasure that I'm invited to pray and to shared some of stories with them. At the same time,to get some input from the students. I still remember there a few non-catholic students joined in and celebrated this wonderful mass with us and praising our Lord. I was amazed that these non-catholic shared with me their interest in the catholic faith, importantly, they found peace! They love the prayer that we pray, they love the hymns that we sung, they love everything! Most importantly, I can see their love for Christ, the anointed one, which is our Savior and Messiah.

As a president of the Catholic student society, to play a role as a leader, we need to face different types of problems. We need to deal with some unexpected situation. Even, we need to take criticism. When something goes wrong, you are the first who will be shot by the people, members or lecturer. Well, in any organization for that matter, leaders are facing problems with all kinds. they need to face critics often! I guess this is the heaviest burden that a leader got to bear on their shoulder.

In today's gospel reading, what does Jesus mean when he says his disciples, the follower of Christ, or leader for that matter, must be sheep in the midst of wolves? The prophet Isaiah foretold a time when wolves and lambs will dwell in peace (Isaiah 11:6 and 65:25) This certainly refers to the second coming of Christ when all will be united under the Lordship of Jesus after he has put down his enemies and established the reign of God over the heavens and the earth. In the meantime, the disciples must expect OPPOSITION and PERSECUTION from those who oppose the gospel. Jesus never hesitated to tell his disciples what they might expect if they followed him. Here Jesus says to his disciples: This is my task for you at its grimmest and worst, do you accept it? This is not the world's way of offering a job. After the defeat at Dunkirk. Churchill offered his country blood, toil, sweat, and tears. Often, this is not the message that we prefer to hear when the Lord Jesus commissions us in his service. Nonetheless, our privilege is to follow in the footsteps of the Master who laid down his life for us.

Now, are you willing to to accept hardship and suffering in following after the Lord?

Back to the topic as a leader. In many times, we might face difficulties in dealing with our members or some authority! Now, the question is can we bear our cross with joy?  As a young leader like me, sometimes I face hardship! sometimes I might discourage with things and matter that just suddenly pop-ups. But,  I know that our Lord Jesus is cheering for us in heaven, so that we may accomplish our task at the finish line. He is the one who always support us and give us the grace to accomplish our task in life.

Don't be surprised if "You will be hated by all on account of Me. But whoever holds out till the end will escape death." (Matthew 10:22) Jesus commanded His disciples to be on "guard with respect to others."( Mt10:17) because He would send His disciples out "like sheep among wolves"( Mt. 10:16). He said that they may be handed over to the police by their own families (see Mt10:21) because we are Jesus' disciples, we may be handed over to be beaten, tried, and executed, after having witnessed for Jesus by the power of the Spirit (see Mt 10:17-21) That is why throughout centuries, many Christian who died for their faith which known as Martyr. We must arm ourselves with the mentality that we will suffer in flesh (1 Pt 4:1). Expect the privilege of persecution (see Acts 5:41) as a Christian. However, the great consolation for us as a Christian is that Jesus will be our refuge, and He will be there always to love us and protect us. He will give us strength.  Importantly, we will be enjoying with Him in His everlasting Kingdom that He prepare for each one of us in heaven.