Friar Arul gives his session on the Rukun Negara during the CAC’ Staff Lenten Recollection
KOTA KINABALU – Delivering his sessions in a fluent malay, Friar Arul Maridass OFM guided the staff of Catholic Archdiocesan Centre for a half day Lenten Recollection, taking the theme ‘Jesus’ Experience in Our Ministries’.
Friar Arul, who is currently serving as assistant priest at St Joseph, Papar, said that for a person who had received baptism, he or she must have an experience ‘being’ with Jesus. Just like someone walking under a light where there should be a shadow of that person, likewise, that should be our life by which Jesus is inseparable with our Christian daily living.
Being a staff at the administration centre of the diocese is a privilege and also a vocation, said Friar Arul. “Out of thousands of catholics in the archdiocese, here you are, working for the Archdiocese. In deed it is a privilege, but above that, look at it as a vocation that you’re serving the catholic community through the specific job that you are entrusted with,” explained Friar Arul.
Expounding of the meaning of Rukun Negara by extrapolating it with biblical verses, Friar Arul said that the national principles have an implication which is applicable and necessary for Christian life. Giving an example on the first principle, ‘Faith to God’ (Kepercayaan kepada Tuhan), he said that being citizen of the country and also as Christians, daily lives is being defined from the implications based on the first principle.
The sessions was then followed by ‘washing of feet’ among the staff symbolising service to each other as a community within the CAC. The half day recollection then ended with a Eucharistic celebration.
We are blessed to have two new novices in 2023. On 14 January, Friar Peter Michael, Director of the Novitiate at St Anthony Friary, received Friars Jorgerson Japar and Nicholas Lee into the Novitiate programme.
From left : Novice Friar Jorgerson, Novice Master Friar Peter Michael, Novice Friar Nicholas
Novitiate is a sacred time during which the novices undergo an intense period of formation to know and experience the Franciscan way of life. It is a year for them to understand themselves, to form their minds and hearts more deeply in the spirit of St Francis, and to test their resolution and suitability for the life of a friar.
The novices begin their day with Morning Prayer and Mass at 7 am. They then attend classes on Franciscan Spirituality, Franciscan History, the Writings of St Francis and St Clare, and the Constitutions of the Order. At noon, they have Midday Prayer followed by lunch and then personal time. At 6 pm, they gather with the rest of the community for Evening Prayer followed by dinner and then Night Prayer at 8 pm.
Novices also have household chores. They cook for the community twice a week and do some cleaning and gardening. On Thursday mornings, they assist in teaching Catechism classes at St Anthony’s Primary School.
Please keep Jorgerson and Nicholas in your prayers as they continue on their Novitiate journey.
With the movement restrictions for Covid-19 lifted, the Franciscan Friars are delighted to be able to connect en masse and in person again.
On 28 February, the Devotion to St Anthony returned to the Church of St Mary of the Angels. Join us there at 7 pm on Tuesdays, after the evening Mass. The virtual shrine remains available for those of you who cannot get to church in time, or prefer to pray at your own time and in your own space.
Our Mother’s Day Concert returns too. Mothers hold a special place in the hearts of the Franciscan Friars. Through the motherhood of Mary, the Son of God became our brother. Through his mother Lady Pica, St Francis of Assisi learned how to love and be loved. St Francis asked his brother friars to care for one another as a mother cares for her son. Since then, mothers have been the major inspiration for most, if not all, friars in their journey and mission to love and serve God and one another.
Join us on 6 May at the Church of St Mary of the Angels as we friars give thanks for the gift of all mothers with a special tribute to Our Lady, the Mother of the Word Incarnate. The evening of prayer and celebration begins at 8 pm. Tickets will be available in April.
Before the concert, we have in April the Conference on Franciscan Spirituality where, as our Custos Friar Derrick Yap said, we hope to deepen our knowledge of Franciscan Spirituality, and so be recharged and renewed for mission and fraternal relations. The conference will be held over two days, and we will be taking it to three locations so that more people can attend. We hope to see you in Kota Kinabalu (12 and 13 April), Kuching (15 and 16 April) or Singapore (19 and 20 April). To find out more about the talks and how to register, visit franciscans.sg/ conference-on-franciscan-spirituality.
Every Lent, we journey through the desert landscape of our souls endeavouring to strip ourselves of all that burdens, oppresses and encumbers us. This is so that we can free our hearts to welcome the graces of Easter, the greatest event of Salvation history.
Some of us enter into the Good Friday liturgy more wholeheartedly than for the Easter Sunday Mass. The Good Friday service seems to move our hearts more. It shows us that deep in our souls, we connect with the self-emptying act of Jesus Christ – Jesus stripped and tortured, cruelly crucified on the cross, the emblem and epitome of shame and pain. Somehow what Jesus went through resonates with our own pain and distress.
As we hear that “it is always darkest before the dawn”, we know that our spiritual dawn is ushered in by our God who never abandons us. Jesus’ painful passion and death are overcome by spiritual grace and new life. This is what Easter is all about! The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the realm of the dead so that suffering and death have no hold on us anymore.
Jesus rose to new life in a glorified state. Our destiny is also to enjoy this amazing resurrection of our own bodies! We profess this every time we say the creed, but have we given enough thought and reflection to this reality and destiny of our Christian journey?
Many of us struggle to free our hearts to welcome the graces promised to us. We struggle to free our hearts from sin, from unforgiveness, from doubts, from insecurities. So where and how do we begin journeying into greater freedom?
Our Lord Jesus shows us the way for he is The Way. He overcame the triple temptation that tripped Adam and Eve. They ate the forbidden fruit because they saw that it was
1. good for food (lust of the flesh = pleasure),
2. a delight for the eyes (lust of the eyes = possession), and
3. good for knowledge to be like gods (pride of life = pride).
The devil tried to get Jesus to turn stone into bread (pleasure), to take possession of the kingdoms of the earth (possession) and to throw himself off the temple to prove that he was the Son of God (pride). To no avail.
To have this same power over temptation, Jesus commanded us to fast, give alms and pray, and to do all these in secret. Fasting is the antidote to pleasure, almsgiving is the reverse of possession, and prayer is the remedy against pride. What incisive wisdom from our Lord who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Lent is a good time to take stock and prioritise what the Lord has shown us is the way towards a life that is freer and more life- giving, and to reflect on how we can integrate these practices wholistically in our lives.
For the friars, the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience we profess as Religious can be seen as addressing the three temptations of possession, pleasure and pride respectively. For Franciscan Religious, our appreciation of the vow of poverty is “to have nothing of our own”. St Francis used the term “sine proprio” (without appropriation, without the need to possess) to remind his friars that we are not to cling to even the little that we have so that our hearts are free. If our hearts need to cling, to possess and to hoard, then our hearts are not free to love generously, and we may be too self- absorbed and self-preserving to be attuned to the needs around us.
Many of you have integrated almsgiving into your spiritual life. You practise almsgiving not only during Lent, but throughout the year.
We Franciscan Friars are grateful beneficiaries of your practice of almsgiving. Your contributions support the formation of our student friars, and the efforts of our vocation promotion team to journey with young men who are aspiring to our Franciscan way of life. They support the ongoing formation of our Professed Friars through training conferences and formative opportunities, even post-graduate degrees.
I myself have benefitted from your generosity which helped make possible my studies in Dogmatics and Master’s degree in Formation at the Antonianum, the Franciscan University in Rome. Other friars have done studies in Franciscan Spirituality, Canon Law, Sacraments, Liturgy, Spiritual Direction and Psychology, and two friars are currently pursuing their Master’s degree in Psychology and Counselling to better equip our Custody in the areas of pastoral care and healing.
We are truly grateful that you have chosen to be part of our mission and ministry. It is because of your support that we have also been able to begin new ministries, maintain the places we live in as well as meet our obligations as a Religious entity and charity in both Singapore and Malaysia.
As we journey from the graced season of Lent into the liberating effects of Easter, may we truly allow Jesus our Risen Lord to set us free through the practices of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. And thus truly live life to the full, and accompany others in their journey towards fullness of faith and love.
Christ is risen, He is truly risen! This is the Easter cry, a shout of joy from the heart that darkness and death are overcome by light and life. This is the mystery we celebrate at Easter, the Paschal Mystery that God who became man out of love for us has passed over from death to new life. We carry this same mystery within our lives throughout the year. What difficulties and distress we experience are part of the journey into deeper and greater freedom and faith.
These post-pandemic days can be likened to the liberating Easter experience as we come out of the painful tomb-like isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic. We take the opportunity to reconnect in person, and to reach out to the poor who struggled alone because of the movement restrictions.
During the pandemic, the Franciscan Friars, together with the parish team of St Mary of the Angels, did our best to maintain connection by reaching out through videos for Sunday Mass, Daily Liturgy of the Word, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and many other occasions. These we did out of our desire to nourish seeking souls and lighten heavy hearts, even dancing and singing, which was out of the comfort zone of several friars, in the hope of bringing a smile to your faces.
Now that we can gather without restriction, the Franciscan Friars have resumed in-person activities. Our Devotion to St Anthony is back in the Church of St Mary of the Angels. Also returning is our Mother’s Day Concert, our once a year event to all who are “mothers” to us. Many of you have stood by us these many years contributing in many different ways, through prayers, ideas, volunteering your time and effort, regular financial support and the like. We will be sharing with you how you have sustained our friars, and helped to build our presence and ministries in Singapore and Malaysia. See the News section for more on this.
And we have our first Conference on Franciscan Spirituality coming up. Through the talks by Friar Wayne Hellmann OFM Conventual, we hope to deepen our knowledge of Franciscan Spirituality, and so be recharged and renewed for mission and fraternal relations! That’s in April and all are welcome, especially for the evening sessions!
April is a month for great celebration for us – Easter of course, and on 25 April, our Custody officially becomes autonomous. We are grateful that God has blessed us and guided us to this point where as a Franciscan Religious entity, we are now “mature” enough to be on our own, and can in turn care for other entities. We owe this journey to you, our steadfast friends and benefactors. You stayed together with us through the storms, and gave us the strength and resources to weather through the vicissitudes of life.
It is with deep gratitude that I pen these words of acknowledgement and appreciation. Let us pray that together we may journey authentically and audaciously on this sacred pilgrimage we call Life.
Friar Cruzender mengoles abu di dahi salah satu kanak-kanak
KINARUT – Lebih 600 umat memenuhi gereja Paroki St Augustine, Kinarut dalam Misa Kudus Rabu Abu jam 7.30 pm pada 22 Feb lalu di yang dipimpin oleh Friar Cruzander Alex, OFM.
Friar Cruzander dalam homilinya, menyeru umat untuk berani mengutamakan Tuhan untuk melawan arus dunia yang berlawanan dengan arus kasih.
Dia juga berkata kemajuan dunia memisahkan kita daripada Tuhan kerana kecanggihan alat telekomunikasi menyebabkan manusia mudah jatuh ke dalam dosa.
Hal ini demikian kerana, manusia berpelajaran cenderung untuk meninggalkan nilai moral dan akhlak sehingga ia semakin jauh daripada Tuhan.
Friar meminta umat Katolik merenung dan bertaubat mulai pada hari pertama masa Pra-paska dengan berpuasa, berpantang, berdoa dan beramal.
Tambahnya, banyak kesempatan yang boleh digunakan untuk mengasihi dan berbuat baik agar bebas daripada dosa dengan mengakui dosa serta menerima pengampunan daripada Tuhan.
