Merry Christmas

IHM Testimony of Light Video 2010

Testimony of Light Video 2010 (as shown at Confirmation Retreat 2010)

To view the video in HD, go to my Facebook page here.

You can also view the 2009 video here.

^.^

Manfred

IHM Triduum 2010

To me, today’s homily served as a very good wake-up call.

Father spoke about liturgy of the word being the word of God, and how it is important for us to listen and pay attention to the word of God. Indeed, that is the least we can do. Anything less than that, qualifies as being rude to God. He then moved on to preach about how many people come for mass only as a Sunday obligation, and do not live the mass in our lives at all. He stressed the importance of knowing the true meaning of mass and living the mass in each and every small way that we can.

Unfortunately, I am, indeed, guilty of all the above wrongdoings. I find it hard to pay attention to the liturgy of the word (especially with so many changes made in our parish). I must admit that there are times I give in to the heaviness of my eyelids, and coupled with the air-conditioned atmosphere and lazy Sunday morning feeling, I fall asleep. I give myself excuses, telling myself that everyone around me is doing the same, but the truth is, I am being rude to God. It is an undeniable fact.

All this while, my family has not been very involved in church activities. One could even go as far as to say that my family members, including me, are all “Sunday Catholics”. Church is something we go for every Sunday, for one hour, because we MUST, because we’ve been taught from young that we MUST, because we’ve been taught in cathecism classes the 4^thcommandment, to keep the Sabbath. Before this year, things were not so bad, because I was “bounded” to church, by cathecism classes. Yet, after my confirmation, I found myself slowly drifting away from church. Church and Mass were just like any other Sunday activity, to get it done and out of the way. The moment I stepped out of church, I forget everything about it, until it comes again the week after.

Recently, many things begun happening in my life, be it academics, family issues or my own personal life, they all made me realise I needed God, that I wasn’t at all strong enough to deal with it myself. Coupled with today’s homily, I received a wake-up call from God.

Marlene Grayce Goh

A Deck of Cards

I remembered this is a story & I do hope all NS guys out there , esp for our Dearest ones in TOL & YM when you are out there in your field pack or busking in the warmth of Christ for NDP in your sweaty uniform, you remember this story.

A young soldier was in his bunkhouse all alone one Sunday morning. It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't made a noise.

The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week. As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an Army Sergeant came in and asked, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?"

The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."

The sergeant said, "Looks like you're going to play cards."

The soldier said, "No sir, you see, since we are not allowed to have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."

The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"

"You see the Ace, Sergeant, it reminds that there is only one God.

The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments.

The Three represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

The Four stands for the Four Apostles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The Five is for the five virgins, there were ten, but only five of them were glorified.

The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and Earth.

The Seven is for the day God rested after working the six days.

The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives, in which God saved the eight people from the flood that destroyed the earth for the first time.

The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten but nine never thanked Him.

The Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone.

The Jack is a reminder of Satan. One of God's first angels, but he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the Joker of eternal hell.

The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.

The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings.

When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year.

There are a total of 52 cards in a deck, each is a week, 52 weeks in a year.

The four suits represents the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

Each suit has thirteen cards, there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter.

So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for."

The sergeant just stood there and after a minute, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, can I borrow that deck of cards?"

Please also let remember and take time to pray for all of our soldiers who are being sent away, putting their lives on the line fighting for us.

Mass at Work

Whenever we are sent out from each mass, our mass has never ended. In fact, the priest will send us with, ‘Go in the peace of Christ’. This means that we are sent forth to continue our mass with others no matter where we are outside church. It is rather amusing that sometimes, once some people are out of church after the mass, they may start living as if they have not participated in the mass at all. Such negative attitudes can be shown through fighting with others to get out of the church carpark, scolding people, etc.

Work takes up most of the time of most working adults. We spend at least 8 hours of our time daily at work. That will mean that most part of our waking hours will be taken up by work. I do agree with one of my friends telling me that one’s inner state of mind and spiritual state will show through his work. How we behave at work will be the manifestation of what is inside us. When we participate in the mass actively, we will be active in receiving God’s Love and mercy through the Body of Christ and it depends on whether we would like to extend such Love and mercy to the others wherever we go. This also applies to workplace.

Work is never easy. God has His purpose in placing certain people above us as our authorities. Sometimes, we may be blessed with good and kind bosses and superiors while sometimes, we may get nasty people as our bosses. Frankly speaking, I have been getting nasty bosses most of the time and I complain a lot. However, I know that I am still blessed as these so called nasty bosses are the very people who are moulding me to be a better person. Over the years, I learn to depend more and more on God as I am an impatient and wilful person who likes to do things my way. Without God, I know I can never have the patience and love to handle such people above me and thus, I can never grow. Whether I like it or not, it’s either I leave the company or learn to grow under these people.

I also tend to bump into difficult people who keep on provoking and hurting me. Sometimes, they do it because they are also broken deep within. There are many times I really want to flare up especially when they try to make things difficult for me repeatedly. I know that I can never handle things alone. Who do I have? I have Christ in me. These are the very moments where I have to keep on dying to my pride and asking God to help me to have the patience and generous heart to accept these people as they are just as or even more broken than me. No doubt, I wish I can curse them. But, that will not solve the problems. Jesus has never taught us to go for ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Rather, these are the good moments for me to imitate Christ during each mass to break oneself so as to share with everyone with Love. I will always pray for strength and wisdom and self control before work each day so as to remind myself that God is in and with me even at work and set my mind right right at the beginning of each day with prayer.

Work life is unlike school. At work, we are paid for our services rendered to the companies. We are responsible for the tasks given to us. We may not like some tasks. For me, I really hate paperwork. And yet, I know I have to accept it as this will help me to accept the fact that life is not just about what I want. Sometimes, I am required to ‘go to places where I do not want to go’. This is one of the examples. In this way, I can grow to be more complete until God calls me to other places. Over the years, after exploring different fields, I become clearer where my strengths are.

To conclude, work life is never easy. It is also an area where we have to continue our mass. We don’t leave God in church and behave differently at work as if God is absent from our life at workplace. Since Jesus had died for us, all of us are here to continue his mission towards holiness through our daily living. Workplace is the very place where purification of self takes place and put the Catholic teachings into practice. We don’t just talk the talk but also walk the talk. How do we be light to the others? It is through how we handle people in our life, whether we choose to love or want things our ways. Imagine if Jesus only talked the talk. I think He could have preached but backed out and run away when called forth to die for us instead of dying for us. Love is not just mere talk. Action speaks louder than words. No matter where you are called to in life, be it study, work, home, etc., these are the very places where the mass continues until the next mass in church where we receive Him to strengthen us with Love to move on with Hope and Love in life.

Elena

Animals of God

In the past few sessions, we shared about what kind of animal we would want to be if we could be any animal in the world. the answers that came were interesting and a bit out of the ordinary. We had owl, elephant, cow, cats and dogs. These animals seem to be a representation of who we feel we are inside and how life is like to us.

Using this thought, have you ever wondered what kind of animal would Christ choose to be if He was asked the same question? If I boldly dare to answer this, He would have probably said a dog. He is loyal and obediant to the master ( Our Father in Heaven) even to His death. He was protective of his apostles like a pack leader would be. In the Garden of Gethsamane, He asked the guards to take him and allow His disciples to go free. Futhermore, He showed us the meaning of humility and service thorugh His actions; just as a dog sees himself. In a joke by Fr Aloy in one of his sermons, he said that dogs see humans as gods because they provide it with food and takes care of it. Similarly, Christ always acknowledges The Father in Heaven for all that He has given to Him and does the will of God. In addition, being a dog seem to go against the conventions at that time, which was what he was here for. To challenge the conventions of the people and help them to realise that God is a loving GOd and He loves the people to the point that He is willling to sacrifise His only Son so that we may live and have live. But I am sure these are not the only qualitites that Christ. His Love for us, gentleness and the way He lifts us up when we are down, seems to reflect a dog's care given to people.

Paul

Witnessing

"It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority"

This is a smack right in my face when I attended mass just now , i was being so human when I ask him of dates and time for events which would and have taken place in my life. HE just "gave it to me" - big time man. This really set me thinking throughout the mass - of coz not really paying much attention to the homily. I thought about my life i have always been asking asking and demanding. But how many times have I been an instrument to him. I remember Sr Angeline mentioned that when you say, "LORD USE ME AS YOUR INSTRUMENT" We are saying, take my whole being and not "GOD YOU CAN TAKE MY HANDS (or legs), ONLY" - NO but rather the whole being of us. Letting the Holy Spirit work within us. It set me thinking together with the lesson on Servant Leader that I learnt from cat class last week. This is something which TOL will have to work towards, in Theater and also LIFE. Letting the Holy Spirit be the one who is acting for the people and us as the instruments.

Witnessing

"you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth's remotest end"

The Disciples task by Jesus to be his witnesses - So are we as a Community of TOL

Have we in any part of our lives, witness to Jesus' Life, Death & Resurrection? We are not only a drama group but Rather a Christ -centered drama group and bringing Christ Love to others is definitely an element to others. We are also call to be witnesses for Christ and Testify.

In the coming week let us take time off to think of how have we been a witness for Christ.

Erica

Remain in my love

In todays reading , Christ challenges us to remain in his love. What in the world is to remain in his love. In last week's gospel it is touching on Love and I was so waiting for the priest to share about the 3 types of Christian Love - Philia, Eros & Agape.

Philia is the love between good friends - "platonic" love. It is a chosen love as we choose who we want to befriend. It is more conditional and less sacrificial. Philia is less willing to continually overlook faults and frequently forgive other.

Lets just take some time to reflect on the times we Choose our friends to be with. sadly the society brands us and sometimes "high" class people cannot mix with with their so called "low" class people. or even we choose to be in the "in" group and neglect whoever who is outside of it.

Eros on the other hand is the Greek word for romantic / sexual love. - passionate feeling of romantic attraction and felt between 2 lovers. It is also comprising of infatuation and lust too. While we cannot decide what we feel, we can and should control what we do in response to our feelings.

As much as Eros is a romantic love, is it all about feelings? What if 10 years down the road, you loose that "fire of passion" does it mean you divorce your spouse. Let us take a closer look at the people whom we say we "like, love or even have a crush on." Is it more of a feeling or something more than that?

Agape of coz is the most often use in the New Testament to describe Christian love. The acts of charity and service for others - even to those we do not like and do not even know. This love is unconditional and it is NOT a feeling. It is sacrificial and un-reciprocated love - JESUS - self giving.

In order to attain agape love, we look upon God's divine love made visible in our good works of charity and service. Agape is the type of love that all Christians are called to manifest in their lives by unconditional acts of goodwill and charity for others, especially the poor and disadvantaged.

As much as this word is an "overkill" it is the hardest to achieve. How many a times can we say to ourselves, i have loved the poor beggar on the road, the person who hurt us till we sometimes even think of killing them? How often have you "fed" the hungry - physically & even in the thirst for the salvation of God. "Cloth" the naked - giving clothes & even those who are lack of love and need us to cloth them with Christ love, warmth n compassion. Lastly give "shelter" to the homeless - Those who needs Christ in their Hearts and to be carried on the Wings of Eagles and protected by the snares of the Evil one. Or even those who are stray on the road who needs a place to stay - No coz society says if you let a stranger in , you might be harm.

Let us all take sometime to imitate on HIS unconditional love for us and be the true disciple of Christ in our own ways. But remember, this is not gonna be an easy task. "But I can do all things with Christ who strengthens me"

Erica Stella

Who am I

Movie on St John Vianney

It was for TOL members to wake up at an ungodly hour of the morning - for a public holiday. Yet some of us manage to wake up just to catch a glimpse of the Movie. Turn out for this parish event was not many, but the event was an enriching one for many of us. Paul, Manfred, Colin & several Youth Ministry people turned up for the movie screening. There were 2 parts to this event.

1) Movie screening

2) Adoration

_______________________________________

Life of St John

He was a French parish priest (8 May 1786 - 4 August 1859)

He was posted to Ars, a village not very far from Lyons. He realized that the Revolution's aftermath had resulted in religious ignorance, due to the destruction of the Catholic Church in France. Sundays in rural areas were spent working in the fields, or dancing and drinking. He was shocked to find that as to him Sundays was a day for religion. Few people came, but his continuous pray and fasting and even his sincerity to the people touched them and drew them back to church and even conversion in the village. In the confessional Vianney spent time in the confessional and gave homilies railing on blasphemy and dancing. If his parishioners did not give up dancing, he refused them absolution.

During the last ten years of his life, he spent sixteen to eighteen hours a day in the confessional.

His instructions were simple in language, full of imagery drawn from daily life and country scenes, but breathing faith and that love of God which was his life principle and which he infused into his audience as much by his manner and appearance as by his words, for, at the last, his voice was almost inaudible.

The greatest miracle of all was his life. He practised mortification from his early youth. and for forty years his food and sleep were insufficient, humanly speaking, to sustain life. And yet he laboured incessantly, with unfailing humility, gentleness, patience, and cheerfulness, until he was more than seventy-three years old.

To me I find the career and job of a priest really tiring and he has to be consistently devoted to his people. Hence, marriage is out of the question. Like St John, he realized that in order for a priest to reach out to all man, he has to be totally devoted to the people just like he has always been by the side of his villagers, listening to their problems and their confession. I really take my hat off to those who are willing to lay down their lives to make all humanity the love of their lives. But we ourselves need to take a step back to see how we can also be priest to the people of the world, living out our baptismal mission. - king, prophet, priest

In the part 2 of the Adoration, Many of the intercession was targeted to priest. Nicholas (our dearest adult advisor) came to my mind. People bet the same went for those who were present

Erica Stella

A Night With Father Antoine

23rd April, 2010 - A Friday.

We were all tired, having come from a long, tiring week of either school or work. Instead of dragging ourselves to the Upper Room (which, recently, is never open on time, causing Erica to go hunting for the caretaker of keys), we dragged ourselves to a little place called CAYC for a talk about adoration, targeted at our age groups.Of course, I was complaining about having to attend a boring talk about the wonders of kneeling down and adoring the Blessed Sacrament. I mean, after a long week of school, that was not really how i wanted to start of my weekend.

So, grudgingly, reluctantly, with many a temptation to just go home, I go to CAYC. And I sit. And I listen. And I even take down notes.

In summary, this is what Father Antoine said (in my own words, of course):

-Technology vs. God

In today's society, many of us cannot function without our handphones or computers. Here's a wake-up call to think about. False Idols. What does "idol" sound like? Being idle! Standing still, not progressing, not growing, not moving. If we are all the time, attached to one screen or another, where is the time to look at God? When do we spend with God? Of course, in mass! But honestly now, let me ask you a question. If i were to go through your mP3 right now, how many of us have religious songs in them? Do they outnumber the secular songs? If i were to check your phone, how many of us have the Bible application in it?

Father's point was we spend so much time on the material objects of this world. We say we'd die without the almighty facebook, or we can't live without our precious handphones. And yes, society has evolved so that the internet and handphones play a vital role in our day-to-day interaction. It was a big wake-up call when the other day, I brought my laptop to school and all my friends were sitting in a circle, laptops on. Instead of talking face-to-face, we were talking on facebook. Strange? It honestly makes me wonder if human interaction will cease to exist altogether in the future. If that happens, how will we know how to adore, how will we pray? There isn't a button n your keyboard that says "Prayer". Nor is there an application of it for any handphone, to my knowledge.

The sad thing about it is, we are, if you will, slaves to technology. We feel the need to have it around 24/7. Even when we sleep. To be fair, in the faced-paced world of today, we do need our handphones. We need to respond fast, simply because the phrase 'time and tide waits for no man' is just too true.

This is why the Garden of Gethsemane in IHM is such a - dare i say it? - Eden. It is open and waiting. Sure, it does close, because like every human, Jesus needs to sleep so tomorrow he can be on display in Gethsemane again for you. The point is, he is there, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. There, time ceases to exist (unless you have your handphone in your pocket and it starts buzzing incessantly or Greg happens to be taking a *ahem* snooze). It is peaceful, it is serene. It is safe. It is, in short, a sanctuary from the helter-skelter world that we live in today.

In lieu of bidding adieu, I shall show you a short dialogue i wrote during the talk.
GOD: My child, have you loved me?
Me: Uhm... Well, you've seen my life.
GOD: My child, have you loved me?
Me: Uhm... Yeah.
GOD: What's with the 'uhm'?
St. Peter: God, her life checks out, she didn't even own an iPhone. She can pass through
Me: YAY! *passes through pearly gates*
GOD: *takes out iPhone* Okay, the next person is some guy named Johnny Depp.
Me: WHAT?? Can I stay out here a little longer?? PLEASE?!?!

Cheers!!
AllyBONG

Camp Daniel Reflection

Day 1

The camp started at about 6 with dinner, before that we were all in the office introducing ourselves, to be honest, I was really surprised that there were only eight people at the camp, I expected about ten times that number actually. We then proceeded to have dinner at 7, dinner was a real eye opener with one of the campers(Jonathan)eating 3 plates of food. After dinner we had ice breakers, we played captains’ ball, but sitting down and with balloons, after like five minutes, we’d expended our supply of balloons and had to move on to the next game, which was ‘I have’ the exact opposite of the commonly played game ‘I never’. It was a great way to start the camp and get to know everyone. We then had a session on the first chapter of the book of Daniel. We watched a short animated clip that portrayed the scenes in Daniel 1, shortly after we did a reflection on the text. It was really interesting to see the breakdown of the book of Daniel and learning from the many strong traits that were prevalent in Daniel, for example his strong faith in God and his courage to stand up against authority to defend his faith.

Day 2

We started the day with morning prayer in the chapel, through the day we had three major events, of which I am unable to recall the order, but as follows:

1) An altar call

2) A trip to the Botanical Gardens

3) The surrendering at the cross

1-The altar call was really a unique experience as we were told to go up to the portrait of Jesus and light a candle, at the same time we could offer up to his our prayers and our needs, we were also encouraged to just surrender ourselves to God and let him lead us in our lives instead of following the plans that we have made for ourselves and expecting the future to be as we foresaw.

2-We went to the Botanical Gardens in the morning, all of us were expecting a simple reflecting to be done inside the Botanical Gardens, however, after doing a short reading on Daniel 4, we were given an hour to do our own reflections, we were told to walk around the Botanical Gardens, looking for a tree and drawing it out so that we could compare ourselves to and also write out why we found ourselves similar to the tree. It was really amazing how each of us were actually really able to relate to a specific tree and notice the goodness and flaws in the tree that were really identical to us. After the reflection was a picnic lunch beside one of the lakes, it was really nice as we had our meal while we were surrounded by nature and lush greenery.

3-The surrendering at the cross was really touching, we were once again encouraged to surrender our lives to God and let him decide what were we supposed to do with our lives, I was really deeply touched as I went up to the cross and prayed, after praying at the cross I felt significantly lighter, as if a huge burden was lifted off me. The experience is really hard to describe though.

Day 3

Once again we started the day with a morning prayer in the chapel, we then had a really interesting task, we were asked to see God in every small thing in life, so we split up and started to clean up the entire CAYC, I did the raking, I learnt that it is extremely tiring to try to rake on the road, after awhile I decided to just start picking up the leaves by hand. Thankfully the rest of the chores like cleaning the windows and trimming the hedge were completed much faster and the rest of the people came over to help with the “raking”.

After doing the chores we were all pretty much exhausted, but we still managed to enjoy a really good game of captains’ ball, played with a real ball this time, we ended the game with a draw and just twenty minutes of fast-paced sport had seemed like hours. After rushing into the showers, we prepared to go to the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd for mass before setting off for a prayer walk in town with our own small groups. The prayer walk after the mass was really interesting as I walked around CHIJMES, Shaw House and Borders. When you walk in the middle of Orchard road with the thought of prayer and wanting to just observe without talking to your friends and having tons of other distractions, you tend to see a lot more and also realize the pollution that is present within our society. We prayer-walked in Orchard with the intention of praying for the people around and looking out for the many common modern “idols” that are present in our lives today. Many of us do not realize but simple things such as shopping, advertisements, money are all common idols. We also realized that the ethics that companies have are decreasing rapidly. This point came across really strongly as we saw many advertisements with scantily clad women plastered over the entire area, portraying women as objects and commodities. After finishing the prayer walk, we were all really exhausted from all the walking and were back in CAYC for our shared reflection of what we experienced during the prayer walk, after which many of us wanted to stay in for another night and just leave in the morning because it was already approximately 11.30pm at that point in time, sadly we were not allowed to stay and broke camp with an arrangement to meet up on the coming Friday for a get-together and a talk.

The camp on a whole was a really fresh experience for me as I have never been to a camp that focused so much on spirituality and conversion before, usually camps just have plenty of games and team bonding activities, I left the CAYC with a tired but at the same time changed and refreshed mind.

Michael Soh

March 2010

The Lent Journey Retreat

Learning to Forgive

Developing Visual & spatial intelligence of TOL

Learning to Obey

"I am the Potter , you are the Clay"

Developing intra- personal Skills : Learning to Reflect

Prayer Buddy & quiet time

Interpersonal Skills - Complementing each other

Learning to write someing nice about another person

Communication with each other

OUR FAMILY
Brotherly LOVE
"let me support you , we're a family!"

If your life was hanging by a thread ! what would you do?

We learn to support each other !

if all of us walk i different Directions, we don't see the same goal (HEAVEN) , we'll never be able to move (stagnated)

Looking other for the other (imagination)
Community
Yep, together we stand as 1 , forever we're a family!

FEBRUARY BABIES BIRTHDAY

birthday boy daniel

birthday boy Manfred

Birthday BOY Nicholas

Birthday Boy Colin

Natasha & Erica Having fun time with the camera