This week in Catholic News 04/10/09

Whew! That’s another issue of CatholicNews prepared and sent to the printers. Our page 1 stories this fortnight are the pope’s visit to the Czech Republic, but that is somewhat overshadowed by something closer to home.

Typhoon Ketsana, or Ondoy, as it was referred to in the Philippines, has, in the past week, moved over the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, causing huge damage to these countries, especially the Philippines and Vietnam.

Reports are still coming in as to just how bad it is, but it’s bad. At one point, about 80 percent of Manila, the capital city of the Philippines was underwater. We’ve read reports of how houses were flooded all the way up to the roof, and how its occupants had to spend the night on the roof. I guess it’s hard for us in Singapore to imagine such a flood in our own country today.

In other local news, Church of Our Lady Of Lourdes gets a new parish administrator – not to be confused with church secretary! Its current administrator is Msgr Eugene Vaz, but that will change from Oct 15 onwards.

We picked up a juicy tidbit from the bulletin of St. Francis of Assisi parish about how a driver shattered the locks of the church gates. You can get the full story in the CatholicNews this weekend.

There are a couple of milestone anniversary celebrations that we have reported this issue. Both are relatively quiet organisations in the church here. One is the Commission for Mandarin-speaking Catholics, and the other is the Life Direction Team. One of our writers has been working closely with Hai Sing Pao, so we are getting more reports on the Mandarin-speaking community nowadays. That’s a good thing, because our other writers are English-speaking, which can make it hard for us to report on this small but important community.

Two reasons why this community is important in the local church are: 1) Chinese make up almost 75 percent of the population in Singapore, and many of the older generation communicate better in Mandarin than in English; and 2) There are many foreign workers from China coming to Singapore. The latter reason is especially important because many of these are Mandarin-speaking only, and they come from an atheistic country. That means there is a spiritual vaccum deep within them and are likely to be searching for God in their own ways. More evangelisation needs to be done, and the Mandarin-speaking community has realised this and have started doing something about it.

Related to this search for God is the story on the Life Direction Team, which helps Christians to deepen their relationship with God. It’s a quiet ministry because much of its work in spiritual direction is carried out one-to-one. Its effects, however, are powerful, because each spiritual director helps individuals to encounter the living God in their daily lives. What struck us most about the work of the Life Direction Team is that they have attracted the attention of Protestant Christians who have been attending Life Direction Team courses for the past 10 years or so, learning from the Church something that is “very Catholic”, as one Life Direction Team member tells me.

Relationships with the Living God have to start somewhere, and for some of us (myself included), that relationship began when I was a youth. This issue of CatholicNews has a two-page spread on the first-time ever “District Youth Day” celebrated in our five Districts. Photos and reports were prepared by the youths themselves.

Somewhere in the middle of the paper is a small but interesting article on the upcoming SIGNIS World Congress that will be taking place in Chiang Mai from Oct 17-21. Speaking at this congress for Catholic communicators is a Steven Gan, co-founder of Malaysiakini, the country’s first Internet-only news outlet. It’s a bit like Singapore’s “The Online Citizen”, except this one is much more well-read (since Malaysia’s mainstream media is more restricted than ours). Incidentally, did you know that Malaysia has a higher Internet penetration rate than Singapore?

Our Year For Priests feature this issue is on Father Louis Loiseau. He has spent more years as a priest than any other priest in Singapore, but he is not the oldest. Father Loiseau is truly an inspiring and humble priest. While interviewing him, what I found most special about him is that he thinks that priests (including himself) are not supposed to be special in any way. Yet he carries out his priestly duties in a really inspiring way, possibly because he has a picture of St. John Vianney (patron saint of priests) in his office to constantly remind him of what it means to be a priest.

There are many more interesting stories in this issue of CatholicNews (and I’m not just saying that because I work here!). We have a good spread of local stories, but I’ll just pick out two more that I like. One is an interview I had with a deaf Franciscan friar. A beagle that lives with the friars is especially close to him, so for World Animal Day, we decided to feature Friar Rowland Yeo, OFM, and Tricks the beagle.

I’ve put up a short video here:

The other story is about a ‘mobile church’ in Singapore, driven by Chester Chua, a Citicab driver. Joyce, my colleague who is getting married this weekend, met Chester while coming back from Boys’ Town one day. She was inspired by the number of Catholic items in his cab and asked about them. They had a chat and she decided to write about him.

Some of our favourite stories happen by chance. We had another chance encounter in the office on Tuesday, but that is a story for another time, and a later issue.

Results of polls

I’ve been making a number of informal polls on this blog, but none of the results have been published in CatholicNews, save for one, mainly because the number of people who responded hasn’t been high enough to make it a fair poll.  I figure a fair poll will have at least 100 respondents. Even so, the polls have given an idea of who reads this blog, and now seems a good time as any to share the results with you.

The first poll “Should our archdiocese allow altar girls?” was taken from Jun 17 to Jul 28, 40 people responded. Out of these, 53 percent said ‘Yes’, and 48 percent said ‘No’.

Readers of this blog are more certain about whether ghosts exist, based on the results of the poll taken in August. Out of the 23 people who responded, 14 believed in the existence of ghosts, while eight said they didn’t believe in ghosts. One person was not sure.

In the quick poll in the first half of September, only five people responded to the question “What are Catholics’ favourite pilgrimage sites?” Three said ‘Rome’, and two said ‘Lourdes’. The results are not conclusive, but seems to point to keeping the number of responses small.

For the poll “How would you describe your views as a Catholic?” taken in the second half of the month, 14 people responded. Seven of these considered themselves ‘Conservative’, three saw themselves as ‘Liberal’, with the rest saying that they are ‘Moderate’.

The new poll for October, the month of the rosary, is a gender-based question. Do you think men or women are more likely to pray the Rosary on a daily basis? Please cast your vote in the poll found in the sidebar, and we’ll see the results next month.

Thanks for your responses!

One faith, many paths

Next month is October, the month of the Rosary. It is the month where we will see Catholics make a return to praying the rosary perhaps daily, perhaps weekly. For some, it is a simple habit. For others, it is an arduous half hour to go through the repetitive prayers. If we regularly find praying the Rosary to be dry and unsatisfactory, does it mean that there is something wrong with our faith or with us?

No. Rather, it probably means that God is calling us to experience a deeper relationship with Him through some other form of prayer.

The richness of the Catholic faith is such that there are many ways to pray, many ways to have a relationship with God. We need only to spend one week in any church of our choice to see the myriad of ways that Catholics use to relate to God. These ways range from the silence and stillness of meditation to the exuberance of charismatic prayer.

True, some people have a devotional relationship with God, and they pray the Rosary everyday without fail. Others may pray the Divine Mercy or have an attachment to some other devotion. Testament to this are the thousands of Catholics who have a devotional relationship with Mother Mary and make it a priority to attend the weekly service at Novena Church. These come to Jesus through Mary.

Devotional relationships with Jesus directly can also manifest themselves in attendance of daily Mass. This is perhaps most apparent in the older folk who are present in every parish weekday morning or evening Mass.

At some point in our prayer life, we might find this form of prayer to become dry and unfruitful for us. We might find it difficult to pray or find that we are not getting the type of spiritual growth we used to have in the beginning. At such times, there are a couple of types of advice that people like to give.

The first is to persevere in prayer, to keep on praying even though prayer is dry and difficult. For some, this advice is good, and with perseverance, the person does manage to overcome the period of dryness and once again receive spiritual growth through devotional prayer.

However, there are many who stop praying altogether, perhaps because they have never received advice of another type. This second type of advice is that perhaps God is calling them to discover another form of prayer through which He can relate better to them, and that their spiritual life may be deepened as they grow closer to God through this new form of prayer.

It is at this point of dryness that some people discover God in charismatic prayer. Praise and worship songs, for example, are helpful in expressing feelings and affections that we feel but may not be able to express in our own words. It is then helpful that we sing these emotions in the words of other more expressive songwriters. Having discovered a new form of prayer, we might abandon the practice of praying the Rosary or other devotion in favour of this.

At times, some well-meaning, but ill-informed friends might tell us that we are being unfaithful if we do not continue praying the Rosary. But what works for one may not work for another. Truly, the form of prayer that we choose for ourselves is ultimately the channel through which God wants to draw closer to us.

But, like the practice of devotional prayer, we might again find ourselves entering another period of dryness after several years of charismatic prayer. Again, this could be overcome either through perseverance, or through the discovery of another form of prayer, which might lead us into an even deeper and more intimate relationship with God.

Other forms of prayer in the Church include, but are not limited to, scripture reflection (or lectio divina), meditation, contemplation, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the Divine Office, etc.

No one form of prayer works best for everyone, because the form that works for one might not work for another. By “a form of prayer that works”, I mean the form of prayer that a person finds himself or herself best able to connect with God and deepen his or her spiritual life. Even an individual person may find that no one form of prayer works best for him or her all the time.

For example, we can say that the Mass is the highest form of worship for Catholics, but we cannot say that everyone gets as much out of Mass. Some people are better able to connect to God through Mass. Some people relate better with God through praying the Rosary (even if during Mass). Others grow spiritually through scripture reflection. Still others are intimate with God through contemplation. There is no one right way of coming to God in prayer.

The point is that God comes to us in different ways, even if we all share the same Catholic faith. We have different experiences of God, and that’s fine. These are all different ways of expressing the same love relationship that God wants to have with each of us. The same love relationship that is different because of the way it is expressed, and because each of us is unique, and each of us walk different paths in the same faith.

What about you? What forms of prayer have you found beneficial to you in your own spiritual journey?

This week in CatholicNews

We’ve just finished the fortnightly routine of producing the Catholic News. As I sit in the office sifting through the prepared pages, several articles catch my eye.

The highlight of this weekend’s issue is a 6-page Catholic Travel Supplement that we’ve been preparing for several weeks. It’s something that the editorial team decided to start doing on a regular basis. We often receive sharings and testimonies written by Catholics who go on pilgrimages and come back changed, but we don’t always publish them for several reasons. But now, we have a place and a time to publish all these sharings together under a common theme.

In it you will find articles on how to make a pilgrimage, must-go place, and sharings by Catholics who have made pilgrimages to these places. There is also an article on a place called Oberammergau, a village in Germany that involves thousands of its villagers in a Passion Play that takes place once every decade. The story behind this is quite fascinating.

Continuing in this issue are a couple of articles on interreligious relations between Catholics and Muslim in Singapore and around the world. One is a local story on Muslims who invited Catholics in their university to join them for a day of fasting during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. The other story is taken from the Vatican in a message that asks Christians and Muslims to work together against poverty.

This issue’s Year For Priests feature focuses on Father J.J. Fenelon, who will soon become parish priest of Our Lady Star of the Sea on Oct 1. But that’s not the reason why we are featuring him. We are doing so because he is a highly musical person who frequently uses music in his work. Did you know that he used to be a choir conductor and is a former deejay?

Our page 1 story for this issue is on this year’s Our Lady’s procession at Novena Church. This annual event at the Redemptorist-run church draws some 30,000 people every year. It’s certainly a sight worth seeing.

One story that really caught my attention was a visit made by our diocesan seminarians to Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). There’s an eye-catching photo of several seminarians watching editors in the Straits Times have a roundtable discussion on the stories that would appear in the newspaper the next day. It was a fascinating visit which I accompanied as an observer. Events that involve our seminarians always interest me, as do stories that involve the media, so this one combined both interests into one.

Finally, Father Ronald Rolheiser’s column this issue looks at the necessity of both conservatives and liberals in our church. This inspired the second poll of the month (be sure to cast your vote!) on this blog.

Redemption

I grew up in a family of cat-lovers. One cousin I lived with as a child always had at least one cat living with her, even when she was studying in Australia. She now has two children and four cats.

But we have also been a family of dog-fearers. We don’t like dogs. We are afraid of them for several reasons. One, dogs bite. Two, they bark a lot. Three, they chase people. Four, they salivate a lot. Five, they smell. Six, they urinate all over the place. The list goes on.

Whether it was true of all dogs or not, it didn’t matter to us. What mattered to us was our perception that all dogs were like that, and we never drew close enough to one to find out the truth.

So when my fiancée got a puppy for a pet two years ago, I refused to go near it even though it was so small I could carry it with one hand. When I saw that tiny white thing with its oversized head and knobbly legs, all my fears of dogs came rushing to me. I thought it was going to bite my hand if I reached out to touch it. It barked too, but at that age it was more of a high-pitched ‘Yip!’

But slowly, with patience and little choice (since I love my fiancée, and she loved the dog), I grew to overcome my fear and have come to love the little dear which we called ‘John Paw’, but like a cat does not respond to its name. What’s more, I’m no longer as afraid of dogs as I was, and sometimes stop to play with other people’s dogs. John Paw had redeemed all dogs in my eyes.

Singapore has always been a nation of immigrants. Our forefathers migrated from China, Malaysia, India, and other countries in Europe and the Middle East to come to Singapore to work. That hasn’t changed. Today we have immigrants from China, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Myanmar, and other countries all coming to Singapore to work.

Now as then, people from different cultural backgrounds and nationalities have to work side by side, and live side by side, with one another. That’s bound to cause friction, misunderstanding, and potential disharmony.

Occasionally, we hear our friends complain about migrants from certain countries, and soon, coupled with our own experiences and skewed by negative perceptions of them, we start to stereotype migrants from different places. We avoid them, because of all the bad things we hear about them or see with our own eyes.

It doesn’t matter to us whether or not what we think of them is true for all. What matters to us is our perception that all people from a certain country are like that, and we never draw close enough to one to find out the truth.

But what can and does change our perception of them, is a personal encounter with one good migrant from a particular country. Such people redeem in our eyes all people from their country, because regardless of what we have seen or experienced, this one person shows us what all his countrymen are capable of. We come to realize that these people from this and that country are capable of much more than we see, if only we would let them show us by drawing closer to them.

In PM Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day Rally 2009 speech, he urged Singaporeans never to forget what being a Singaporean means – that is not just tolerating other groups, but opening our hearts to all. Tolerance is only the very minimum that we can do.

(This weekend’s issue of Catholic News has a commentary by Sister Theresa Seow on the PM’s speech.)

When we read the newspapers daily and see how human beings treat one another, we may come to stop believing in the good of humanity. We read stories of violence and cruelty done to individuals and groups of people, and we might come to believe that human beings are by nature bad, and there is no hope for us as a human race.

But like with dogs, and migrants, a personal encounter with Jesus Christ is what it takes to redeem the whole human race. We begin to see ourselves as a reflection of Jesus, a human being like you and me, and the potential we have for so much good. Not just potential philanthropic good works, not just potential for finding a cure for cancer or AIDS, but the potential for love of God and other people, the love that leads to total submission to God, and that eventually leads a total gift of self to others.

In Jesus, who took on the very best of human nature and showed us what we are capable of, we see ourselves  and other humans redeemed. We see what we can be if we surrender ourselves to God in love.