Padi Seeds

Now and then, someone will come into confession clutching a prayer book open at “an examination of conscience” and when I see that my heart sinks a little, for I know that I am going to listen to an almost impersonal list of faults, which seems to do very little for the person concerned except to make them feel bad about themselves. The book stops them from seeing confession as a meeting with the Lord, who loves them and instead they measure themselves against the impersonal list of negative rules, found in these books and label themselves as “failures”. The consequence of this is that when I try to encourage them to take the Lord’s hand and accept his invitation to his partner, their reply is so often, “Oh, not me, Father, I am a sinner!” And I am tempted to respond, “Well, what do you think the rest of us are?”

Many of us seem to have caught the idea that we begin our spiritual lives as perfect people, “washed in the blood of the Lamb”, and this has been understood to mean that we have been made perfect – thus, any sin is seen as a betrayal of the Lord and so disqualifies us from being his companions. They forget – or maybe have never been taught – that our great sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist are not magic and do not change us from being spotty frogs into handsome princes in the inkling of an eye – instead, they begin in us a process of truly human and divine change, in which the Holy Spirit gradually releases us from the chains that bind us and moulds us into the likeness of Christ. Thus, our reception of the sacraments truly frees us from our sins and makes us children of God – but we need to understand that this is a process, the work of the Holy Spirit, and will take the whole of our lives to bring to completion. Thus, when we look around us in church, what we should see is not a group of perfect people, but a group of sinners – but sinners on the way to greatness, sinners being moulded into the image and likeness of Christ. We are part of a People that are “coming-to-be”, a “Pilgrim People”, as the Second Vatican Council called us and it is to these people – including me – to whom Christ holds out his hand in friendship and partnership. The fact that we are still weak and often fail in some things does not prevent us from working with Christ, but can even be a help for he can use our very weakness in his service. The Lord does not ask us to be spotless, but to “bear fruit” – to walk with him, to love and to serve with him, and in doing this the Spirit moulds us into his likeness.

Only by giving ourselves day by day to the Lord as his companions, will we experience that we are an intimate part of the Lord’s mission, for we come to know that he has no hands to reach out with, but ours; he has no ears to listen with, but ours; he has no mouth to speak words of comfort, but ours – and above all, he has no heart to love with, but ours. The sacrament of the Eucharist is a plea from the Lord to give him a heart and life to live in – mine and yours – but I have to give myself, weak and sinful as I am, to be used by the Lord as he sees fit.  Thus the needs of this partnership can never be laid down in a list of rules of “dos” and “don’ts” as written down in a prayer-book’s “examination of conscience” – it is a far, far richer experience than can ever be captured in such rules. It is a way of life that requires us to be on our guard and watch for the movements of our heart, which is how the Lord prompts us into action, for the situations, in which the Lord needs us, will suddenly appear in the happenings of our day and we must be ready to grasp them, for if we hesitate, they will pass us by never to be repeated.

This is why my heart sinks when I see someone carrying an open prayer-book into confession. I want to cry out, “Please, my friend, don’t look down at the book – all you will see is an image of God as a policeman ready to slap your fingers for having failed. Instead, look up at the face of your Lord and see that you are called to greatness, called to be the companion of God Almighty, a partner in his saving and healing work. That book will only hide from you the greatness and wonder of your vocation”.

Diary

I have just come back from two weeks in Bali. The first week was taken up leading a retreat and sightseeing tour for a group of 30 people mostly from Sarawak. We went to a lovely Carmel Retreat House in the hills of Bali, which was a cool and inspiring place for a retreat. People have been asking me to put their names down for the next retreat – I answered, “Who says there is going to be a next retreat?”

Sadly, I did not get into the prison in Bali, this time. I put aside the last Monday I was there to pay a visit, but when the time came I remembered that the prison is not open on Mondays. I have also lost my contacts with the guys inside so I was not able to tell them I was about.  So, I have had to content myself with a prayer for them – please join me in that.

Two years ago, the Mill Hill Missionaries had a General Chapter here in Kuching and agreed to be open to missionary vocations from East Malaysia. I was asked to speak to the Chapter on that issue and I reminded the members that if the venture is of God it will succeed, but if we do not try we will never know. Now, two years later, we have four young men in or beginning their training as missionaries – and although I believed the words I spoke to the Chapter, I am amazed as I see the hand of the Lord so powerfully at work. Now, for the first time, the Lord has sent us these young men – not to join the Mill Hill mission to East Malaysia, but to join the new Mill Hill Mission from East Malaysia. Moreover, out of the blue, people have also come forward to offer the spiritual and financial help needed to train these young men. I am reminded of how I often feel when I stand on a high place and look down – it makes me tingle!

God bless,

Terry

I am changing rooms. I am moving from my ground floor room to the room above, because the College Rector says he would like to have my ground floor room for “old priests”, who happen to visit! However, the move is taking longer than I thought, firstly, because I asked to have the wooden floor varnished as it needs it – something I would probably not have noticed had I already been in residence. So, the change is making me see things, which otherwise I might not notice. This is also true of my books; I take an armful of books and carry them upstairs to my new room and as I place them on the shelves I discover books I had forgotten I had and notice other books that I had promised myself to read and never got round to it. So, my changing rooms is becoming a programme for future reading! Then, there are my pictures and keepsakes, such as a small brass crucifix I bought when I first entered seminary, all of these have a special meaning for me, but I often overlook them once they are arranged on my walls and shelves. Now, however, as I think where to put them in my new room, I pause and think about the old friends and departed loved ones they remind me of, some of the many friendships, which have enriched my life – and I thank my Lord for his blessings. So, my move to a new room is becoming rather like a retreat, a new beginning, a rethinking of who I am, where I have come from, and where, under the grace of God, I wish to go.

New beginnings should be very much a part of our Christian lives and this is seen in a particularly striking way in the connection between Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday. The ashes we receive, at the beginning of Lent, are made from the palms blessed on the Palm Sunday of the previous year; palms with which we welcomed Jesus into his Holy City and hailed him as our Lord. However, as the year goes by and we slip and fall in our weakness, we realise that our Palm Sunday promises to walk with the Lord are no longer as bright as they were when we received those palms, so we burn them and put the ashes on our head. Then, through prayer and works of penance, we try to open ourselves more fully to the Lord, and when Palm Sunday comes again, we bless a new bunch of palms – and begin again!

At first sight this may seem to be hypocrisy, but it is not. When we pledge to follow the Lord, we do so with as much zeal and love as is at our disposal – but there are still parts of us in the process of being redeemed, those parts which are not yet fully his and some of these we discover as the weeks and months of trying to serve him pass by. Thus, when Lent begins again we are ready, in a deeper way, to offer ourselves as his companions. The Christian life has to be like this, because we are not following a moral code, but are in a real relationship with our God and, like all friendships, it has to deepen and grow and this happens when, through our failures, we discover things about ourselves and in so doing are able to rededicate ourselves to the Lord, but this time at a deeper level. Any friendship, be that marriage or otherwise, if it is to survive and grow, has to be based on recognising our faults and weaknesses, saying sorry, and beginning again, for without this constant rediscovery and rededication a friendship will eventually crumble.

Nor should these “new beginnings” be confined to once a year reflections. We can make each day such a new beginning – and just a short prayer, as the day begins, can be the doorway to that. As we start each new day, our minds are often so filled with what we need to do next: get up, have breakfast, get to work – or for me, ‘say Mass’ – that we can easily forget why we are doing all these things. A short prayer of dedication can help us take a step back and look at who we are and the direction we want our life to have – and this puts the day before us into context. The morning offering can, thus, give us a ‘new beginning’ each day and, by God’s grace, enable us to live that day more fully, more deeply, more lovingly with the Lord.

So, this afternoon, I polished up the small brass crucifix, I bought nearly fifty years ago, so that it is ready for my new room and as I do so I remember the path that I chose all those years ago, and I renew that choice. I know the small crucifix will tarnish again, but in the bright gleam of its newly polished brass I say to the Lord, “I love you” and thus I take another step nearer to the friend with whom I have chosen to spend my life and who I know will never fail me!

Diary

This is the first time, for some weeks, that I have found the energy to write a blog, ever since I first heard the sad news that my brother was coming to the end of his life. This lassitude, I know, is part of the grieving process, so I am not worried about it, for to grieve for a loved one is a very human thing to do. A few weeks ago, I did start to write a blog called “The pain of loving”, but I found I am not yet ready to try to put that down on paper, so I have put it to one side to be continued at some later date. I do miss my brother very much, but I thank God that I have had such a brother both to love and to grieve for.

Two days ago, I noticed that the cistern of my toilet seemed to be sloping, so thinking that the lid had been put on wrongly, I checked and saw that one of the screws holding it on to the wall was bent and that was why the cistern was lop-sided. However, it seemed to be firm enough, so I thought it could wait until Saturday, when I would ask one of the seminarians to fix it. However, yesterday afternoon there was a tremendous crash and I discovered that the cistern had come off the wall and cracked. Isn’t there a proverb somewhere that says, “A stitch in time saves nine!”

I am going to Lundu for the Easter Triduum – a small town about an hour and a half drive from here – that will enable the Parish priest there to go to one of his kampongs (villages) for the Easter services. A difficulty is that the services will be in Malay – a language I am not very good at – so I shall be relying on the Holy Spirit – and your prayers!!!

In the Cathedral here in Kuching, I believe they are baptising 300 people on Easter night!

So a very Happy Easter to you all and many blessings!

God bless,

Terry

When I used to live in Bali, I celebrated, each week, what I called a “Meditation Mass” and I tried to teach the small number, who came, how to listen to the Scriptures. I told them that as they were being read, they should notice those words, phrases or events that gently pulled their attention – for this is how the Spirit speaks to us. Then, after a moment’s quiet, I would invite each to share what he or she had noticed. At first, they found this rather difficulty, but slowly they began to trust themselves and share something and, then, I would invite them to pray for those people and things that their sharing had pointed to – but this they found very difficult. They prayed for those close to them – such as: their aunt, a sick friend etc. – but even though I tried to show them how to open their prayer to a wider group of people, for instance, “Let us pray for my sick friend – ‘and for all sick people everywhere’”, they still found it very difficult to go beyond the barriers of their immediate concern and also pray for those they did not know – or really care about – but, then, why should they?

One of the central truths of our Catholic Faith is that of the Real Presence, which teaches that our faith is not just a set of beliefs about what is right and wrong, but that we live move in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ. We Catholics believe that Jesus is really and truly with us: Body, Soul and Divinity and although we particularly speak of this in reference to his presence in the Blessed Sacrament, his Real Presence is wider than this. In receiving the Blessed Sacrament, we truly meet the Lord in the most intimate and loving way; in communion we are assured that we are loved, wanted and invited to become one with him. It is this meeting in love that gives us the courage to choose to live with him – but, how do we do that? This we come to learn by listening to the Scriptures, in the way I have described above, for the Lord is also really and truly present as we listen to the Scriptures and, through them, he gently touches our hearts, pointing us in the direction that he wants us to go with him. This can be understood as the “second” aspect of the Real Presence – for when this happens he is speaking to us directly and immediately about the situation we are in and, thus, we find ourselves faced with a choice – “Will I join him or not?”  The way we answer “yes” is by reaching out in prayer and action to those people and needs to which he has drawn our attention – and when we do, we really and truly become one with him in his love and service for the world. We know this also from what the Lord tells us in (Mt 25:40): “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me” – he does not say, “do it for me”, but, “you do it to me” – so we find ourselves in what we may call the “third aspect” of the Real Presence, in that, when we reach out in compassion, we really and truly become one with him – just as husband and wife become one in the joint living of their married lives.

There are, therefore, three aspects to the Real Presence – our meeting with Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, our listening to him in the Scriptures, and the giving of ourselves to him in his compassion and care for the world. This is how we are truly formed as his brothers and sister – “sons and daughters of the Most High”. Why, then, is the Real Presence not usually taught in this way and we sometimes get the impression that the teaching refers only to Jesus’ Presence in the Blessed Sacrament? The answer is the needs of “history”! At the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Reformers denied that Jesus was really and truly present in the Blessed Sacrament; they said it was only a symbol, so we changed our catechetics to stress his sacramental presence. However, the Reformers did not dispute that we truly meet him in the Scriptures, nor did they dispute that we also truly meet him in the community, so there was no need for our teaching to argue for these aspects. Thus, with the passing of time, and the reason for teaching in this way came to be forgotten, the teaching came to be a little lop-sided and some assumed that Our Lord was really and truly present only in the Blessed Sacrament. Over the last fifty or sixty years, however, we Catholics have begun to appreciate more and more his Real Presence in the Scriptures and we are now becoming more and more aware that our intimate communion with him comes to its fulfilment, when we join him also in his care and service of the world – the third form of the Real Presence.

Now, back to the Bali Meditation Mass: In Ch. 3: 1-10 of his Letter, St James writes that although the tongue is only one of the smallest organs of our body, it nevertheless dictates the direction our lives take – just as a rudder sets the direction of a ship. In other words, if we use our tongue to criticise people it will turn us against them, but if we use our tongues to pray for them and bless them, then our prayers will lead us to reach out to them in friendship and mercy – and allow the Lord to really and truly live in us through those actions. However, if we pray only for those dear to us, we remain trapped by those barriers that prevent us from joining the Lord in the fullness of his mission. Only when we deliberately pray and reach out to those we do not yet really care about, can the Spirit lead our hearts to follow our words – and we are drawn deeper and deeper into the Real Presence of our Lord as he heals the divisions of hatred and indifference in the world. It is Lent, the season which we are now entering, which calls our mind particularly to this need of prayer and sharing.

Diary

We had a great feast in Sibu last week. Bishop Dominic Su was retiring and Bishop Joseph Hii was installed as the second Bishop of Sibu. Sibu always does things in great style and 2030 people sat down for the installation dinner. It was a also a time of meeting old friends and I was surprised and pleased to meet a group of people, who had been in the secondary school in Mukah, where I lived 40 years ago. The affection that people hold us in still amazes me – we do not know the effect we have on people – however, I am sure that this comes not through what we do for them, but by the way that we do it.

However, having said that, I also met a priest, whom I taught nearly forty years ago. I still remember him very clearly, but on introducing myself to him, I got the distinct impression that he did not remember me – at least not until later! Maybe we also need those experiences that show us that we are not quite as important as we think we are!

I have learnt my lesson about not wearing short trousers when cutting grass and have not suffered from itching since. However, now I have a gum infection, but found a wonderful pharmacist in Sibu, who gave me some painkillers, which completely relieved me of the pain while the antibiotics were working. And, I do mean “gave” me, for, although I did not know her, a Catholic friend of hers took me into the Pharmacy – Catholic Mafia again!

Lastly, an advert: I am planning a retreat cum visit to Bali from 9^th – 15^th May. Three days retreat at the St Joseph’s Carmel in the hills near Bedugul, Bali, and three days visiting other parts of the island. I do not have prices yet, but if you are interested please let me know and then I will be able to make the proposal more concrete.

God bless,

Terry

My father was a great singer and among the songs he occasionally sung was a lament for lost innocence, which included the words, “for I’m farther now from heaven than when I was a boy!” This is a sentiment based on the idea that we are created good, but from then on – at least for most of us – it is downhill all the way. This, of course, is not true. We may be innocent, when we are born, but we are certainly not yet good; moral goodness is based on choices that we make in life – it is not an original condition. This idea is closely allied to another, namely that when we sin, we make ourselves sinful people, but we do not have to think very deeply to realise that this thought is back the front. For instance, if I do something dishonest, where does that dishonesty come from, if not from within myself? It does not suddenly just appear when I act, it must have already been in me or I would not have acted dishonestly. As the Lord says, “A good tree does not produce bad fruit”; in other words, “you can’t have sin without a sinner”. Thus, if I do something dishonest, it is because I am dishonest; if I do something arrogant, it is because I have not yet learnt humility; and if I do something impure, it is because I do not yet know how to care for others in a wholehearted and loving way.

Some years ago, I gave a retreat to some Catholic men in Liverpool and in one session we were talking about the Christian life when one man said, “The difficulty, Father, is the people you work with. I have one man in my office, who really brings out the worst in me!” In reply, I found myself saying to him, “Well, thank goodness for that – otherwise it would remain inside you and you would not know it was there!” Now, that seems to suggest that in order to know that I am sinful, some sins are necessary – and I remember some years ago being shocked when I read a passage in the writings of Julian of Norwich, which says just that. Julian recounts one of her visions of the Lord and tells how, with great sorrow, she says to him in anguish of heart, “But, Lord, I keep sinning; I sin again and again and again!” and the Lord answers, “Don’t worry, don’t worry; don’t you see that those sins are necessary, for until you realise how weak you are, you will never take my hand”.

The goodness we are invited to by God is not an abstract, isolated self-perfection, but a warm, living partnership with the Lord, who is my friend, my companion and my Saviour. I do not have the source of love and goodness in me – but he does. So, as I dare to look at my sins and come to realise what I am really like, I find myself in a position to choose – choose whether to stay like that or to open myself to the friendship and saving love of Jesus Christ. However, he does not save me by cutting away those parts of myself that I have tarnished or damaged, he saves me by taking them and changing them into something wonderfully new. Thus, the betrayal of Peter on the night Jesus was condemned becomes, by God’s grace, the means by which he becomes the rock; the hatred for Christians in the heart of Saul, becomes the means by which he becomes the great apostle Paul; and the weakness and meanness in my life, which so depresses me at times, will become my glory through the power of Christ.

This is what we Christians mean when we say that we believe in “Resurrection”. Jesus did not rise, having left all the weakness and shame of the crucifixion behind him – he rose with the wounds still in his hands and in his side, for they are now the signs of his glory and power. To bemoan lost innocence is to hope for resuscitation, not resurrection; so we Christians, rather, should rejoice in the weakness and failures that mark us, for by owning them humbly before God, we are shown the doorway to greatness – the way to take hold of the outstretched hand of the Lord.

This is why we gather Sunday by Sunday to offer bread and wine, for in offering these gifts we are offering ourselves – as we are – with all our victories and defeats. It is our true self, in all our “half-formedness” – that we humbly give into God’s hands to be consecrated, for by giving ourselves into his hands, we shall feel his power and know for ourselves the love and goodness, not of a new-born child, but of the one who has walked through the fire with Christ and has been refined.

Diary

The last six or seven weeks have been busy. I have been in several places here in Malaysia as well as Kenya, Indonesia and the Philippines. It ended with a meeting of all the Mill Hill members in Malaysia and we were joined by one of our priests from Ambon in Indonesia and the Mill Hill Councillor for Asia, who is on a visitation. There were 14 of us altogether – 4 who are permanent residents and who arrived here before 1964 and the rest who have been enabled to come since the Government began, a few years ago, issuing missionary visas again. It struck me that with the four older ones either moving into retirement or towards it, that had the Government not begun  issuing visas again, that would probably have been the last Mill Hill meeting in East Malaysia, bringing to an end 130 years of Mill Hill activity here. Instead, what I saw before me was not and end, but a new beginning.

This new beginning is not coming just from new Mill Hill missionaries arriving, but also through as flowering of local missionary vocations. At present, we have one man from Sabah, studying at the Mill Hill House in the Philippines; we have another from the Kuching Archdiocese, who begins his preparatory English course at Penang, in a few days’ time; and a third man, from Sabah, who is preparing himself to join Mill Hill in the Philippines, in July of this year. There is thus a rebirth of “mission” in East Malaysia, not only with new Mill Hill men coming to Malaysia, but Malaysians beginning to answer the call “Go out to the whole world, to proclaim the Good News.”(Mk 16) This, however, has all happened so quickly, that I find myself pushed to work out how to find the money to train these new Malaysian vocations to the missionary priesthood. But that is a problem many countries in the West would like to have!

Our grass-cutting machines at the seminary are in a poor state, with wobbly wheels, broken handles, defunct starters etc. So, I decided that to buy myself a grass-cutter, which I would keep for my own use! I have done so and we had its inaugural run last Wednesday. The grass was very thick, after the long break, so I left off the grass collector from the machine because it was filling up so quickly and as a result the cuttings hit my legs as I was working – and I was wearing short trousers. The next day my legs began to itch and I began to scratch. It is three days now, since the first cutting, but my legs are still itching, despite wearing long trousers yesterday when I was cutting. I am told, however, that it will take a couple of days more for the itching to die away – I hope so.

God bless,

Terry

On my recent visit to Africa for my nephew’s wedding, I met a young woman, who was housekeeper in the house where I was staying. She was a good-looking and hard-working young woman and she had a daughter about the age of six, one of a pair of young girls, in that house, of roughly the same age and height, and their sparkling eyes and ready smiles brightened each day that I stayed there. Later, I was told that some years before, the young woman had had an admirer, who asked her to marry him, but when she refused, he attacked and raped her. Her little girl was the result of that rape. I thought about that when, in the middle of the wedding Mass, I looked at her sitting in the front row, in all her finery; she saw me looking and gave me such a radiant smile and, in so doing, showed me the face of our God, who makes the desert bloom and brings such a wondrous good, as that little girl, from the hideous crime of rape.

She also came to mind at Midnight Mass, in Bali. At the prayers of intercession, a Filipina friend prayed for the victims of the terrible floods that have devastated the Philippines and added – “but all things happen for a reason.” I had heard this said before, but that way of putting it is not quite correct, for it seems to suggest that God sends disasters on the earth, which he does not, but he can and does use the sometimes terrible happenings that occur on the earth to bring about good and he does this in such a wonderful way that sometimes we are tempted to say – “In a strange way, I am glad that that happened, because without it I would not have known the goodness I now know today”.

Such a happening occurred in 1987, when a hurricane struck the south of England – the worst for over a hundred years – and destroyed so many trees that experts said that the forests of southern England would need a generation to recover. However, the following year, flowers sprang up in those areas where the trees had fallen – for they could now receive the sunshine – and the woods and forests were more beautiful than they had been for a long time. Likewise,

I remember someone, who had suffered from alcoholism, telling me of his 20 year history of compulsion to drink and how it had been an ongoing nightmare. However, having now been brought into recovery by the power of God, he was actually grateful that he was an alcoholic, because, he said, he was now closer to God than he would ever have been, had he not endured that terrible disease.

Our religion and the spiritual practices we have been taught are not given to us so that we may be protected from the disasters and tragedies that ravage our world, but are given so that we may know how to let God into our lives so that he may lead us into goodness and also be able to face up to and live through those terrible happenings as they occur. It is in entrusting all these things into the hands of God that we grow as his sons and daughters and enable him to bring goodness out of those difficulties and tragedies; as Scripture says, “God brings everything to the good for those who love him” Rom. 8. This teaching stands at the very heart of our faith – for the resurrection came about through the horror of Good Friday and so turned that day of hatred and evil into a day of hope for all mankind.

The memory of that smiling, little African girl will long remain with me – assuring me that our world is not as black and white, as we tend to think. It assures me that even though tragedy and evil may come upon us, either through the blind destruction, which can come from nature, or through the malicious machinations of men and women, God will never be defeated. Goodness will out – the desert will bloom again – as the smile of that little girl showed me.

Diary

I enjoyed my visit to Africa. The wedding was great fun, including, when at the reception, an old Maasai woman, one of the leaders of the clan, gave a speech teaching the bride and her husband (my nephew) what the clan expected of them both – the groom was expected to now help the family of the girl and the girl must not let her gaze stray to other men! The giving of this very down-to-earth wisdom is traditional at a Maasai wedding – but I understood what was being said because it was translated into English as she went along – much to the embarrassment of the bride and groom.

A few days later, I met a young man and, in the course of the conversation, he told me that his father had died of AIDS and that his mother was HIV positive. He was literally working his way through College to get a journalist’s degree – working till he had enough money for the next year’s fees. In the course of the conversation, I saw him writing things down in an old exercise book and on asking him what he was doing that, I was told that he was taking notes for an assignment, for he had no laptop. Some people had been generous to me for Christmas and so I bought him a laptop, at which he was over the moon. However, when I returned to Malaysia, I got a message from him saying that his mother had been taken into hospital and begging me for the money for her fees. I felt uneasy about this, but told him to get an invoice from the hospital, scan it and send it to me by email. It arrived the next day, so I sent it on to a Mill Hill friend of mine in Kenya and asked him to pay the bill for me. He said that he would, but the next day, he wrote that he had been to the hospital and they had no patient of that name and when they looked at the invoice they said it was a forgery. How sad to begin the New Year like this – not sad for me, but sad for the lad.

I was given a glimpse of understanding, while on the way to the hotel where the wedding was to be held. The taxi-driver got lost and we travelled for an hour through a slum part of Nairobi. It reminded me of the worst parts of Mumbai, when, years ago, I lived in India. Sheer poverty! Rows and rows of tin huts amidst rubbish strewn roads, with so many people trying anything to live. The contrast between that part of the city and the hotel, where the wedding was held, was startling and helped me understand how young people might grab any opportunity that might seem to offer a way out of that awful poverty. So, I have no regrets that I gave the boy the laptop, for despite what happened later, I believe he was in need – and the poor do not need to be “deserving” in order to be given help. As John Paul II said, “When we reach out to the poor, we are not giving charity, we are giving justice.”

With that thought, may I wish you all God’s blessings of yourself and your dear ones in this New Year of Grace – 2012!

God bless,

Terry

When I was a lad, among many prayers I learnt was the morning offering – a prayer dedicating the day to the Lord. However, when I went into the seminary and began to say the Divine Office – the several prayers that priests and religious are required to say each day – I let all my other prayers drop, including the morning offering, and that was my prayer situation, when I first came to Sarawak in 1971. After having been here for a couple of years, I went travelling upriver with a priest friend to visit a longhouse, but the water was very low and we were forced to spend the night in a Chinese shop – sleeping on the floor. In the morning, I awoke first, and was sitting, thinking about the day when my friend woke up. I saw his eyes flicker, then he sat up, made the sign of the cross and spent the next few moments in prayer – obviously making his morning offering. Then, he opened his eyes, smiled at me and said, “Good morning!” That so impressed me, that I began once more saying the morning offering every day and it has become for me, the most important prayer of the day; the words have changed over the years and whereas I used to give the Lord everything that was to happen during the day, I now say something like, “Lord, I don’t know where you want us to be today, nor what you want us to do when we get there, so take my hand and lead me to where you want us to be”.

However, important for me, though it is, it is not about the morning offering that I want to speak, but rather how I came to take up the morning offering once more – the so-called “coincidences” of that journey so many years ago. I now ask myself: how was it that the water was low, on that day, and we had to spend the night sleeping on the floor of that shop? Had we arrived at the longhouse, we would have slept in mosquito nets and I would never have seen my friend wake up and pray; also, the coincidence of my waking up first and happening to be looking in his direction so that I saw him wake and make his morning offering; and lastly, why did that prayer of my friend affect me so deeply? What was at work, on that day?

Recently, I was reading a document written by Pope Paul VI in which he speaks of the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to us in baptism. He says that this is a gift of “Metanoia”, or “renewal”, which works on us gently throughout our life, rather like yeast works to make bread or wine. It is a gentle power moving deep in our hearts urging us on to “become”, who we are destined to be – true children of God. It is this Spirit that moves things so that misfortunes, such as low water in a river, become the occasions for a more profound happening. It is this Spirit who touches our hearts to notice words or actions, which invite us to move deeper into fellowship with the Lord. It is this Spirit, who moves us to reach out to other in compassion and sharing, so that the Love of God may also find a home in me, by showing mercy to others. It is this Spirit, who makes us the children of God – a process, which begins in baptism – but is brought to fulfilment throughout the whole of our life’s journey, under the prompting of this Holy Spirit.

Cardinal Newman wrote the famous hymn, “Lead kindly Light”. It was this Spirit of Metanoia, renewal that he was speaking of. He wrote, “I do not ask to see, one step enough for me”, but we have to be brave enough to take that step. Very often we cling to what we were taught as children about ways of prayer and belief and while they helped us begin our journey, they can also become obstacles to our growth in faith, if we cling to them and do not dare let go so that something deeper and more profound may become our guiding light. We Christians do not have a “way of life”, in the sense that prayers and other duties are laid down for us. We are given the command from the Lord to pray and to love one another – but we are not told how to do that. As St Francis de Sales says, we must serve God according to who we are, where we are and what we are. Thus, a mother of a large family is not expected to pray in the same way as a priest or nun; she must pray in a way that best helps her. We have to follow that gentle light that helps us find the best way for ourselves, or we will find we are merely copying others, when the Spirit would lead us on deeper paths as yet unknown to us. As one Benedictine spiritual master said, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t!”

The prophet Isaiah writes, “The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me” and as the Lord adds in the gospel of Luke, “This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.” (Lk 4:21) It is being fulfilled in us today, for that Spirit has been given to us. The invitations are being whispered deep in our hearts, in all the situations that we find ourselves in – but we have to listen when the word is spoken, look at what we are being shown and do what we are being invited to. As St. Francis de Sales also said, “Speak when you are spoken to!” – even if you are sitting on the floor of a Chinese shop at the time!

Diary

I have had to re-arrange my whole programme for this seminary break. I begin in the same way: I going to Kenya this morning for my nephew’s wedding, but my visit to Bali, which was to have been at the end of January, has had to be changed. So, when I get back from Kenya, I shall have two days here and then I shall go to Bali and celebrate Christmas there. I return on New Year’s Eve and have a few days here before going off to Sabah for the vocations seminar, followed by Jakarta to see someone I need to talk with and then on to the Philippines for a meeting. So for the next month my feet will hardly touch the ground.

Over the last few weeks, I have been telling people, at the end of Mass, about the 800 Christian families of Fr Joe Haas MHM in Indonesia, who are unable to go back to their homes because of hostilities.  In these talks, I have not asked for anything, I have just told them that I will be giving him a little something at Christmas for his people. The gentle Spirit, that I spoke about earlier, however, has been using that occasion to touch people’s hearts and they have given about 15,000 Malaysian ringgit – about 3,000 pounds – and I will be able to give that to Fr Joe when he comes for a meeting in January.

Lastly, wherever you may be, and whomsoever you may be with this Christmas, may the Spirit of God be also with you and may you know the peace and joy of Bethlehem. Happy Christmas and a Blessed New Year

God bless,

Terry

At the beginning of January, I shall be going to Sabah for a vocations’ seminar.  I went for the first time, last year, and was very impressed by the gathering of about 150 young men, who wanted to know more about diocesan priesthood. I had been invited to speak to them about the Mill Hill missionary vocation and I discovered that most of them did not know of Mill Hill, even though the Church in Sabah was founded by Mill Hill Missionaries. However, that is not really surprising, for most of the Mill Hill men were expelled from Sabah forty years ago, long before those young men were born. So, I took delight in connecting them again with their “roots”!

I always enjoy going to Sabah, particularly because I enjoy meeting the Sabah priests, many of whom, I have helped educate over the last thirty years.  Seeing them enjoying their role as priests, happy and fulfilled in their vocation, enables me to see more clearly what it is I am doing in my work at St Peter’s College, the seminary in Kuching where I teach.  My daily routine at the seminary is taken up with saying prayers, teaching, cutting grass etc. - and it is easy to get so absorbed in the small tasks of our lives that we lose sight of what we are a part of.  However, when I see those young priests at work, my work in the seminary is put into context and I return to that work with a new vision, a new energy and new ideas.

What is true of my work in the seminary is also true of our Christian lives as a whole. We can get so absorbed in the bits and pieces of day-to-day Christian living that we can lose sight of that to which we are called. This time of year, however – Advent, a time of waiting for the Lord’s coming – usually prods me into raising my head, above the essay papers and grass cuttings to look at where I have come from and whither I am being led. This comes home to me particularly in confession – from both my own Christmas confession and listening to the confessions of others. They are often so dominated by lists of failure with regard to prayer and self-control etc. that the question can arise – “Are these things really important?” When that question arises, I realise that I need to stand back to get an overall vision so I can see their place in my journey, for without it, my vision of what it is to be a Christian could become swamped in pettiness.

Above all, it is the Christmas gathering at prayer that gives me such an overall vision. Even though some may not be very good at praying at other times of the year, Christmas seems to call to Christians everywhere to remember what we are a part of – we are being made into a people, a family, with all the responsibilities that being a member of that family implies. It is at Christmas that we find the urge to reach out in kindness to those not belonging to our immediate family, even if it is only with a kindly greeting or a small gift and when we do so, we are given an insight into what God is doing with us all – bringing us together and overcoming the divisions that cause such trouble and pain in our world.

This “being brought together” is another way of understanding “salvation”.  We often talk about salvation in such a “religious” way that we lose sight of the fact that our salvation begins here on earth, begins in all those ways in which we learn to give and receive, to forgive and be forgiven, to love and be loved. It is here in these human everyday interactions with each other that the grace of God moulds us – teaching us and enabling us to live together as brothers and sisters – and in so doing slowly brings us to maturity as his sons and daughters.  It is this overall vision of our Christian lives, which helps us see why our prayers and other daily duties of being a Christian are important. However, their importance does not lie in themselves, but in what they prepare us for. Thus, we try to say our daily prayers so that God may inspire us to works of love and service. We try to control our tongues so that our words may comfort and encourage those, who are downhearted. We refrain from stealing so that we may come to share with those in need. We resist sexual dissipation so that we may truly love others. But, we need that overall view of what we are being called to in order to see the importance of these “bits and pieces” of the daily Christian life – and it is Christmas, which gives us such a glimpse.

Diary

I have just come back from a quick trip to Sabah for the ordination of two of our students. I was only there for one night, but that night was one set aside for confessions at a Parish some five miles or so from the Cathedral and the priests asked me if I would like to accompany them to hear confessions, so I agreed. The church was packed, when we arrived, but because there were about 15 – 20 priests hearing confessions, we finished after about an hour and a half and were rewarded with a meal. The people were a little surprised to see a foreign priest and I thought they might be a little wary of coming to confession to me, thinking that they would have to use English. However, when they learnt that I could manage in Malay, I was as busy as the other priests, although the counselling part of confession was not as easy as it would have been in English.

I write a column, called “Padi Seeds” once a month, which is published in English and Malay in the local Catholic newspaper there, “Catholic Sabah”. After confession, some people came up to shake hands and then a group of young women came up and asked me a question in Malay, which I did not catch at first, so one of them put it into English. “Are you”, she asked, “Father Padi Seeds?”

One more week and the students go home for their long holiday. I am looking forward to the break, for I feel rather tired. However, I also have quite a tight agenda for the 6 week break. I go to Kenya for my nephew’s wedding, then the vocations’ seminar, followed by a trip to Jakarta, then meetings in the Philippines and Sibu – and in the middle of all this there is Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year. The only time I can get to Bali will be the last week of the break, but I will fit that in somehow.

God bless,

Terry