evangelisation

by

Sunday, 21 April 2013 : 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, World Day of Prayer for Vocations (50th Anniversary) (First Reading)

Acts 13 : 14, 43-52

While they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they entered the synagogue and sat down. After that, when the assembly broke up, many Jews and devout God-fearing people followed them and to these they spoke, urging them to hold fast to the grace of God.

The following Sabbath almost the entire city gathered to listen to Paul, who spoke a fairly long time about the Lord. But the presence of such a crowd made the Jews jealous. So they began to oppose with insults whatever Paul said.

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out firmly, saying, “It was necessary that God’s word be first proclaimed to you, but since you now reject it and judge yourself to be unworthy of eternal life, we turn to non-Jewish people. For thus we were commanded by the Lord : ‘I have set you as a light to the pagan nations, so that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.’

Those who were not Jews rejoiced when they heard this and praised the message of the Lord, and all those destined for everlasting life believed in it. Thus the Word spread throughout the whole region.

Some of the Jews, however, incited God-fearing women of the upper class and the leading men of the city, as well, and stirred up an intense persecution against Paul and Barnabas. Finally they had them expelled from their region.

The apostles shook the dust from their feet in protest against this people and went to Iconium, leaving the disciples filled with joy and Holy Spirit.

by

Saturday, 20 April 2013 : 3rd Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the story of the miraculous resurrection of the lady Tabitha, who had died but then resurrected in a new life, in a miracle that many would believe in Christ and His apostles. This also show the truth of the words that Christ Himself had spoken and which we had heard in today’s Gospel, that He has the message of eternal life, and that all who believe in Him and His message, would not die but would live in a blissful eternal life with God.

Indeed, Christ is not just the bearer of the message of eternal life, but He is life Himself, the way, the truth, and the life, for outside Christ, and for those who do not receive Him nor His message, there is no hope for life. In Christ lies the truth of life, and the truth about God and His works, and how much He loves us to the point of sending His own, beloved and only Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour.

Many yet find it hard to believe in Christ, not because the language that Jesus used was too harsh, as what the apostles said, but instead, it was because the hearts of the people had been hardened against Him, and their hearts and minds were deaf against the truth that the Lord offered them. The truth that Christ had brought with Him knocked hard on the door of their hearts, and many would not answer the call and that knock on the door. They did not open the doors for Christ, but instead slammed those doors in front of Christ.

Many among us today also find it hard to believe in Christ, that we choose to be what can be called as ‘market Christians’ as we choose what we want to believe, and what we would like to believe. We do not take the teachings of Christ in the Church as it is. We believe as we would like to believe, and in our pride and arrogance, we would not admit the Lord into our hearts.

Many of us would not put our trust in the Lord, and choose to put our trust in men. But if we do not put our full trust in God, we would not be part of His redemption and His salvation. He offered Himself freely for us, so that we may have life in Him, and that just like Tabitha, we may also be risen in glory with Him.

Yet, we remain in our sinful ways, and we did not put our trust entirely in God. We prefer this world and Satan to God, and if we do not change our ways, we would not gain life, but lose it, and just like the people who refused to believe that Christ is the bread of life, we too would refuse to believe in Him and accept Him fully as our Lord and God.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today strive to be better Christians, to be better faithful ones in Christ, that we can transform ourselves with God’s love and true and unconditional faith in Him, that we will then be able to put our trust in Him who loves us, and gain eternal life as our due reward. Let us also renew our commitment to spread the Good News of the Lord to many in all the nations, that those who hear the Good News and believe, will not die, but live eternally with God. Amen.

by

Friday, 19 April 2013 : 3rd Week of Easter, Eighth Anniversary of the Election of Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 (Scripture Reflection)

We heard today, the story of the conversion of Saul, the hater and the destroyer of the Church, who would later become Paul, the great saint and apostle, the Apostle to the Gentiles, who brought the Good News of our Lord to the pagan nations. Such a change indeed, from the ultimate enemy of the Church and those who believed in Christ, into the greatest of the champions of the Lord.

This indeed shows the power of God’s providence, and the mysterious ways through which He made His will known to us and manifest in this world. We do not choose ourselves to be worthy of Him and therefore salvation, but He chose us out of many in this world, to be among those who had been called and chosen to be the servants of our God.

Those whom He had chosen, He gave the grace of faith and also the gift of love, in order to spread this faith and love among those who have yet heard the Good News of our Lord, and those who have yet embraced Christ as their Messiah, their Saviour. Paul was one of this, whom the Lord had chosen, from those who had persecuted the Church and the people faithful in Him, no less.

This in fact only showed the greatness of our God, the depth of His mercy and love, and the nature of His redemptive works in our world, even today. He shows us that no one is beyond His mercy, and no one who had sinned and done bad things is unworthy of His love, if only they would repent and change their hearts and minds, turning back towards He who loves us.

Paul did sinful things in the eyes of the Lord by persecuting His faithful ones, but yet, he repented, and was turned into the greatest tool of early evangelisation of the faith, in which we will often hear in this Easter season, of Saint Paul’s numerous contributions to the early Church, in his four travels across the Mediterranean world.

Jesus today, in the Gospel reading, also offered us His love and redemption, through none other than His own Precious Body and Blood, which He offered freely out of His great and infinite love for all of us, that all of us who would share in His Precious being would not die an eternal death and be lost to Him forever, but be reunited with Him and the Father, and be raised in glory on the last day, just as He Himself had been risen from the dead on the Easter day.

That is why, dear brothers and sisters, today, we are called to be the light to the nations, the light to the world, just as Paul himself had been called on that day on the way to Damascus. In our own lives, we may not experience the kind of conversion that Paul has had, but in our own ways, and in God’s own mysterious works, we would be transformed into just like Paul, if we would turn our heart truly and entirely towards the Lord.

We are called to be the bringer of the Good News to the nations, just as Paul once had been the apostle to the Gentiles and the pagan nations. First, let us anchor ourselves in Christ that our faith would be strong, and we would have that capacity to spread God’s good message of truth. Let God and the Holy Spirit transform us, by frequently and devoutly receiving the Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist in the Mass. Attend the Mass frequently, and devoutly offer our prayers and worship to the Lord in the Mass.

Do not be distracted by worldly desires and temptations, for the devil would want to derail us from our path towards God, and he desires nothing than the fall of mankind, and therefore he would do all he can to prevent us from being the apostle Paul was. Once our faith is firm, keep a good and strong prayer life, and in prayer, spread the Good News to others, both through our words, and also our actions.

For in our words, others will be able to listen to the Good News of the Lord, and therefore would believe. If they would not believe in what we say, then at least through our actions, we could show them what God’s love and Good News is truly about. Remember that the Lord said, that whoever loves Him will do His will and will do the works that He had done.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today renew our commitment to evangelisation, and to conversion, both of ourselves and that of those who had yet to receive the grace of faith in God. Let us strive to spread God’s message to all, beginning in our own daily lives, and within our own families and friends.

Let us also pray for our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who was elected as our Pope and leader 8 years ago on this day, on 19 April 2005. Let us pray for him that he will be able to continue serving the Church through his prayers and his dedication to our Lord. A praying Pope is indeed a powerful enemy of Satan and his angels. May God then bless us all, and bless our Holy Church, and all those who had given themselves in the service of the Lord. Amen.

by

Thursday, 18 April 2013 : 3rd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 8 : 26-40

An angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south towards the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the desert road.” So, he set out and it happened that an Ethiopian was passing along that way. He was an official in charge of the treasury of the queen of the Ethiopians; he had come on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was on his way home. He was sitting in his carriage and reading the prophet Isaiah.

The Spirit said to Philip, “Go and catch up with that carriage.” So Philip ran up and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah; and he asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian replied, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?”

He then invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. This was the passage of the Scripture he was reading : “He was led like a sheep to be slaughtered; like a lamb that is dumb before the shearer, He did not open His mouth. He was humbled and deprived of His rights. Who can speak of His descendants? For He was uprooted from the earth.”

The official asked Philip, “Tell me, please, does the prophet speak of himself or of someone else?” Then Philip began to tell him the Good News of Jesus, using this text of Scripture as his starting point. As they travelled down the road they came to a place where there was some water. Then the Ethiopian official said, “Look, here is water; what is to keep me from being baptised?”

Then he ordered the carriage to stop; both Philip and the Ethiopian went down into the water and Philip baptised him. When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away. The Ethiopian saw him no more, but he continued on his way full of joy.

Philip found himself at Azotus, and he went about announcing the Good News in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

by

Sunday, 14 April 2013 : 3rd Sunday of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Obey God, and not obey men! Indeed, we should obey God, our Lord first, before we obey men, just as what Peter had said to the chief priests and the Pharisees when he rebuked them for forcing them to abandon their mission to spread the Good News of the Lord. They did not obey men, and instead obeyed the Lord, and suffered in the process, from persecution and prejudice by the priests and many among the Jews.

But it is not to say that we should disobey all men, including our Church hierarchy, beginning with our Pope, down to our priests. No, indeed, we should still obey them, as long as they carry the will of God with them and through their words and actions, reflect the will of God. This is because by obeying those who are in the position of authority, and carrying the will of God, means that we obey God too at the same time.

Do not put our complete trust and obedience in men who are finite and flawed. For mankind is flawed and imperfect, and therefore are bound to make mistakes, which may affect many others, especially if we obey these flawed ideals from our earthly superiors. Place our complete trust and obedience instead in God, and indeed, in His chosen ministers, who are our priests and ordained ministers of the Lord, who had been chosen from among many, to serve Him and His beloved people.

Of course we should not be in open rebellion against our superiors, if we disagree with our earthly superiors. Rather, we should focus on prayer and concrete actions, that should be intended to help our superiors see light in their errors and flaws, and help themselves to improve and become better in the process. Help one another, superior and workers alike, that in doing that, all of us can then truly obey the will of God, and do good works for His sake, and for the sake of all mankind.

God protects us, and He showed us His great love and mercy, especially when we too love Him, and when we seek Him when we were lost. He showed His mercy to Peter, who had betrayed Him when He was under arrest, because of fear of man, and lacking strong faith in God. He showed His love and mercy, forgiving Peter as many times as he had betrayed Him before.

That is why we ought to put our trust in Him, because He can be trusted, and He is faithful to those who love Him. He recognised the faith in Peter, while it was weak and easily shaken by the arrest of Christ, Jesus recognised that in Peter was truly a strong faith like that of a rock, just as He had Himself given Peter the name, Peter, that means literally, the rock. It is His commissioning and forgiveness of Peter at the shore of the lake that day which marked the beginning of the transformation which Peter went through, from the fisher of fish, to a fisher of mankind.

No more would he catch fish for a living, but he would dedicate his life fully in the service of the Lord. To be a fisher of man is to spread the Good News of the Lord to many, so that they can be ‘ensnared’ in the faith, that they too would believe and then gain salvation through the faith in Christ. Peter’s obedience and profession of faith and love in Christ brought about the turning point in the history of our Church, that on that day, St. Peter, who would lead our Church as the first Pope, was truly reborn in faith and in God’s love.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us strive to obey the will of God ever more, through our priests and our ordained ministers who represented God in our world. Pray for them, and pray for ourselves too, that we can follow in the example of Peter in professing our loyalty, sincerity, and love for our God, and presenting to Him a contrite heart full of regret, desiring to return to our God who loves us. Obey men too, as long as they too do the will of God, and when they do not, help them to see the light of God, that they too eventually will obey.

Let us also follow in the footsteps of the apostles who had become the fishers of men, instead of just fishers of fish. Let us go beyond our human limitation of seeking only to fulfill our own earthly needs, and instead, seek to bring the Word and teachings of our Lord to many who have yet to hear them, and who long to know Christ, our Lord.

May God protect us and bless us always with His blessings and grace, that we will always be obedient to Him and follow His examples. Amen.

by

Sunday, 7 April 2013 : Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday (First Reading)

Acts 5 : 12-16

Many miraculous signs and wonders were done among the people through the hands of the apostles. The believers, of one accord, used to meet in Solomon’s Porch. None of the others dared to join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

So an ever-increasing number of men and women, believed in the Lord. The people carried the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and on mats, so that when Peter passed by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

The people gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed.

by

Saturday, 6 April 2013 : Saturday of the Easter Octave (Scripture Reflection)

“To obey God instead of men.” Yes, Peter and John the Apostles faced the chief priests and the Sanhedrin who questioned them about teaching in the Name of Jesus and testifying in His Name, and even under pressure from them to stop, the Apostles did nothing of the sort and instead continue to step up their teachings ever further around Jerusalem and beyond to the ends of the earth just as commanded by Christ, that they be the progenitor of conversion into the faith in Christ, by testifying on the Good News and Christ Himself, on the Risen Christ who conquered death and on God the Almighty.

The chief priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Sanhedrin, who are respected members of the society at the time, rejected the testimony of the Apostles and were openly hostile against them, just as they had opposed Jesus, and brought Him to crucifixion through false charges. This was because mainly of their human jealousy against Jesus, that Christ had usurped from them the authority to teach the Law. But in fact, that teaching authority was not even theirs to begin with, if not given by the Father in heaven, just as Pilate had no authority over Jesus, if it had not been given him by the Father.

The Jewish priests preferred human love to the love of God, preferring the praise of men and the approval of fellow man and their Roman masters to the approval that comes from God. This was why they were against Jesus from the very beginning, and earned Jesus’ rebuke as hypocrites almost every time He was referring to them, and even after His death and resurrection, they would not let the Apostles now to do what they like, as to them, the fact that they are teaching about the resurrection usurped their ‘authority’ ever more and also placed the blame on them on having crucified Christ the Messiah, rejecting Him and putting Him onto the cross.

The Sadducees were mentioned in particular, because they were a faction most stubbornly against any notion of resurrection from the dead and the life in the afterlife. They had confronted Jesus before His Passion on the resurrection, and when confronted with the Apostles, and their teaching that Christ had risen from the dead and showed Himself to them was an unacceptable fact to the Sadducees. The mental block against the truth of Christ had been deeply embedded within their minds, just as the block of pride and arrogance that were within the minds of the chief priests and the Pharisees, that they saw themselves as paragons of virtue and ideal of the faithful, where in fact they had corrupted the faithful people of Israel, and misled them in their path towards God.

Human pride had always been a very difficult hurdle to be overcome, and the sin of pride was indeed what made the evil one, once known as Lucifer, mightiest among angels in heaven, to fall, and in his fall, brought a third of angels in rebellion with him, and in his treachery, tempted Adam and Eve, our ancestors into rebellion against God as well. It is our human pride that prevented us from returning to God, and from humbly submitting ourselves to God’s love and mercy. It also prevents us from opening our hearts and minds to receive the Lord and to listen to His words.

Therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive in this Easter season to lower our human pride and sharpen the edge of our humility and our love, that we will reach out more to others and spread the Good News through our actions infused with love that is of the Lord. Open our hearts to receive the Lord, and do not harden it against Him. Forgive one another and support one another in times of joy and sorrow. May God bless us all. Amen.

by

(Easter Vigil) Saturday, 30 March 2013 : Easter Vigil of the Resurrection of the Lord, Holy Week (Scripture Reflection)

Today marks the greatest day in our entire year, and marks the greatest event that there ever was in the history of all mankind and the history of the world. For today, our Lord, who had died for us on the cross, did not stay dead, but was risen by the glory of God to Father in the most glorious Resurrection.

Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is Risen Lord, has harrowed hell in His descent there after His death,  He has liberated souls of sinners imprisoned and enchained by Satan, but having true faith in the Lord, freed from their bonds, and now join our Lord in His glorious Resurrection. Yes, glorious indeed is  His Resurrection. For in His Resurrection, our life are restored, in a new life in Him, just as our past is dead, when Christ died for us on that cross on Calvary.

Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, had given His life that all of us who shared in His death through baptism, just as St. Paul said in his letter to the Romans, we can also be freed from eternal death in sin, and enter into eternal life and be Resurrected to true life just together with Christ’s resurrection. All of us who had been baptised in Christ, had been marked by Christ, our Lord as His, and His alone. The devil and his snares of sin no longer has any power over us.

Indeed, we who had been baptised, had received the gift of life through our faith in the living God, the resurrected Christ, who triumphed over Satan and death. But we must always stay vigilant, that Satan certainly will not stay silent while his dominions over sinful men are being assailed. He will fight back hard, and all of us must be ready, and must be strong.

As in what we had heard in all the readings we have today, today we hear the story of God’s love and His love for all of us, from the time when He created us and all the earth, through all the tribulations that His people encountered in Egypt, and through His salvation of them through Moses, His servant, and finally through the prophets, and ended in the greatest love and salvation of all that is, the salvation of all mankind through Christ, who died for us, and risen for us, that all of us join Him to once again return to the Father who loves us, and who created us out of His breath of life though we are dust.

So great is God’s love that He laid down His life for us, for His is the only worthy life that when surrendered in death, worth all of our iniquities and faults, that we who believe in Him can be rid of those, and becoming truly perfect in virtue, in our being and our soul, that we are worthy of being one with God, and be in His Presence again.

For when our forefathers rejected God through their rebellion, through Adam and Eve’s disobedience of eating the forbidden fruits of the tree of knowledge, we had been marred, and therefore, we could not stand before God in our imperfections, for God is perfect, and though He loves us so much indeed, no imperfections or iniquities can stand in His presence and survive.

A great chasm had appeared between us and God the Father, our creator. Ever since Adam and Eve were banished from the Gardens of Eden for their disobedience, we have ever since wonder around in this earth, separated from the fullness of God’s love, which Adam and Eve enjoyed in their early life of bliss in Eden before the fall of mankind to sin, and which we are to enjoy again, if we truly believe in Christ, and allow Him to transform us through His death and resurrection, to be purified, and therefore, worthy once again of the fullness of love of our God.

For, just like the slavery of the people of Israel, God’s people in Egypt shows to us, this separation from God is just temporary. For as God sent Moses, His servant to free the people of Israel from their bondage under Pharaoh, so He had sent His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver all of us, not just Israel, God’s first chosen people, but now through Christ, He delivers all of us, His new chosen people, from the bondage under sin and Satan, the evil one.

Just as He split open the Red Sea through Moses, to allow the people of Israel to walk dryshod through the sea, so He also opened the path to Himself, through Christ, to allow us to walk and return to He who loves us. For that great chasm between us and Him is insurmountable and infinite in span, but yet, Christ, our Lord, who gave His life for us, had become that great bridge through His Resurrection, that this bridge, like the dry land of the Red Sea’s seafloor, it allows us to pass through despite the chasm, to return back to our Father in heaven.

Yet, the path would not be easy, and we may fall along the way. Indeed, we had been chosen and marked by Christ through baptism, that we reflect His death and resurrection in ourselves, within our heart, but just as God’s chosen people, the people of Israel had shown, we can fall in our way. We knew it well that Israel often rebelled against the Lord, beginning from when they had been brought out of Egypt, when they often brought the Lord to the test, and made numerous complaints to the Lord, and even established rival gods like that of the golden calf, and the false gods of the people of Midian and Canaan.

We too can falter in our way, and can also fall into the same kind of trap that had befallen Israel. Therefore, we must always be vigilant, and keep at all times, our focus in Christ, our Lord, in His love and trust in His authority. Let us keep one another strong in faith, strong in God’s love, and strong in our hope for eternal life through Christ. Help out one another, especially those who are struggling with the faith.

Though the people of Israel, the chosen people, constantly rebelled against God and His commandments, and slaughtering many of His chosen prophets, and ultimately crucified His Son, God incarnate in Christ Jesus, He still readily forgave them, since in His own words that they do not know what they are doing, that in their ignorance, and in the blindness of their eyes and hearts, they failed to see God and His wonderful mission of redemption.

Therefore brothers and sisters in Christ. Today let us make true the mission that God has entrusted to all of us through His Apostles, that is to spread the Good News to all the nations, and to baptise them in the Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. As we commemorate the Resurrection of our Lord today, let this moment be a moment of renewal of our commitment to evangelise the Good News of the Lord to all the people.

That through evangelisation and knowledge of the Lord, the people will no longer rebel against the Lord who loves them, and will no longer dwell in sin and darkness, but will return to the light, just as all of us had been redeemed into light by our own baptism.

Let us pray fervently for our brethren who will be baptised in the ceremony today, either in the Easter Vigil or the Easter Sunday celebrations, that the love and fear of the Lord will continue to grow stronger in their hearts, that the call which they had received to become catechumens, will continue to resonate loudly within their beings and their hearts even after their baptism. May the Holy Spirit descend upon them and dwell in their hearts, and through them and their actions, and also in all of us gathered as one community of the faithful ones in Christ, bear much fruits of the Holy Spirit, most important of which is love.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I wish you all a most happy and blessed Easter, that in this holy season of Easter, may all of us rejoice in the glorious Resurrection of our Lord, and commit ourselves to further the evangelisation of our Lord’s Good News, that many more will be able to join our Lord too, in new life, born out of baptism, and be resurrected like Christ was resurrected, from our past lives and die to ourselves, so that we can be born into a new life in Christ. God bless us all. Amen.

by

500th Post! Continue to pray for me and for my blog!

The title said it well enough. Yes, I have reached my 500th post and over that today. May God continue to shine His light on me, inspire me with His Holy Spirit, that I will continue to persevere to write despite my heavy and busy schedules, so that I can share the Word of God, share the faith, and share the love of God, with my brothers and sisters in faith, and many others all around the world. Pray for me.

May God bless us all with faith, hope, and love, always, at all times. Amen!

by

My personal thoughts on the election of Pope Francis I and the current state of the Church

I can only hope that Msgr. Guido Marini, the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations (Papal MC) can indeed stay where he is, as many uttered their concern whether he will still stay as papal MC given the apparent change in this new Pope.

As this is just the first day, I do not know much yet about the direction that our new Pope, Francis I, will bring us all, but I hope that he will not overemphasize inculturation and liberation for the sake of evangelisation, as what was once done under Archbishop Marini, the previous papal MC, but rather focus and renew the spirit of the liturgy as was done by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI when he was Pope, with the help of Monsignor Marini as the chief liturgical reformer.

There is a need to balance between tradition and innovation, and not to tilt too far to the other side. Already these past few years we had seen a great rebound in the number of seminarians joining the seminary, and also the growing accustomisation among many people all over the world of the use of Latin in the Mass, despite of course emphasis remaining on the vernacular language.

Already, many apparently made comments (as I do) on his choice of not wearing the mozzetta and the stole upon making his first appearance, despite the proper winter papal mozzetta had been prepared for the new Pope. These are little things, but I hope this won’t be a precedent, which if not carefully handled, may undo many of the great things and reforms of the reform of Vatican II that had been painstakingly done in the past few years, and have begun to bear fruit in the Church today.

Balance is important. Already we have seen in many cases after Vatican II, churches and groups going too far towards innovation and liberal thoughts that ended up losing their very Catholic identity. What we need is to preserve our tradition, and yet remain open for innovations that can help new evangelisation, and evangelisation must also be carried in the spirit of the preservation of Apostolic teachings and traditions, and not conform to what the world think, that is relativism.

Social media like twitter, Facebook, blogs, and many others are these great innovations that can help spread the teachings of the Church, and yet let us not be like many Catholics, particularly in the USA, which had been commented as being ‘market Catholics’ where they pick and choose what they want to believe in, as long as it suits them, and reject those that they feel don’t fit with them. No, to be a Catholic means accepting the whole teaching as a whole, and not taking just those parts that you like, and discard the rest.

I need to add that going into extremes into the other direction is also abhorred, as what was made obvious by the SSPX Society, which continued to linger in their ultra-conservatism, and refused to take in several important modifications made by Vatican II.

Just some examples : We no longer blame Jews for the death of Christ, and instead they are our elder brothers in faith, having been chosen and called by God first among all nations.

Then, although indeed I firmly believe in salvation only through the One Church of Christ, but I also believe in the Universal Call to Holiness (by Blessed Pope John Paul II), and there are righteous people outside the Church, who do God’s will, but lacking only the necessary faith in Christ, but that doesn’t mean that they are immediately condemned to hell for that. It is our task to bring the Good News and salvation to them, which can be done through new evangelisation, rooted firmly in tradition and prayer.

However, one wish that I want to make is that, I hope Pope Francis I can thoroughly reform the Roman Curia, to purge from it all ties to corruptions and evil, and to purify our Holy Church that it will once again be immaculate and pure as it should always be, as the One, and only Church God had established in this world, through Peter the Apostle.

And I am touched by his selection of name, Francis, which honoured both St. Francis of Assisi, whom I held in high regard, and St. Francis Xavier, the great missionary and co-founder of the Jesuits (with St. Ignatius Loyola) whom Pope Francis I is a member of. St. Francis Xavier is close to my heart as he is also the patron saint of my early education, and which helped me to learn about the faith, and eventually welcomed into the Church.

I am also deeply touched by his humility, especially when he asked that the people pray for him, and even bowed down to show his humility, which does remind me to another Pope, John Paul I, whose motto is Humilitas, but as history went, he did not have the time to accomplish much. Therefore I hope, the legacy of Pope John Paul I can be continued in Pope Francis I, who had the same quality and personality as Pope John Paul I.

However, humility and simplicity must not lead to the simplification of our faith, but rather let these be tools to further deepen our ties to our faith, and understand more about it.

I noted that Pope Francis I is deeply devoted to the Virgin Mary, whose name is part of his personal name, Jorge Maria Bergoglio. He will be another Marian Pope in the likelihood of Blessed Pope John Paul II. It is important for us to have a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary, as she is the best helper that we can have, in guiding our way towards the Lord, and ensuring that we do not go astray from our path.

May God bless our new Pope Francis I, and at this important juncture at the beginning of the new Pontificate, I hope that the Holy Spirit that has elected him to carry this task, will also guide him, that he will make correct choices that will continue the good works that began with Blessed Pope John Paul II, and was accelerated by Pope Benedict XVI, now Pope Emeritus.