Today, Thursday, 28 February 2013, will indeed forever be a memorable day to me. Since, as you all know, that today, is the day when our beloved Pope Benedict XVI will no longer be our Pope as he is stepping down to make way for his successor, whom he thinks will be more capable of handling the duties of the Papacy than him in his old age.

Indeed, today in fact, will be memorable to me, because it is also the day of the silver wedding anniversary of my parents, who were married on 28 February 1988. Since then, their marriage, although has had its share of troubles, had been mostly happy and filled with grace. I hope that through me, God will always bless my parents.

It has not always been easy for my mother in particular, and for me to an extent, as my mother and my father were not bound by a Christian marriage solemnised with the Sacrament of Marriage, because my father is not yet a Catholic, until the moment I write this post. My mother had been fearful of going to the Church again since her marriage, as she was afraid of what my father would say or act. Thankfully, recently she had been more courageous to go to Church again after my continuous insistence and encouragement. Deo gratias!

Nevertheless, would it not be for my mother, who passed to me her old Catholic Bible when I was young, I may not be here today, and this blog would not have existed. I have to give thanks to her for bringing me up tirelessly despite the problems that I caused her from time to time. I do pray that my whole family will be brought together in Christ soon, that my father will finally be receptive to the Word of God and want to be baptised into the Church.

It has always been my wish that my entire family can one day pray together as one family, and sharing meals together, giving thanks to God for all the blessings He had given me and my family, and for all these 25 years my parents had been together. I cannot thank God enough for that, but that He keeps them safe while I am away overseas, is already great enough a blessing for me.

My mother does have her reservations, especially coming from a rather traditional Chinese family, but indeed gradually she is becoming much more receptive to my calling to be a priest. Mother, if God is willing, and if God calls, it is not for us to reject is it not? For if Mary obediently answer the Lord and gave herself fully to Him, that through her the salvation of this world came, so too even a Pope or Cardinal or bishop would not have been a Pope, Cardinal, or bishop had God not called him first, and had the family not been supportive, especially in prayers.

I do not deny that I do have the desire to be higher in the hierarchy of the Church, as human as I am, but all this is because, I love God’s people, and I want to be able to give myself more to them, to reach out ever more to them, but again, with greater mission, comes greater responsibility. First, is to be a simple priest, what next is for the Lord to decide for me. I am all yours, o Lord.

Therefore, I ask all of you, to pray for me, and my family, that first my parents’ marriage will ever be happy, blessed, and filled with love that is of God. And that God will care for them and bless them as they have blessed me all these while. Pray for me too in my journey, that I will be ever stronger in faith, stronger in love, and stronger in hope, and stronger ever in my dedication to serve God and His people, my brothers and sisters.

That when the time comes, my parents will be the one who will present to me my first chasuble, and hopefully then, my whole family will be able to receive Communion from me, and hence have been united with me in Christ. Pray too for our Church, that in these turbulent times, we will be able to receive a wonderful new Shepherd, filled with God’s Spirit and strength to lead the Church as Pope Benedict XVI had.

We pray for him too that in his prayerful retirement, he will help the Church to become ever holier and ever more powerful in its resolve to fight against evil and all the corruption it has wrought on this world. God bless us all, and God bless my parents and our Pope! Amen!