Lenten Season…

February 21st, 2010 The author

The last Wednesday marked the beginning of lent in the Church’s liturgical calender ; a season where we prepare our hearts and minds for the passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. Lent is typically marked by a season of penance, where recall our thoughts and minds of all the misdeeds we have done and we also prepare our hearts to celebrate God’s gift to us (his son and the Resurrection) by offering up sacrifices.

Sacrifices typically can come in all ways, mostly people opt to fast and abstain from meat or food. For me, what I’m doing for lent is quite simple ; I am going to plan to say the Rosary on my knees for the next 40 days.  This exercise will not only help build up my spiritual stamina, but it will also give me that much needed time of prayer. I am also planning to go for daily mass, at least once or twice a week.  This is actually the first time I am making a conscious effort to do something during lent. Usually, lent for me basically means more activity in Church - i.e Way of the Cross. 

So far it has been rewarding. The fact that I make it an effort to say the rosary on my knees helps me focus more on God, and less on earthly things. The pain I get from my legs help me in a small way offer up my sacrifice to Christ. Like I said, this is the first time I am perfoming any sort of mortification  (Don’t get hung up by  THAT word, even a simple fast or abstaining from sugar in your coffee is also considered mortification!) and it has been really good.

Anyway I just hope and pray I can continue this on until Easter

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The beauty of this country…

February 14th, 2010 The author

Having the opportunity to study abroad really does have its benefits. One of them is that it  allows you to evaluate and then decide on the things that you can come to appreciate about  your native country.  I have to admit, I’m not the most patriotic person when it comes to my  home country.  The only thing that I DO care about in this country is it’s social and economic    issues, especially on employment, education, healthcare and society.

Today, being the auspicious festive season for the chinese, it has made me realize how beautiful this country is. If you’ve gone to other countries, festivals are usually concentrated to a specific ethnic group.  It’s not a cause for a national holiday or major celebration.  However, I am impressed and somewhat taken up by how my country celebrates these holidays. Be it whether it’s the chinese who are celebrating the Lunar new year, or the Malays with their Hari Raya or even the Hindus and the Christians with their Diwalis and Christmases, there is always a sense of unity when the holidays come around. Everyone is in a cheerful mood, even though they are not celebrating the holidays… and I think this is what makes Malaysia truly a beautiful and wonderful country.

Now if we can only do something about the heat…

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My dog ate Part 2…and I am moving on

February 11th, 2010 The author

I like writing in parts.  Writing in parts relieves me because I can ramble one super long post and just cut it into small parts. However I do have one habit when it comes to doing this : I don’t finish my parts at times… this being one of the case.

I’m tempted to write about my November and December experiences…but I think I shall not. New stories for new posts I guess

Anyway January was so far quite an interesting month. I finally got to go to Sarawak, but this was no cuti-cuti Malaysia. Actually had some work to do there, but it was definitely a pleasant experience.  Didn’t get to see much of Bintulu, but from my little personal experience there, it’s definitely another chinaman town! Reminded me of Penang in that sense!

But I guess the highlight for January would be having my buddy from Canada actually come down and visit me.  It was actually a highly anticipated event for me, but I gotta admit, was a little tired toward the end. Maybe because with the whole travelling thing (I had just returned from Sarawak the previous week) and catching up with work during the weak…yeah i guess at the end of the 3rd day, I was just exhausted. But it was nevertheless still wonderful to see my friend after nearly 4 years!

Another major highlight would be my ministry retreat which we had at the end of January. It was really a wonderful and blessed retreat I should say. I guess the one thing I really learnt from the retreat was that God doesn’t need heroes. Too often we are so caught up with our ownselves and running things according to OUR own abilities, strategies and capabilities till we forget the Lord completely. And the irony is we’re doing it for Him! Anyway more thoughts on that on my new blog : http://thecatholiclife.wordpress.com. Yeap finally decided to start a seperate blog for my catholic writings.

Well that’s all for now… time for prayer and sleep.

Oh and a big shutout to my buddy who joined the Franciscan order earlier this week. You can read his chronicles here

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