Seek the treatment

“Seek the treatment!” This three-word exhortation set the tone and mission for the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur for 2015.

Jan 16, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR (Herald Malaysia): “Seek the treatment!” This three-word exhortation set the tone and mission for the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur for 2015. Archbishop Julian Leow welcomed the key collaborators — Priests, Religious and the Archdiocesan Staff — to a Christmas cum New Year Gathering on December 30, 2014 at the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre.

Archbishop Leow lost no time in alluding to the ailments or sicknesses listed by Pope Francis in his hard-hitting speech to the Roman Curia on Dec 22. The restoration of the human face of Christ in the Church is to become the principal driving force of all who desire healthy and vibrant parishes, communities and socially oriented church organisations. Hence, the prescription “Seek the treatment” before the symptoms become devastating and incurable, paralysing the Church as the bearer of the Good News in the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur. Archbishop Leow enumerated three ailments that he thought his faithful needed to know and to seek treatment for accordingly.

Pope Francis had detected 15 ailments festering in the Body of the Church. These sicknesses affect the mission of the Church and could derail the ‘New Evangelisation,’ the primary programme of his papacy. Acknowledging that similar ailments were also present in his Archdiocese, Archbishop Leow urged his faithful, religious and priests to read carefully the 15 ailments diagnosed by Pope Francis. Hence, at the outset of his own episcopacy, Archbishop Julian Leow hoped that the faithful, religious and priests would take note of the symptoms in their respective domains and courageously ‘seek the treatment’ in order to be effective in their mission of building the Kingdom of God here in the Archdiocese.

The spate of negative and unwelcome events in the nation this past year attest to the deteriorating racial cum religious relations that are tearing the nation apart, besides similar tensions and disharmony affecting the spiritual life in the Archdiocese. This opening exhortation by His Grace suggests that the Church needs to be seen to be involved in the affairs of both state and Church to maintain/promote peace, goodwill and harmony in the nation and Church. The faithful and its leaders should maintain a good balance between faith practises and appropriate involvement in the secular world. It cannot be interested only in providing celebratory ceremonies/devotions in the sanctuaries of our parish churches. The spiritual life of the faithful should be witnessed both in the religious and secular domains for effective evangelisation to take place.

The second ailment that he observed during his visits to some of the parishes in the first three-months of his episcopacy were the pains his priests, religious and faithful were suffering from. When one part of the Body/Church is in pain, the entire body also is in pain. When pain, be it physical, psychological or spiritual, is allowed to fester without treatment the whole mission and purpose of the Church in the world suffers.

The third ailment is the seeming non-collaboration among laity, religious and priests. Apparently, the much touted ‘New Way of Being Church in Malaysia’ during the Jubilee Year of 2000 has disappeared. Collaboration among its components — laity, religious and priests — was the ‘vision and mission’ adopted then at the beginning of this 21st century.

The Archbishop pleaded for the collaboration of all the faithful, religious and priests to undertake a common united journey to eradicate the sickness experienced in the parishes, organisations and communities.

The gathering also remembered Fr Andrew Volle, MEP with a Powerpoint Tribute to him. They also prayed for all those affected by the floods in the East Coast and elsewhere.

This annual gathering at the start of his episcopacy augurs well for the year ahead. During the buffet lunch, a unique souvenir of small stones meant to be paper weights with inscriptions of the 4 L’s of the Archbishop, (the LAST, the LEAST, the LOST and the LITTLE) were given out as reminders of his primary concerns which he had expressed at his Episcopal Ordination on October 6, 2014.

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