Columns

  • Welcoming the stranger in 2024 – and discovering a sister/ brother!

    Jan 05, 2024

    Another year goes and another year comes. Is there anything new under the sun? Certainly, ‘cos life presents new adventures, opportunities and challenges — thus, I welcome this new year even as I have barely gotten over the Advent confessions, Christmas liturgies and festivities and attempt to start the new year with as much energy as I can muster.

  • The Simple Life

    Jan 05, 2024

    Created by Dr Steven Selvaraju, this is a comic strip that wishes to tell simple stories of life and faith.

  • Celebrate with the peace of Christ

    Dec 22, 2023

    As we come to the end of Advent, the Gospel focuses on Mary’s fiat, her “yes” to God. It was only through the cooperation of the Blessed Virgin Mary that God’s plan for the redemption of humanity could take place.

  • When Christmas celebrations are cancelled in Bethlehem

    Dec 22, 2023

    Bethlehem, like other Palestinian cities and towns, is in mourning over the ethnic cleansing and genocide taking place in Gaza.

  • Picture not so perfect

    Dec 22, 2023

    Before religious painters or commercial card makers started portraying the nativity scene as one of awe and beauty, glitz and glamour, the actual scene where Christ was first born was far from picture perfect

  • Lighting an Advent candle

    Dec 22, 2023

    In the days of apartheid in South Africa, Christians there used to light candles and place them in their windows as a sign to themselves and others that they believed that someday this injustice would end. A candle burning in a window was a sign of hope and a political statement.

  • A Christmas message from the heavens

    Dec 22, 2023

    On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit and began circling the moon — the first time in history for humans to visit another world.

  • The tension of “already” and “not yet” in our spiritual life

    Dec 15, 2023

    This Sunday’s readings bring us to consider that we live between the tension of “already” and “not yet” within our spiritual journey and relationship with God.

  • Catechesis and the way of beauty

    Dec 15, 2023

    Most people look at beauty in the form of aesthetics. However, beauty cannot be confined to aesthetics only.

  • Balancing Christmas as Malaysian: Spiritual vs Secular Christmas?

    Dec 15, 2023

    In a week’s time, we will be celebrating Christmas. Every year we hear the same lamentations on decorations getting more elaborate, celebrations getting more luxurious and so on. Christmas is becoming worldly and secular.