Malacca Johore Diocese News Update #169

Mar 27, 2024

Greetings to you, dear friends of the Diocese of Malacca Johore

So many divisive distractions: from vernacular schools to bak kut teh and to new villages as heritage sites. But what we see is that politicians divide, while children unite. A visually impaired person was asked about his closeness to a fellow student of another race. He simply replied: Blind people do not see race or religion. We see only kindness.

Enduring Times: Once they called it a VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous). Today we are contending with a BANI world (brittle, anxious, nonlinear and incomprehensible). This contemporary beatitude sheds some light on living through these times:

Blessed are those who remain faithful while enduring evils inflicted on them by others, and forgive them from their heart; Blessed are those who look into the eyes of the abandoned and marginalised, and show them their closeness;
Blessed are those who see God in every person, and strive to make others also discover Him;
Blessed are those who protect and care for the common home;
Blessed are those who renounce their own comfort in order to help others;
Blessed are those who pray and work for full communion between Christians.
Believe and Live!

Thought for the Week:
The Smartphone A teacher. after dinner, was checking homework done by the students. Her husband was playing his favourite game 'Candy Crush Saga' on his smartphone. As she read the last note, the wife began to shed silent tears. When her husband saw this and asked about it, she explained 'Yesterday I told my Standard 1 students to write something on the topic “My Wish”. And this is what made me cry! 'Listen'

“My wish is to become a smart phone. My parents love smart phones very much. They care about smartphones so much that sometimes they forget to care for me. When my father returns from the office tired, he has time for the smartphone but not for me. When my parents are doing some important work and the smart phone is ringing, within a single ring they attend to the phone, but not me ... even if I am crying. They play games on their smartphones, not with me. When they are talking to someone on their smartphone, they never listen to me even if I am telling them something important. So, my wish is to become a smart phone.”

The husband got emotional and asked the wife, ‘who wrote this?’ The wife said: ‘Our son.”

Lesson from the note: Gadgets are beneficial, but they are for our ease, not to cease the love amongst family and loved ones.

Children see and feel everything that happens with and around them. Things get imprinted on their minds with an everlasting effect. Let’s take due care, so that they do not grow with any false impressions.

Announcements for this Week

1. In conjunction with the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, a prayer vigil will be held at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Krubong on April 20 starting from 8.30pm and concluding on April 21, with Mass at 6.00am. Open to all, especially you, the young people of the diocese.

This Weeks QnQ: Q asked:
Life appears to be a flow, is it true?

For every sunset, there is a sunrise;
for every dream that ends, one is born;
for every door that closes, another one opens;
for every love that ends, another begins;
for every end there is a new beginning;
for each departure there is an arrival;
for every defeat there is a victory.
Nothing is ever finished, as long as there is life. - Paolo Coehlo

Walk with the Lord from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Pray for your clergy and diocese. Take care!

Something to tickle you: “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.” — C.S. Lewis

Bishop Bernard Paul