Malacca Johore Diocese News Update #210

Feb 14, 2025

Dear friends and pilgrims of Jubilee Year 2025 (JY25), travel to pilgrimage centres as seekers of the Lord.

Hopes are fired up. But the return and the recovery is going to take a long time. It is not going to be easy. The survivors of Auschwitz returned to mark the 80th anniversary of their liberation from the death camps. The Palestinians are finally returning to a devastated northern Gaza after a ceasefire dispute delay. In Congo, thousands are fleeing the fighting, and the rebels take over. Guatemalans who were arrested under Biden, and deported under Trump were welcomed home with cookies. Trump renames the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on the Google map. The US planned to dominate the AI World, but China’s DeepSeek sends shockwaves. Ipsos Survey 2025 predicts that AI will cause job displacements in Malaysia. The Pope called on professional communicators to “step outside ourselves a bit to give something of myself to another”. Do you know what the “i” in iPhone or iPad stands for? Steve Job called it the 5 i’s: internet, individual, instruct, inform, inspire. Return to yourself, to the gift of God that you are to others.

“Being There” Times:
Ernest Hemingway once said, “In our darkest moments, we don’t need advice.” What we truly need is the power of human connection: a quiet presence, a gentle touch, or the smallest gesture that reminds us we’re not alone. These acts of love and solidarity become the anchors that hold us steady when life feels overwhelming. Pain is a deeply personal burden, and difficulties are uniquely ours to face — but your silent presence tells me I don’t have to face them in isolation. It’s a quiet reminder that, no matter how lost I feel, I am still worthy of love and connection. Sometimes, words aren’t necessary; your silent support speaks louder than anything else. Love, in its purest form, has the power to help us rediscover ourselves, even when we’ve forgotten who we are. Let’s remember the importance of simply being there for one another.

A Thought for the Week:
Small Frying Pan
A woman was fishing all morning and never caught anything. But a man in the next boat was reeling in a fish every time she glanced over. Then, to make matters worse, he kept the small ones and threw the large ones back into the water! She couldn't stand it any longer. She called over to him, “How come you're throwing the big ones back?” He answered, “because my frying pan is not big enough”.

The lesson from the big fish: Get a bigger frying pan. Find another way to handle the larger matters. Why limit your catch, the opportunities, or your goals? Expand your capacity.

QnQ! Q asks? Did Jesus modify the disabled physically?

1. Zechariah, the blind man in John 9, received a physical cure when he emerged from the pool, his true healing does not occur until much later in the chapter when he declares, “Lord, I believe,” and worships Jesus (Jn 9:38). That’s the moment he’s restored through a conversation with the living God and is finally able to reach the place of worship he’s been excluded from.

2. Jesus is always tearing down the boundaries we put up, and here Jesus reveals the unnecessary barriers of kingdom exclusion. Everyone is now welcome at the table!

3. A disabled shared: “To assume that my disability needs to be erased in order for me to live an abundant life is disturbing not only because of what it says about me but also because of what it reveals about people’s notions of God. I bear the image of the Alpha and the Omega. My disabled body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. I have the mind of Christ…. I don’t have a junior holy spirit because I am disabled. To suggest that I am anything less than sanctified and redeemed is to suppress the image of God in my disabled body and to limit how God is already at work through my life. Maybe we need to be freed not from disability but from the notion that it limits my ability to showcase God’s radiance to the church.

The Holy Spirit @ work: The Holy Spirit helps us to view others with fresh eyes, seeing them always as brothers and sisters in Jesus, to be respected. Pope Francis

Something To Tickle You: Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.-- Corrie Ten Boom

Bishop Bernard Paul