Towards self transformation, commitment and fraternity

Nov 06, 2015

 By Lucia Lai
The St Vincent de Paul Society, Diocesan Council of Penang, organised a camp for youth at the Stella Maris Retreat Centre on Oct 9-11. The theme for the Youth Camp was ‘Discovering the past and Embracing the Future of SSVP’ and formation was ‘Towards self transformation, commitment and fraternity’.

The first agenda on their programme was to watch a movie about the society’s patron, St Vincent de Paul. A short discussion about the movie followed. To let the youth know more about SSVP, Santhanadass, the vice president of National Council then gave a talk on the history of SSVP in Malaysia.

The youth then got into a group discussion to share what, as young Vincentians, they could contribute to SSVP and the challenges they faced

On the second day, they began with some interesting team building games. Then they spent time to reflect what they learnt.

After lunch, Angela Francis, from the conference of Our Lady of Fatima, KL, spoke about empowerment through education. She highlighted on the mission on education arising form PANASCO 8 (Pan Asian Conference) held last year. Then she shared about a successful education project that her conference had implemented, known as the SSVP Fatima Education Programme. It started in January 2014 and in early 2015, it went on a national level.

See differently, think differently was the next topic which was presented by Francis Pragasam, the National Formation Coordinator. He explained how to see a problem and look for the solution.

Then it was vision and planning time, facilitated by Veronica Gan, National Secretary. They came out with several interesting plans, especially to do with social media and education.

National President, Watson Peters was very glad to see a mixture of young and old gathered together for the formation. He brought up that SSVP’s founder, Blessed Frederic Ozanam was a young man of 22 when he founded the society.

“I know, usually youth have lots of ideas” he said, “but the challenge is to implement these ideas. Therefore, it is not necessary to have too many ideas — but to zero in on only one idea and go all out to implement it. The National Council will fully support you.”

Then, professional speaker, Johann Gregory spoke on ‘Serving God, Loving God’ in which he affirmed that it was love that we are serving others, and we need to spend time in prayer in order to have the strength to serve others. His presentation was interesting and lively. He wound up by asking the members to discuss why members need to be committed in SSVP and how they should show their commitment.

On the third day, the Eucharistic Celebration was presided over by Bishop Emeritus Antony Selvanayagam, with Fr Joe Matthews OFM Cap con-celebrating.

The Word of God and the Eucharistic Celebration was the main focus of Bishop Selva’s homily. He did not mince his words when he harshly stressed that the main problem with the Catholic Church today is – you!

“You come to Mass every week, but do you listen to the Word of God?” he said, “Do you come eagerly, thinking that God has something to tell me, or do you come to Mass just out of obligation? You must come to Mass with the intention of listening to the Word of God, receiving him, then go back and live the Word.”

The Bishop said that it is no point for us to receive Christ in Holy Communion if we do not listen to his Word. “If we want to receive Christ, we must make sure that we are worthy of him. We must listen to the Word attentively first. As St Paul pointed out in his First letter to the Corinthians, he said, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. So, are you worthy to receive Christ if you do not listen to him? If you want to be transformed, if you want salvation, you have to be prepared to listen to the Word of God, then get ready to receive Christ.”

After the Eucharistic Celebration, Francis Pragasam gave a talk on the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy.