We are all sent to share the Good News

Dec 12, 2015

By Percy D’Cruz
“The contemporary or the modern Church needs to be like St Francis Xavier, to bring the Gospel to the people.”

The words formed the crux of principal preacher Fr Joe Stephen’s CSsR homily at the midmorning thanksgiving Eucharistic Celebration in conjunction with St Francis Xavier Church’s 170th founding anniversary and feastday celebrations at St Paul’s Hill on Nov 29, the closest Sunday to the actual feast on Dec 3.

Concelebrating at the midmorning service within the roofless Church of St Paul were visiting priests from India, as well as Frs Micheal Mannayagam, Adrian Matthews and Damian Charles, with Deacon Anthony Chua assisting.

Fr Stephen noted, “In the context of St Francis Xavier as the Patron of the Missions, we too need to be like the saint in bringing the Gospels and the Good News to the people. The good  St Francis lived his life filled with the love of Christ. May we follow him more closely and be missionaries in our own way, responding with the same love and fervour as the saint’s.

“In the Lord’s footprints, and attuned to St Francis Xavier’s missionary calling, we are asked to reach out to people within the community with love, to spread the Gospel. Our faith is always strengthened when it is given away.

“The whole Church, like the good saint, is missionary in nature, and the duty of evangeli sation is basic for the people of God. Evangelisation must always become central in one’s personal life and in the life of the Church and Basic Ecclesial Communities or BECs.

“In his missionary outreach, St Francis set up many Catholic communities in the Far East, Japan, India and also here in Malacca. What are the criteria that enabled these communities to last? The people of these communities nurtured their faith and cared for each other as evangelized people of God. So in this respect, we too, strengthened by  the faith, should imitate them.

“Every baptised Catholic has this vocation of sharing the Word of God. In this manner, we must take an interest in the lives of people, especially the lost, and the impoverished. We need a strong foundation so that our faith can be handed down to the next generation. Families that stay together and pray together have vital roles to play as well.

“Let us also pray for a change of perception so that we will be able to change our outlook and behaviour, change our line of thinking and see Christ in the ‘difficult’ people around us.

“Let us also pray during the feast day celebrations for all those who have handed down the faith to us, those who are still  here and those gone before us.

Remember, there is an urgent need to hand down this same faith to make Jesus known far and wide.”