Thinkativity :

My blogposts are so far and few now huh? It's not that I've run short of ideas on things to post about. I've just been kept really busy. It's unlikely to be different anytime soon.

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Most people know that I've recently been received into the Catholic Church.

I was most recently interviewed by a Catholic journalist on my reception into the Catholic Church together with several other concerns. I will post up my answers to the interview in a series of several short posts.

1. What attracted you to the Catholic Church? What may have prompted you to make this move?

In the course of my scholarly labours as a theological student and researcher, I gradually developed a conviction (especially through my study of the Church Fathers) that the Catholic Church is the Church most fully and rightly ordered through time. When I was sent to the Vatican for a meeting in January 2005, three months prior to the passing on of the Holy Father John Paul II, that conviction was further impressed and ratified in my conscience.

Of course, another aspect of the Catholic Church that attracted me was the liturgy as the source and summit of the Christian life. I had prior to that been increasingly journeying towards a more liturgical and sacramental understanding of Christian spirituality.

At some point, I found it extremely painful and difficult to remain a Protestant whilst still trying to be “catholic” (without having to be Catholic). It is hard to be sacramental in an environment that does not promote the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, as the source and summit of the Christian journey.

Of course, subsequently, the issue of the validity of the Holy Orders of other forms of ecclesial Christianity (and by extension, the sacraments) also became a disturbing struggle for me.

2. How have the responses been from people who know you?

My friends and acquaintances have exhibited various types of responses and in varying degrees. Those who have never been open to the Catholic Christians as fellow brethren consequently held that I had lost my Christian faith (I had apostatised). After all, to certain segments of Protestantism, the Catholic Church is the “Harlot of Babylon”.

Those who were open to the Catholic Church as being Christian held that I had “changed my denomination”, so it was no big deal to them. But when I refrained from participating in the Holy Communion whilst being in their company, that invoked some response too.

Of course, in the self-understanding of the Catholic Church, we are no denomination! With humility but unwavering conviction, we hold ourselves to be the Church most rightly and fully ordered through time, this being a fact we hardly need to defend because it just is.

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CHANGING A LIGHT BULB THE CHRISTIAN WAY
How many Christians does it take to change a light bulb?

Charismatic: Only 1
Hands are already in the air.

Pentecostal: 10
One to change the bulb, and nine to pray against the spirit of darkness.

Presbyterians: None
Lights will go on and off at predestined times.

Roman Catholic: None
Candles only.

Eastern Orthodox: 1
As long as it's done the accurate way, and you stand facing the right direction while doing it. And once you're done, remember to kiss the light bulb before you leave.

Baptists: At least 15
One to change the light bulb, and three committees to approve the change and decide who brings the potato salad and fried chicken.

Episcopalians / Anglicans: 3
One to call the electrician, one to mix the drinks and one to talk about how much better the old one was.

Mormons: 5
One man to change the bulb, and four wives to tell him how to do it.

Unitarians :
We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that light bulbs work for you, you are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your light bulb for the next Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-life and tinted, all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence.

Methodists: Undetermined
Whether your light is bright, dull, or completely out, you are loved. You can be a light bulb, turnip bulb, or tulip bulb. Bring a bulb of your choice to the Sunday lighting service and a covered dish to pass.

Nazarene: 6
One woman to replace the bulb while five men review church lighting policy.

Lutherans: None
Lutherans don't believe in change.

Amish:
What's a light bulb?

Posted by SK at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I was just having a conversation with an imaginary friend today. He's well-accomplished, distinguished, well-known, respected and well-acknowledged. He's everything I'm not.

My imaginary friend has everything I don't - public recognition, external affirmation, positive strokes (well, we never have enough of these anyway). He is thus assured of his worth.

I must tell you, I don't like him. But since it was my day of rest, I decided to entertain him for a bit. Just to see what he might say to put me down. (You see why I don't like him.)

He spent hours on end telling me how successful he is in life, how he has become everything I'm not. And he told me how I'll never be like him, that my life is a dead end being where I am now.

Out of courtesy, I listened painfully to the thousand and one things he had to say. I felt myself shrinking as the minutes passed.

But finally, it was my turn to say something, so I answered:

Everything you are now, you will lose someday. Everything you have become, you won't be anymore someday. You'll be forgotten, you'll be ignored, you'll be unappreciated.

The only difference between you and me is that I never had it to lose, so I'll never have to cling on to what I don't have to lose.

And whatever has happened to me will happen to you someday, except that it has happened earlier to me. That way, I have a longer time in life to work it out and die being comfortable with myself.

Something in me wonders if he's really imaginary.

Posted by SK at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If there is one thing gone wrong with Christianity now, it is that it has become a showy religion. We go for the big stuff, the grand stuff - concerts, lightings, crowds, charismatic rhetorists, and massive buildings. We fancy our Christian organisations as being highly sought after, making a great impact in society, changing lives, all in the name of "doing great things for the Lord".

Even for some of us who come from very liturgical traditions, we are taken in by the glory and the glitter of other non-liturgical traditions that model themselves after giant corporations through almost perfect concoctions of psychological theories, management skills, and marketing strategies. The way some of these liturgical traditions are aping the other "happening" Christian groups is unmistakable.

The Church as become a capitalistic marketplace, creating its niche and competitive advantage in order to create a demand for itself.

For all those times that Jesus withdrew from the crowds and all those times that He revealed His glory only to a very selected audience, we are reminded that the Christian life is not about the glory and the glitter. It is about the richness of the hidden inner self, which needs to be cultivated in secret and away from public eye.

We are challenged to withhold our "capabilities" from being exposed for self glory. We are called to understand the difference - the very subtle difference - between witnessing and showing off.

Jesus bids the Christian to come and cultivate the hidden inner life which can happen only in secret, that through our hidden inner lives, His true glory and the glitter of the Kingdom might be revealed as a reality bigger than ourselves. May the witness of the Spirit within us forbid that we might somehow be mistaken that we are the ones who have been responsible for the magnificent manifestation of the Kingdom of God in this world. For really, we are nothing.

Posted by SK at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

My alma mater has a really cool newly designed website.

Check it out here.

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A monk is a man who has freed his intellect from attachment to material things and by means of self-control, love, psalmody and prayer cleaves to God.

He who has renounced such things as marriage, possessions and other worldly pursuits is outwardly a monk, but may not yet be a monk inwardly. Only he who has renounced the impassioned conceptual images of these things has made a monk of the inner self, the nous.

It is easy to be a monk in one's outer self if one wants to be; but no small struggle is required to be a monk in one's inner self.

St Maximos the Confessor

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Thinkativity :

I'm at the very tailend of my doctoral studies now. I'll be submitting my dissertation for assessment this weekend. My parish priest asked me last night (because I've been ranting and lamenting to him), "Hey, are you struggling with the finality of it all, because it feels too final and terminal?" By golly, he's right.

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Once in a blue moon, I have the privilege of coming across a person who hasn’t had things going his way in life, but who will not allow unfavourable circumstances in life to knock him down. I have recently been in conversation with one such person. And I’m awed at his resilience.

He does not have a wealthy background, never had an opportunity to attend college, has a very meek demeanor that makes him a subject of oppression in the workplace, and has financial commitments to ensure his family is secure (but which hinder him from pursuing formal programmes for self-development). Most others would have given up by now.

But one thing sets him apart from many others like him – he knows he’s good, and he wants to be even better. He has never given up on what sometimes seemed like futile attempts to further develop himself and reach for his fullest potential in life. If you watched him consistently, you’d see the fingerprints of determination, relentlessness, and devotion all over his life.

He works in an ordinary place, but performs extraordinarily. He does things which others would not normally do, because these things are beyond the specifications of their jobs. But he does them because he knows these are marks of vocational excellence. He’ll most probably not get a promotion for doing these things – in fact, he has never had a promotion before because he does not have a university degree – but he does them because he is committed to personal excellence and the good of others.

For every one such person I meet, I come across many others who are just so easily beaten down, who suffer from justificationitis, who have thousands of excuses for why they cannot make it in life. They either have no time, or are weak in languages, or are from less developed countries and never had opportunities for good education, or don’t have the money, or don’t have the intelligence. There’s always a valid reason to not excel.

When a person is not committed to excellence, he hasn’t just shortchanged himself; he has shortchanged his neighbour as well. His excellence would’ve otherwise been a blessing to someone else. But in wasting time, in giving up, in relenting, in compromising, he has failed to optimise his potentials which would have otherwise served humanity for a better cause. Of this charge, he has no excuse.

This person I know has not yet “made it in life”, if you need to know. But so what – he’s being the best he can be. And he has inspired me deeply. And he deserves to be called excellent. Because he is.

Posted by SK at 4:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Government,

I read the headlines this morning with an incredulous stare of disbelief. The entire nation is being driven nearer and nearer towards poverty, and you're talking about decreasing the entertainment allowance and the paid holidays of your ministers! You've got to be kidding, really.

Who pays for our holidays? And who sponsors our entertainment?

Eradicate all these entertainment allowances and paid holidays totally, then maybe you can keep the prices of petrol at an affordable rate for those of us who need petrol to actually get to work.

Posted by SK at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Have you attended an inter-religious dialogue? I've often found myself in such events wherein some Smart Alec stands up and says, "We all must practise the golden rule - to treat others the way we want to be treated. We must not say our god is the only true god, and our religion is the only true religion".

Sounds all right, no?

But then, he goes on to say, "All are the same god. We just have different names for that one god, and we worship him in different ways". At this point, I see red flags waving all over my inter-religious dialogical sensibilities.

To insist that everyone's god is the same and that this god is just named differently and that we worship him differently is as ethnocentric and obstinate an insistence as that of the one who claims that his god is the only true god. Here are my two reasons why:

1. If all our gods were the same god, there wouldn't be a need for dialogue. Most pluralists I have met before seem to forget that part of an inter-religious dialogue is that of acknowledging that we are different, and that it is all right to be different in our convictions. Even if we wanted to rest purely on our commonalities, one main thing we have in common is that we have differences in our convictions! So for a dialogue partner to state his claim that all rivers flow into the same sea, and then to insist that everyone else has to embrace the same claim in order to bring about religious harmony, is as bad as someone who says he is Christian and thinks that everyone else should be Christian in exactly the same way that he is.

2. Not everyone in an inter-religious dialogue believes in a god! I know of at least one religion, in every inter-religious dialogue that I attend, which does not subscribe to the existence of an Almighty God. That religion speaks of itself as a way of life, a philosophy, a search to end human suffering by transcending beyond one's self, not of a god who brings salvation to his people. How dare anyone insist that everyone's god is the same to the exclusion of the religion that doesn't even subscribe to a godhead. What audacity to exercise such conceited ethnocentrism.

All rivers do not flow into the same sea. We are of different religions with different ways of articulating our understanding of the divine. And each religion, by its sheer nature, is exclusive in its claims to understanding the right path towards the divine. Whilst we each disagree with one another, that's okay; we can still honour one another's search for truth and purity. That's real dialogue.

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Thinkativity :

I had a weird dream last night. I dreamed that Mahathir, our previous Prime Minister, was asked to leave Petronas. How strange is that?! I think this recent hike in the price of petrol must be taking its toll on me.

Posted by SK at 6:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Vatican, Jun. 6, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Church leaders in Asia must find ways to touch the "innate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soul," Pope Benedict XVI said during a June 6 meeting with bishops from Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.

The Pope told the Asian prelates, who were finishing their ad limina visit to Rome, that "you are sowing the seeds of evangelization on fertile ground." He explained that "the peoples of Asia display an intense yearning for God," leaving Christian evangelists with the challenge of bringing the Gospel message into the context of Asian traditions.

"In particular," the Pope said, "you need to ensure that the Christian Gospel is in no way confused in their minds with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment." As Asian cultures struggle with the intellectual results of the Enlightenment, he said, Christians should offer an alternative that combines a deep sense of reverence and the transcendent with a commitment to human rights and freedom.

Pope Benedict remarked that the bishops he was addressing, who form a single episcopal conference for purposes of administrative convenience, lead local churches in countries with very different approaches to the issue of religious freedom. The Church should insist on respect for religious liberty, he said, while actively pursuing dialogue with other faiths and striving to reach accord on "the law written on their hearts."

[ Taken from CWNews ]

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VATICAN CITY, JUNE 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Christianity isn't a mere foreign import that is alien to Asian culture, but rather the truth that resonates with the law written on the human heart, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this today upon receiving in audience today the bishops of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, in Rome for their five-yearly visit.

Quoting the apostolic letter "Ecclesia in Asia," the Pope said, "The Church's faith in Jesus is a gift received and a gift to be shared; it is the greatest gift which the Church can offer to Asia."

He continued: "Happily, the peoples of Asia display an intense yearning for God. In handing on to them the message that you also received, you are sowing the seeds of evangelization in fertile ground.

"If the faith is to flourish, however, it needs to strike deep roots in Asian soil, lest it be perceived as a foreign import, alien to the culture and traditions of your people."

"You are called to present the Christian faith in ways that resonate with the 'innate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soul,'" the Holy Father added.

False illumination
Benedict XVI continued: "In particular, you need to ensure that the Christian Gospel is in no way confused in their minds with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment.

"On the contrary, by 'speaking the truth in love' you can help your fellow citizens to distinguish the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of materialism and relativism.

"You can help them to respond to the urgent challenges posed by the Enlightenment, familiar to Western Christianity for over two centuries, but only now beginning to have a significant impact upon other parts of the world."

"While resisting the 'dictatorship of positivist reason' that tries to exclude God from public discourse," the Pope said, "we should welcome the 'true conquests of the Enlightenment' -- especially the stress on human rights and the freedom of religion and its practice."

"By stressing the universal character of human rights, grounded in the dignity of the human person created in God's image, you carry out an important task of evangelization," the Pontiff said, "since this teaching forms an essential aspect of the Gospel."

"In so doing," he added, "you are following in the footsteps of St. Paul, who knew how to express the essentials of Christian faith and practice in a way that could be assimilated by the Gentile communities to which he was sent."

Dialogue
Benedict XVI also encouraged the Southeast Asian bishops to continue their "commitment to interreligious dialogue."

"I encourage you to carry forward this important work," the Pope said, "exploring every avenue open to you. I realize that not all the territories you represent offer the same degree of religious liberty, and many of you, for example, encounter serious difficulties in promoting Christian religious instruction in schools.

"Do not become disheartened, but continue to proclaim with conviction the 'unsearchable riches of Christ,' so that all may come to hear of the love of God made manifest in Jesus."

The Holy Father said that through dialogue with other religious in which the Gospel is clearly articulated, the Church helps others "to recognize and observe the law 'written on their hearts.'"

"In this way," he added, "your teaching can reach a wide audience and help to promote a unified vision of the common good. This in turn should help to foster growth in religious freedom and greater social cohesion between members of different ethnic groups, which can only be conducive to the peace and well-being of the entire community."

[ Taken from Zenit ]

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Thinkativity :

Just completed a series of talks at my parish on the differences between the various Christian traditions. It's nice when you know that the things you say don't go unnoticed, that people remember and appreciate what you share.

Posted by SK at 10:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yup, it's up to RM2.70 now, I know, I know...

Were you busy behaving like a cheapo yesterday evening after receiving the SMS that petrol prices would be taking a hike at midnight? I know I'd have been behaving like one if it had not been for the fact that I was too exhausted after an entire day's appointments.

If you've been living beyond your financial budget, you're probably feeling suicidal now. If you've been living just right within your budget, you're probably over your budget now. The only people who wouldn't be feeling too much of a pinch in seasons like this would be those who've exercised the discipline of living way below their means.

I went to the petrol station this morning - where the cars were frantically queuing up last night - and found they were desserted. I paid RM100 to have my tank three quarters filled up. And I got back a freaking change of RM3! Three bucks!

I need a bicycle.

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Thinkativity :

I lay up all night wondering, how will I be in charge of the pastoral wellbeing of about 2 thousand young people and the formation of 7 thousand people in total? And to top it up, this is just one thing I'm doing now besides constant writing, driving, flying, and dialoguing. I'll figure it out eventually.

Oh, and blogging...

Posted by SK at 5:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you've never heard this bunch of kids singing, you've missed out on too much. A group of ordinary boys, aged between 7 and 14, projecting the vocal orchestration of an angelic choir...

The boys who make up the vocal band Libera have been described as “normal” and “ordinary”. However, as their recordings and performances demonstrate, the music they produce is truly extraordinary. With shimmering, mystical chords and ecstatic harmonies, they are unlike any other group you have ever heard. At times plaintive, at others climactic and transcendent. These are truly sounds to lift the soul. Celestial sounds for a new time.

I'm tempted to say something about the way they speak English in comparison with the local Malaysian and Singaporean English that so often makes me cringe; but I'll reserve that for another day. (Sigh... whither our culture?)

Both their singing and speaking got me gawking. See for yourself:

Posted by SK at 4:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In respect to growth in personhood and personal development, there exist two kinds of people in this world.

One kind of persons is self-driven in terms of their growth. They have no need to depend on others to direct their growth, for they are like wild weeds by the wayside that survive through any sort of climate and keep growing anyway. They are like the chameleon which finds itself in a variety of environments, absorbs their colour, and adapts without much fuss. In adapting, they learn. And learn. And learn.

They are innately on a constant lookout for new impetuses in their environment which provide for further self-development, and almost never miss a chance to seize such opportunities. Their learning never stops and they are constantly evolving at a fast pace, onward towards betterment and perfection.

For such, there is never a moment when they are found to be static or in the same condition as when you last met them. Meet them a month later and they would have progressed as persons. Because they are consistently striving to reach higher, deeper, wider, and farther.

Another kind of persons progress at snail pace. They are not self-driven and are very dependent on others for their learning. They possess few or no skills in the acquirement of knowledge and self-development. Without someone in their lives to deliberately impart, they go almost nowhere and remain as they are intellectually, linguistically, vocationally, and spiritually.

Such people are highly in need of at least one other person, of the first kind, to lead them in their journey. Without such a person in their lives, they would not have progressed much further beyond where they were since you last met them three months ago.

Life for them is somewhat static; progress is so gradual and negligible it's almost undetectable. Meet them sometime later, and you'll notice that they still write the same way, speak the same things, and spew the same set of knowledge skills they flaunted when you last interacted with them a considerably long time ago.

Ironically, it is often the second type of persons who think they can make it on their own.

Posted by SK at 3:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Christian life is neither purely by grace alone nor works alone. It is a tension, a dynamic of both being intertwined and perhaps not entirely separate from each other as people often make it out to be.

Surely, it is by grace that we are saved and not of our own works or capabilities. Had it not been for a God Who condescended by making Himself "slightly lower than the angels" so He could reach us, we would not have been able to reach Him on our own accord. No amount of revelation from on high would have been able to open our eyes, save for God coming to be one of us so that we could see Him and hear Him and touch Him.

But now that the means is given us to reach God because God has reached us, by grace, our faith needs to be worked out in order that we can arrive at the intended destination of becoming truly human the way God has intended for us to be. The graces that we so often receive through the sacraments are to be appropriated by the regenerated human will given through the Holy Spirit at our baptism and confirmation.

The lives of a countless many are hardly transformed even though they so frequently encounter Jesus the Word in the liturgy of the Church. Here is the reason: the grace received is not appropriated by the human will.

Just as works without faith is a vain form of behaviourism, faith without works is dead. Who said we had to choose either one?

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Thinkativity :

George Sampson won Britain's Got Talent for 2008. Simon Cowell called him the dancing version of Rocky. I agree. He's a fighter, that young lad. Refuses to take fate lying down.

Posted by SK at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)