Church of St Michael (1890)
24 Church Road, 30300 Ipoh, Perak
T: 05-2540176
F: 05-2415437
email: smcipoh@gmail.com
Parish Priest : Msgr Stephen Liew
Assistant Parish Priest: Rev Anthony Chong
Sat. Sunset Mass : 7.00 pm (English)
Sunday Masses :
8.00 am English
10.00 am Mandarin
5.30 pm English
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It Is The Love Of God Which Makes Us Come Alive. |
| Posted by Diocese of Penang (pgdiocese) on Nov 09 2005 |
IPOH: Seek God and the things of God. For when God comes, man experiences that deep integration of God within his person, and he enters that realm of the kingdom of God. That in turn enables the person to progressively feel and know the changes God wants him to make in his life.
Fr Rudy Wong, CSsR the parish priest of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church (picture right), told this to participants of the Fundamental Conversion seminar at St Michael’s Church on June 26. The seminar is part of the Golden Jubilee Formation under the Penang Diocese.
“Scripture tells us about Love of God and how this love puts dignity into our lives. Love God with all your mind, your heart and soul. Love goes out from us to touch others, and this is the holy activity of God. God lives within us. Humans need and are always searching for intimacy with God and others.
“We tarnish ourselves when we never obey and live the way God asks us to.” The special gift of God is that God is always looking for man. In Romans 8:32 it says God has graciously given us all things in Christ.
And so, what transforms us? Or what gives our life meaning and takes us up to that higher level where God is? "It is the Love of God which makes us come alive. St Francis of Assisi said man is the image and likeness of God and so he must be motivated by love. When he is living in love, he is changed.
“God makes all things perfect. As in Gen1:26-28 God has given his perfection to man. Therefore since Love is the reason for creation, for the human race and eternal life, we should change our way of thinking and believe that God is within us. When we truly believe this, we will be a blessing to others.
“God gave us this Love of His, but we are not looking towards God, but rather towards materialism, wealth and power. What is our worth? Is it a PhD.? People now look for achievements but God recognises the love He put in us. And in the case of the woman being stoned for adultery, God helped her see herself as belonging to God, and so she stopped sinning. That is salvation,” he said.
Man has gone astray because he is capable of making decisions and chooses to think, on a distorted level, who he is meant to be. He gives the excuse for sinning as “being only human”.
Sin is a violation of God and a violation of Love. And so when we use the excuse of being only “human” it is blaming God, since we are made in the image and likeness of God. When we lie, we belong to the adversary, because evil blinds the minds of those who do not seek God. What is most dangerous is that the secrecy of sin is doing its damage from within.
In John 8:39-44 which speaks of Abraham’s seed and Satan’s, Jesus describes those who lie as being not of God. Gen 2:15-16 and Gen3:1-5 speaks of the essence of sin. We are not a society of telling people the truth. When we encourage a lie in children, it causes them to become ugly in their lives and they never discover their full potential as children of God. Children must always feel the love of God through us, and a lack of this love in childhood causes problems in their adult lives, as the sin grows up with them,” he said.
“Therefore use the experience of praying, I am Good, I am Blessed, I am lovable, daily as it is a good way of reminding ourselves how God makes known his love to us. By bringing this conviction to reality, we can live God in our lives.”
Fr Wong also challenged participants to reflect whether in their daily working lives, they were seeking God or self-glorification. “Whether in church authority, or serving people, if we bluff ourselves about our service in church, or about belonging in some church organisations, then it is all a mockery. God wants purification in our lives.
“Worship God in spirit and in truth . Often we make people the victims of our charity. Make a distinction whether we do things out of love of God or for absolving our guilt.
“If it is the latter, tell God of your failure to love. You have to be free of all that holds you, so God can work through you. Give your hands to God and then thank God for his help,” he said.
About 120 participants attended the fundamental conversion seminar which has been carried out in almost all the 28 parishes by Fr Rudy Wong his diocesan AsIPA team. Fr Wong’s talk was an interesting and truly inspiring seminar, because it encouraged participants to look at their minds and desires seriously, and how the two are almost synchronised. Fr Wong showed his enormously funny and perceptive side when presenting his talk, when he joked and laughed with participants, hence bringing a cheerful atmosphere to what would otherwise be a heavy talk session.
More importantly, it also motivated parishioners to desire a change for holiness and Godliness in their lives.
The seminar was carried out in English, Mandarin and Tamil. Co-facilitators of the team at St Michael’s Church were Leonard Lim and Magdaline Loh (for English) and Canossian Sr Theresa Lina Chew (Mandarin).
Last changed: Nov 09 2005 at 10:59 AM
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