Be patient with God, our provider

This final segment of the reflections for the first Sunday of Lent continues with the Gospel reading of St Luke 4: 1-13. There were many sharings flying around describing how God answered prayers in His own time, sometimes taking months if not years. Through these many time periods, God really is molding us and forming us such that we would be able to handle His answer to our prayer.

I was particularly touched by a widow's sharing about the baptism of her late husband. Her husband was not catholic but accompanied the family to mass when they went. She has been praying to God that her husband would be part of the church but the day never did come, until he fell ill.

Pray to God in the Holy Spirit and He will grant you what you ask

The Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is taken from the Gospel of Luke 4: 1-13. Luke describes Jesus' encounter with the devil in the desert. Jesus was preparing for His ministry, fasting in the desert when the devil came along to tempt Him. The devil offered Him instant gratification in return for deeds that were contrary to Scripture. As you all know, Jesus rebuked all the promises of the devil, quoting from Scripture, all the while enduring His weak human form.

God saves us from ourselves

The second reading for today's Eucharistic celebration comes from St Paul's letter to the Romans 10: 8-13. It speaks of the message to believers that we are saved by faith but our words and actions must result from that.

Father brought up a distinction between St Paul's message and that of Christ, which spoke to non-believers that it is not those who call Christ as Lord that will be saved. The context is different and the audience was different. Wow, again it reminded me to not see things from just one perspective; in this case being the message, and not the context.

God gives us all that we need

Continuing from yesterday's blog entry, we stay on the first reading of the first Sunday of Lent. For those of you who might not recall, it's Deuteronomy 26: 4-10. It speaks of God's covenant with the Israelites. One of the reflection questions that Father gave required us to recall the things we are thankful to God for.

In my mind I was already starting to give thanks to God for His providence, for His abiding presence in our lives, for the gift of each other, for the people He sends our way, for our families and friends, blah blah blah. The list is endless... Angie had alot of things she wanted to thank God for as well and she was bursting to share with everyone. However, we were not sure if this was to be quiet reflection or one that called for us to share. In the end, one after another, people started sharing their thoughts...

Surrender all your worries to God and He will take care of everything

The Lenten season has begun. Angie and I went for Ash Wednesday mass at St Luke's Church last evening and attended the Lenten programme conducted by Father Trevor after mass. It was to be a very enriching experience of which there is too much to share in this blog entry. I shall break it down into a 5 part series over the course of the next few days.


We were a nice cosy group of 15 people all gathered in a circle and we shared and reflected on the readings for the first Sunday of Lent 2010. The first reading was from Deuteronomy 26: 4-10 and spoke of the desert experience of the Israelites where God created the Ark of the convenant with His people through the gift of the Ten Commandments.

God prepares you in His Time

My heart has been quite heavily laden for a few days last week. The reason being I broke someone's rear headlights cover while attempting to park at St Luke's church in Woodvale last wednesday morning. I would like to think that I'm a very steady and cautious driver but this incident rattled my confidence for a good two days...

At that instance, I contemplated just leaving the scene but my conscience dragged me back. I felt that the right thing to do was to leave a note to offer to cover the repairs but the devil was playing all kinds of tricks with me. Thoughts of 'You're already so financially tight, I don't think you want to burn another hole in your pocket' and 'There's no one in the car, they wouldn't know it's you' were running through my head and I was so tempted to give in to them.

I finally decided to clip a note on the rear windscreen of the car and throughout the day I felt utterly down and out, praying that no one would call me back and that this whole nightmare would just fade into obscurity. 4 days passed and no calls came through and I was so certain that God has worked his miracle with the car owner or some gush of wind blew the note away. I was so thankful.

However, this morning I received an unsuspecting call from who else but the owner of the car. She said that she would let me know the cost of the repairs once she got it checked. Strangely, I did not feel very stressed that I would have to pay for the consequences of my actions but took it all in my stride instead. I think God has prepared me in His Time to handle this situation and truely I thank God for giving me the time, without which I'm sure I would be very much badly affected by it for a long while.

I pray and hope that the repair cost would be managable and that He will continue to prepare me for what is in store for me, the good and the bad here Down Under.

Thank you God for your grace and may we experience your saving help in your time. Amen.

Forgive as God has forgiven

It has been a rough start to the week, helping my dearie deal with her homesick state last night. I feel a part of me being crushed like how we terminate the life of an unsuspecting ant. It was terrible and for the longest time I felt helpless. I could only sit beside her till she fell asleep with her tear-filled tissues gripped firmly in her hands. What turned out to be a lovely evening catching Mentalist and CSI on tv became one of gloom and sorrow.

This morning did not improve by much as Angie contemplated calling in sick but decided against it as the clock ticked nearer to our normal waking time. It was a deafening quiet moment as we parted at the train station and I said a little prayer for Angie as I drove off to church.

As if the day could not get any worse, my encounter in church got me really angry and furious. I was waiting to turn into a shady parking lot with my indicator lights flashing when this guy entered into the carpark and stopped his car behind a long queue of cars, all waiting their turn to drop their kids off at the school. Our cars were in the opposite direction to each other and he apparently gave me that look of disgust as he threw his hands up mouthing: "What are you doing?" I responded by pointing at the empty lot to indicate I was going to park there. He immediately shook his head and drove past me as the cars ahead of him moved on. I was infuriated and so wanted to give him a piece of my mind but I kept it inside. My anger did not subside as I entered church and I found it very difficult to pray. A part of me wanted to let go while the other was boiling for revenge.

It took a while before I calmed down and as I gazed at Jesus on the cross, I recalled his prayer to the Father: "Forgive them as they know not what they are doing." At once, I made that conscious decision to forgive that chap, thinking to myself that I should forgive as God has forgiven.

Thank you Lord, for this lesson in forgiveness. May I strive towards perfection in you all of my days!

Stay close to God for He is our strength

Angie has started work and it has been almost routine now since we got Bluey that I would drop her off at the train station and head down to St Luke's Church for mass. I miss those days back in Singapore where I try to go for weekday mass in the evenings. There's no evening weekday masses here in Perth, just the morning ones, at least for St Luke's church, which is at 905am. And only from Tuesday to Friday for that matter...

It was my first time attending weekday mass at St Luke's church yesterday and it was scattered with elderly folks. I seemed to be sticking out like a sore thumb... but I felt close to God. Anyway, I had a nice surprise today. As I was reciting the rosary, kneeling down at one of the pews, a troop of students from the primary school beside the church came marching into church. Soon, the whole church was filled with young kids, all decked in their blue school uniform. Hmm... Blue seems to the story this week...

Well, I was reminded of my school days back in Maris Stella High School, where we attended mass in the school chapel in the morning before lessons started. Or was it catechism lessons? My memory is failing me... Anyhow, it brought me back to my school days and I realised that back then I was programmed to stay close to God and that gave me strength to handle the trials of school. Just the tests and exams of course! I'm sure you guys would be familiar with that. Today, God continues to strengthen me as I stay close to Him. I am confident that He will grant me strength to see through my present situation.

Be my strength dear Lord as I cling onto you and make a way for me, for us... Amen!

We are God's hands and feet in this world

I visited ANZ bank this morning to get our car insurance and thought I'll also dig out some information on the mortgage loan we could borrow from them. I was alittle disappointed they would not consider my allowance as income. I was going to head straight home but as I was riding on the escalator down to the train station, I just felt this nagging feeling within me to go enquire with BankWest. I was half decided on going as I was literally at the front of the tagging barricade... In the end, I followed that inner voice within me and turned around. It proved to be God's blessing for me today.

At BankWest, I was told quite matter of factly that there were no mortgage consultants available to speak with me and that I would need to fix an appointment for the afternoon. I wasn't prepared to stay in the city till then and so I left. Prior to that though, I noticed an elderly lady standing around looking very perplexed. I approached her and asked if I could help her out, something I wouldn't normally do but somehow I just did... Goosh, she spoke not a word of english and a string of cantonese came spilling out from her mouth. I was like: "Hua yu (Mandarin)?" Was I glad she knew alittle... She showed me a MediBank card but I had no idea what she was gesticulating and cantonesing (If there's such a word) about. We headed towards one of the bank staff, who on seeing the card, immediately pointed us towards the direction of the Medibank branch located within the same building. "Oh my, why didn't it ocurr to me that she wanted to go there..."

I offered to take her there and through our conversation, interjected with her cantonese and my awful mandarin, I found out that she was from Hong Kong and coincidentally, she had 3 children staying in Singapore. I was thinking to myself: "My goosh... She is in Australia but knows not a word of English... how does she survive?" As I left her, it then occurred to me that we are God's hands and feet in this world. We are there to help others in need and I'm sure many others before me had helped Madam Lai (saw her name on the MediBank card) get around here in Perth.

Thank you for that blessing Lord!