The artistic renditions of Jesus crucified on the cross, are often sanitised and aestheticised - Beautifully cleaned up with strategically painted-on blood streaks at the knees or side where Jesus was pierced through with a lance, a crown of thorns neatly woven together in a braid, and more intentionally placed droplets of blood flowing down Jesus’ forehead. Jesus, Crucified Roman [...]
The prophet Samuel was sent to the house of Jesse of Bethlehem, to anoint one of his sons as king. While there, he sees Eliab, who was tall and handsome. He thought that he was the Lord's choice. Blinded by our own sense of what is good and bad, we often choose what we think is right, to realise that [...]
This year, each catechism level at CSM is making candles to be distributed to our parishioners during Easter Vigil. Parent volunteers and 17 kids from Level 6 (about 12 years old) gathered on the morning of Saturday 11 March to make beeswax candles. You heard it right, beeswax! As many of us already know, we need candles at Easter Vigil [...]
There is, in truth, a lot of trash, no cap, that is floating around the Internet biosphere these days. As a wannabe Internet content-creator, I sometimes scroll through the video reels on Instagram and Tiktok, just to see what is trending these days, and some content befuddles me – why are people creating this nonsense, and worse, why are there [...]
In today’s Gospel, we listen to Jesus’ teaching about himself as the source of living water. During the sojourn in the wilderness, God’s people thirsted bodily, and God satisfied them with water. The wilderness narratives remind us Christians of the experience of disruption, transition, or adversity. As we struggle, do we believe that where God calls, God provides? In [...]
The 2004 Vatican version of the Via Crucis writes poetically about the Eighth Station – Simon of Cyrene helps to carry the cross of Jesus: “The first stars that hail the Sabbath have not begun to shine in the sky, and yet Simon makes his way home from his work in the fields. Pagan soldiers, who know nothing of [...]
What is your personal encounter with God? We are in the season of lent. Are you going to let yourself be a mournful Catholic during this period? Many times, I have heard from fellow Catholics, “oh it is Lent, I am going to skip meat and alcohol. This is how I am going to sacrifice during this period.” As soon [...]
It was the year 2020 and the world had just received the news around the time of the Lunar New Year celebrations that a new virus had been discovered and that it was rapidly spreading across the globe. Paralysed by the shock, the world waited with abated breath in the hope that it would be a fad virus and quickly [...]
This week, we enter the season of Lent. Beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on the Wednesday of Holy Week. It is not about the sacrifices I can make for six weeks. It is not about giving up Netflix or chocolate or about going meatless altogether or going for daily mass or help out at a soup kitchen. If we [...]
The name Job is synonymous with suffering – 1) The Lord permits a series of afflictions by the accuser to happen to Job; 2) three friends come to console him; 3) Job makes a complaint which results in a number of soliloquies; 4) the friends try to convince Job that it was because of his sin and wrongdoing that the [...]
