Malacca Johore Diocese News Update #233

Herald Malaysia

13 hours ago

The Pilgrim Cross moves from the Church of St Andrew, Muar to the Church of Christ the King, Kulai from August 2 till the 23. Aug 08, 2025
Welcome dear friends,The Pilgrim Cross moves from the Church of St Andrew, Muar to the Church of Christ the King, Kulai from August 2 till the 23.Catholic pilgrims and non-Catholics turned up in droves at Alor Gajah and Pamol Estate chapels for the Feast of St Anne respectively.Congratulations and a blessed 25th Sacerdotal Anniversary to Fr Simon Yong SJ and Fr Joseph Heng.
Rising Concerns! Sales tax went up. Surging rentals, logistics charges and rising wage demands are hiking up the prices of meals. Relief is here. The government intervenes: SARA cash, cheaper fuel and toll hike freeze. The government launches Sejahtera Madani to eradicate hardcore poverty. Minimum wage RM1700 order is to be fully enforced on August 1.The PM is grateful to all Malaysians for their continued support and patience of the government's reform agenda. The PM brokered a ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia.The 'Turun Anwar' rally fizzled out, with low turnout. The government says that Malaysia needs more homegrown technology and innovation. A real relief or a 'feel good' relief or an illusory one.
Dark Times! Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: Your 'yes' to God requires your 'no' to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and poor'. Brazil's President Lula said Trump was 'not elected to be emperor of the world.' Richard Rohr describes periods of darkness, confusion, and struggle as necessary for our transformation and growth: Experiences of darkness are good and necessary teachers. They are not to be avoided, denied, run from, or explained away. There's a darkness where we are led by our own stupidity, our own sin (the illusion of separation), our own selfishness, by living out of the false or separate self.We have to work our way back out of this kind of darkness with brutal honesty, confession, surrender, forgiveness, apology, and restitution. It may feel simultaneously like dying and being liberated. But there's another darkness that we're led into by God, grace, and the nature of life itself. It really feels like the total absence of light, and thus the saints and mystics called it 'the dark night.'Yet even while we may feel alone and abandoned by God, we can also sense that we have been led here intentionally but it is the darkness of being held closely by God without our awareness. This is where transformation happens. Regardless of the cause, the dark night is an opportunity to look for and find God — in new forms and ways.
A Thought For The Week: Bicycle Repair A man was working in a bicycle shop. A cyclist had come for repair and after repairing the man cleaned up the bicycle and it looked like a new one. All other workers were making fun of him for doing redundant work. Next day when the owner came for the bicycle, he was very happy and offered the mechanic a job.Good and extra work is never useless.
Something's Happening Near You:
1. Malacca Vicariate Pastoral Council on August 13 at the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
2. Deacons' Study Day and Commissioning on August 16 at the Church of St Joseph, Plentong.
QnQ! Q asks: Any difference between 'being victimised 'and 'being a victim'?'Suffering is universal. But victimhood is optional. There is a difference between victimisation and victimhood. We are all likely to be victimised in some way in the course of our lives.At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control. This is life. And this is victimisation. It comes from outside. It's the neighbourhood bully, the boss who rages, the spouse who hits, the lover who cheats, the discriminatory law, the accident that lands you in the hospital.
In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimisation. We develop a victim's mind, a way of thinking and being that is rigid, blaming, pessimistic, stuck in the past, unforgiving and punitive. We become our own jailors when we choose the confines of the victim's mind.' Edit Eger. Holy Spirit@work: 'The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it' -- Nouwen Henri J. M. Something to tickle you: 'The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.' -- Walter Bagehot Bishop Bernard Paul