Peter is a colourful character with surprises, a man of all seasons. He showed courage in defending Jesus, but was also cowardly and ran away too. Swearing to stay faithful, even laying down his life for Jesus, shortly after that he denied Jesus three times. 

As my 20^th anniversary to priesthood is approaching this year, I am tempted to look back and see for myself what I have achieved, or not achieved, and what are my hopes and dreams for my future, writes Fr John Quang SVD.

During those 20 years, I have been through a number of ministries: parish, formation, social communications, with migrant workers, provincial counsellor. Through my various ministries, I’ve found that I spend lot of time worrying about formulating vision/mission statements. These are important as far as they help us to have a purpose and show us how to gear ourselves towards that achievement. They are a means, not an end in themselves. No one dies for a statement. But people are willing to live and die for their conviction.

Dear Friends,

Happy Easter! Christ is risen, he is risen indeed. Alleluia.

After our last two Easters where the communal celebration of this pinnacle of our faith life was severely limited due to COVID-19, what a joy it was to gather in numbers again to welcome the Risen Lord.

“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:30-31) 

To borrow a story from my friend, Fr Bel San Luis, there was a man who was visiting a seminary. He saw a poster with a phrase in big letters, “Christ is the answer”. Puzzled he wrote at the bottom of the poster, “What is the question?”

Most of us have seen this scene in a movie: There’s a person who is strapped on an electric chair about to die. The police are just waiting for 3pm on the clock before pulling down the lever to deliver thousand of volts of electricity so that the prisoner who is condemned to die will be killed. And with just a few seconds before 3pm, the phone rings, the President is on the line and orders the police to give the prisoner a reprieve.

A few years ago a friend of mine,  a fellow priest,  shared this story with me: He and his brother were the joint heirs to their father’s estate. Several months before their father died, he called his son, the priest, saying he wanted to talk about something very important.

Suffering and tragedy are things that we don’t want to reflect on or think too much about because of the pain that it brings into our lives. If we look at the world today, there are so many natural and human made disasters.

Today we are invited to reflect upon the Transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray and when he was at prayer he is transfigured.

This Sunday the 6^th of March, the Universal Church enters the sacred time of Lent. Marked by the celebration of Ash Wednesday, we are reminded both by tradition and Gospel that this is a sacred time, a penitential time, to consider the beauty of humanity in God’s creation, but also to remember the limitations we have as human beings.