St Patrick's Catholic Church, Kogarah

07/01/2025

18/12/2024

3rd day of Dawn Mass 2024
18 Dec

‘Intrigues,’ ‘talk of the town,’ ‘hot issue of the day,’ … people glossing over a profoundly devastating matter… and the result is heartbreaking, not for for the gossip-mongrels or gossip-monsters (who at the end will be ones wagging their tails) but for the devastated person. In the Gospel on the 3rd day of our Dawn Mass we have this intriguing character, and he is no other than Joseph. Poor Joseph! He was just doing his job. Quietly. Yet in his silence we learn a great deal. Yes, in silence we learn a profound lesson and we meet a profound person, at the same we discover who we really are.
Let us not - or not yet - downplay the heartbreak of Joseph. Here is a man ‘betrothed to the woman or girl of his dream,’ then discovers that the fiancée was found with child.’ Ouch! That hurts. Really hurts. Like being stabbed at the back unexpectedly.
But Joseph being a ‘just,’ ‘righteous,’ or ‘God-fearing’ middle age man responded calmly and unreservedly. There must be some turmoil or tough calisthenics in his mind but being a man of God he did what the angel told him: ‘he took his wife into his home.’ Period. Oh, not really a period but the struggle continued, this time with complete trust in God.
For Joseph the love of God outweighed human incomprehension and weakness.

Joseph was gracious to God. He reciprocated everything with grace and, in silence. Let us learn a lesson from Joseph, not just on justice but on compassion and kindness.

Let us then ask the grace from God to deal with matters incomprehensible or vague as Joseph did -and as Mary did: take it to your heart, with full trust in God.

18/12/2024

2nd day of Dawn Mass 2024
17 Dec

Perfection we wish, but never happens in this world. We can - and only - strive, but never attain it. The Gospel today narrates the genealogy of Jesus; numerous names out of our vocabulary, but enumerated in a special way anyway. Three groups of ‘14 generations each.’ Theologians and biblical scholars interpret this as ‘perfection’ of God but vague in human comprehension. Not even the names are perfect; some of names mentioned lived ‘lives away seemingly from heaven,’ tantamount to be not included in God’s listing in the heavenly realm. Yet God has used the names or the succession of families to give the human race the MANY CHANCES it needs to prepare for the coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ in the flesh.

Celebrating then the 2nd day of our Dawn Mass makes us ponder on God’s love for us who gives us countless chances in life to live life according to our promises to Him since the day of our baptism (though if we’re baptised as infants we didn’t do the promises but our parents and godparents did).

How we wish we can be perfect in living our promises, but human as we are we can only do the best we can, and trust in God’s faithfulness and love for us. He loved us first, with our imperfections, before we loved Him in return. The genealogy of Jesus gives us a lesson on imperfections but God can mend the broken pieces of our lives; He can ‘write even in broken lines.’

18/12/2024

Ist day of Dawn Mass 2024
16 December

Was impressed and happy to see a lot of people turning up - parishioners and visitors and friends, and may be ‘curious-seekers’ but trustingly believers - almost filled the church early morning. God always works in beautiful and unknowable ways. Just so pleased with the turn-out this first day of the 9-days of Dawn Masses. I only wish and pray that more people will be drawn all the more by and to God and His house of prayer and encounter, thus turning away from sin and the lures of the Evil One. Dawn Mass is one way, among many and various ways, to put first things first - to have God and the Blessed Mother FIRST among other things, works, endeavours, pre-occupations of the day, for if and when we begin the day well, with certainty we’ll end the day well. A seed planted well - with our good disposition and kindness - will usher full flowering and ultimately abundant fruits and avalanche of harvest - by sheer grace God.

I pray that the dawning of day thru the Dawn Masses will be a GEM (God Encounter Maker) in the lives of so many - believers and faith-seekers.

30/10/2024

Back from European pilgrimage … wonderful!