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My Spiritual Journey

Despite growing up in a non-Christian household, I started praying all by myself when I was about 10 years old.   Without anybody speaking to me about religion, I somehow learned about Christianity & Jesus on my own and my belief in God at that time was in an exclusively personal space, unknown to anyone else. I only went to mass for the first time when I was 15 and was baptised a Catholic at 19.  Since then, I have been active in the Church and I even toyed with the idea of joining  the Jesuits but never did.  Even so, I was closely identified with them, attending a Jesuit parish, and was quite often seen together with the novices.  I was involved in various pastoral work, both in Britain and in Malaysia , with particular interest in  liturgy and children.  My faith journey was deeply personal, attending annual retreats when I was in Britain, culminating in the 30 day spiritual exercises in 1994.  My beliefs and theology are very much rooted in my formative years in the 70s and 80s during a period of pastoral experimentation.  They form the basis of my value system and this is what I would like to pass on to my family and to future generations: that we are here on earth to spread love and to maximise the greater good to society.

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Jim at Church: About Me
Jim at Church: Resume
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What I have done in Church

Pastoral, Liturgy, Catechism

Youth Ministry for the Archdiocese

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1983 to 1987

In seeking to expand the role of the laity, the archdiocese set up a sub-committee of the Lay Committee to look into youth affairs. I volunteered to participate on it and we worked to upgrade it to a full committee to celebrate the International Youth Year 1985.  Our efforts was recognised when the Archbishop set up a permanent youth committee with me as the 21-year-old chairman.  I travelled throughout the Archdiocese, visiting almost every parish and established relationships with youth groups.  It was an introduction to the microcosm of Malaysia as a nation with her multitude of language groups, cultures and races.  I learnt about interpersonal dynamics, management and social justice.  This eventually led to the establishment of the Archdiocese Single Adults and Youth Office but that was after I left for Britain to further my studies.

Catechist for First Communion

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1988 to 1994

Arriving in Britain, I settled into the only home that I could have in a foreign country: the Catholic Church.  I volunteered as a catechist in the local parish of St Thomas More in Manor House London, preparing children for first Communion there.  Aidan, the parish priest was careful to test me out initially but eventually became the priest with whom I worked the closest.  I was very well accepted by the parish community and ran the First Communion program for five years before handing it over to a team when I left.  I learnt a lot about pastoral work, especially in a community mixed in race, class and culture.  I also learnt about good liturgy that appreciated the history & traditions of the Catholic Church.  Being in London was quite an eye-opener for me, being able to meet the many strands of Catholic and non-Catholic thoughts and traditions.  I was also able to interact with the London scholarship community, meeting the people who wrote the books that shaped me.

Living the Sunday Word for Children

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1995 to 2018

On return to Malaysia, I made sure that despite the heavy workload in my professional life, I continue to contribute to my local parish of St Francis Xavier.  Seeing the state of the children's Liturgy of the Word as a shadow of what it was before I left, I decided that this would be my pastoral focus.  Unfortunately, the Living the Sunday Word for children became so identified with me that I could not drop it or pass it onto someone else to run, violating my principle that one should never run a ministry for more than five years.  I was blessed though with a group of volunteers who became friends and ran it as a team.  Eventually though the numbers of children dropped as the parish aged and younger families migrated to new suburbs.  It came to a point when all the facilitators lived or attended mass outside the parish.  Due to health issues, I sadly had to close down the ministry after running it for almost a quarter century.

Ministry to Sabahan & Sarawakian Students

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2014 to 2016

When I stopped full-time work, I decided to dedicate at least part of the extra free time to pastoral work.  I met the assistant priest and asked if I if there was anything that he would like me to do and he directed me to the ministry for Sabahan and Sarawakian students.  This was a new ministry to me, ministering in the Malay language to students in PJ.  I also made many trips to Sabah and Sarawak running faith programmes and talks for Catholic youths in the interior, and building leaders among them.  It drove me deeper into the cultures of Borneo, and the challenges their students faced when placed among the Malay-speaking Muslim community in the Peninsular so far from their homes.  It called  me to  the role of a father figure to many young people who never had one.  I learnt about the other Malaysia that live in a very different socio-economic, cultural and societal environment to us in the Klang Valley.

Jim at Church: Resources and Tips
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Children Liturgy of the Word

I developed our own material for the Living the Sunday Word for children at SFX church.  This was a complete cycle over the three years Catholic liturgical cycle with the applicable feastdays.  They were dusted down and updated every time the cycle comes round again.  They are almost complete and I wish to share it with everybody.  This entire set is born from experiences of actual chatting with children and bringing them to an understanding based on the children's own personal experiences.  They contain a myriad of little gems of factoids that I think would be of interest to young and old alike, illustrating the broad wealth of history, traditions, and origins of the Church.  I am keen to help anyone, Catholic or not, to discover the Church.

 

Please use them as you see fit and let me know if there are any improvements that you would like to see in them.  Material for feast days are usable in any year as it is the same discussion, even if the reading itself may differ.  Some readings for a particular Sunday may have a common theme over the three years and the discussions in all three years are part of a single series.  Please also note that some of the material may have references to the Church in Malaysia and I would trust that you can customise it accordingly to your locality.   I would also appreciate that you remember that I still assert the copyrights of all material here as the author, though.  While at the same time, I would like to apologise for the gaps in the material as I did not prepare material during Malaysian school breaks - I will be working to complete these material so that they can be published as a single book.  Thanks and let me know if they are useful.  If you are reading this on your phone, not all material may be visible, just contact me if you need something but you don't see it.

Katekisma BM

Dalam masa hidup saya dalam Gereja, saya bertuah dapat melayan berbagai kerasulan. Satu-satunya adalah pelayanan saya dengan pejalar-pelajar Sabah Sarawak yang bertempat di Semenanjung.  Pelayanan saya awalnya atas arahan pembantu paderi paroki di Gereja St Francis Xavier Petaling Jaya, di mana ada satu kominiti besar pelajar-pelajar Sabah dan selepas itu, dengan Kerasulan Umat Bahasa Malaysia di bawah Keuskupukan Agung Kuala Lumpur.  Peranan saya membimbing anak-anak Borneo ini, melibat perkongsian iman termasuk katekisma pembaptisan bagi mereka yang belum dibaptis di tanah air mereka.

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Saya ingin kongsi bahan-bahan ini dengan sesiapa yang ada dalam pelayanan Gereja membangunkan iman anak-anak Katolik kita.  Bahan-bahan ini percuma dipakai dan kamu bebas ubahsuai untuk tujuan kamu.  Kiralah sebagai serahan saya bagi Yesu dan umatnya.  Malang, siri Kateskisma tidak lengkap sebab bukan kesemua tajuk adalah bagi saya menyiapkan.  Mungkin satu hari nanti saya dapat selesaikan apa yang di mulakan.  Juga, ada penjemahan Liturgi Sabda Kanak-Kanak dari Living the Sunday Word tetapi itu hanya dalam permulaan.

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Juga, kalau ada sesiapa yang ingin seorang untuk mengongsi iman atau apa-apa renungan dan cermah, sila hubungi saya.  Tuhan berkati kamu semua.

Resources I have developed

All posts are by

My Blog on religion

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The posts here and are the fruits of my reflections on taking the Gospel values and message to its logical conclusion.  I believe that as religionists, I should never be afraid of the conclusion that any rational reflection lead and we should never be afraid to change long-held conclusions that logic invalidates.  Theology is a science, the word means science of God and we should treat it as a science, not superstitions or self-validated opinions.

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You will also see below, a series on Catholic Soundbites.  This is a series of articles explaining the Church we love in a way that would be interesting to explain to children.

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