I have disappear

I know i have not been blogging or even appearing. But dun worry, i am still around. I was just too caught up with my work. I think i shld not have and spend more time with the lord and my FIDES friends.

But nvm, i am back, hopefully. I will be back i full self after my exam. Great plans ahead like the retreat, FOA and my website and newsletter launch.

Look out for the new FIDES image.

FIDES Exam Mass

The Perfect Cure

Have you had a bad nose before? Have you experienced having to go through lessons when your nose cannot stop watering throughout the day? And when you wake up in the morning, your entire nose is clogged up and you are gasping for breath?

I couldn't take the feverish feeling anymore, so I saw the doctor. It was either allergic rhinitis or sinusitis. And it wasn't a good sign because I had a cold only a month ago. And it was week 11. The doctor apparently saw how serious the condition was because he gave me medicine that was strong enough to knock out a cow. It definitely dried up my nose, but it was temporary and I felt faint when I stood up (that's why I didn't go for prayer meet that week :S)

I started attending masses at St Peter and Paul recently because the Sacristy got burnt in IHM, so I was (am still) temporarily displaced of my church as I didn't want to risk celebrating mass in the outdoors (that happens when you are not early). Week 10's Sunday, I was at St Peter and paul. It wasn't too crowded and the people were very reverent and prayerful. I picked up a copy of the church flyer for the mass times for the following week and found that the week after was to be a healing mass (18 Mar, Sat).

Of course I was interested then. I've heard stories about how people get miraculously healed during the mass. My own sponsor's back was healed in mass. But as you know, stories will always remain as stories. You are awed by God's power but you don't really feel that you are a true witness.

Well, life gets crazier in SMU and I forgot about the healing mass over the week.

By chance, my finance group decided, after trying to accomodate everyone's schedule, that Sunday morning is the only time that everyone could meet. I couldn't go for Sunday sunset because I had a family dinner.

My salsa class on Saturday ended at 5 p.m. I bombarded QQ with msges to find out the time that was most convenient for my schedule. The cathedral one was definitely too late. I wanted something that was 5 plus.

Guess what? I ended up at the healing mass at Sp&p.

I was 15 min early for mass but by then, the church was packed to the brim. I thought it was the biggest mistake to be there because I had to stand on heels throughout mass, it was hot and stuffy, I had to keep blowing my nose, I felt sick in the stomach after twirling too much in class and I was tired and hungry. Father Gino was a very charismatic speaker who made everyone reflect about their Christian lives, but he spoke painfully slowly (for me at that state anyway). I almost contemplated leaving for the later mass at cathedral. At the point of time, I was wondering what could attract such a hoard of people to the mass when nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

The healing session came right at the end at the Eucharist. It didn't feel like one at all. It took at most 10 minutes? All Father Gino did was to prepare us by welcoming Jesus Christ in a humming manner. And then, he started on a string of healings. It went something like this:

'There are people here with problems with the blood. The Lord is healing you now. Just follow your doctor's directions and all will be fine.'

'There are a few people here with cancer. A boy about 12 years old has Leukaemia. Do not fear the Lord will heal you.'

'3 people here have heart problems. 2 men and 1 women. The Lord is healing you now.'

'A man about 75 years old has a back problem. The Lord is healing you now.'

'Many old men and old women sitting here have arthritis and joint problems. You will be healed.'

'People with gastric problems, the Lord is healing you. Make sure you continue medication and eat the right food.'

It was so vividly described. In a few cases, the age, the number of people, the condition was described.

'There are people here with colds or sinus. You will be healed.'...

Oh my goodness.

I was so touched I cried. I mean, there are so many people out there with far more serious illnesses than me. Why would Jesus bother about a mini cold?

Ironically, my nose started running more than ever with my tears as I walked out of church. But after I stopped crying. I never blew my nose again the whole evening. I thought it was too miraculous to for it to be true. So I decided to wait till the next morning to see if I wake up with the sickening blocked nose.

I could breathe freely the next morning. God's touch was gentle and comforting. He healed me in a way that I actually feel healthier, not knocked out like the medicine that I took for temporary relief.

God loved me so much He couldn't bear to see me suffering, even from a little cold. He arranged it such I had to attend the healing mass where He would be there to take the suffering away from me. Now I am a witness to God's healing powers and I will never cease to praise the Lord for his glory.

My dear brothers and sisters, no matter hard it seems at school nearing the end of the term, be assured that God is ALWAYS right at your side. He is willing to share your pains as long as you allow Him to. In His own special way, He will bring the right person at the right time at the point you feel you need most help. So continue to depend on the Lord and trust in Him....

Your loving sister,
Julia :)

O God come to our Aid, O Lord make haste to help us!

The Tri-challenge was such an interesting experience. Never in my life have I spinned so hard with my legs. My thighs nearly gave way, as seen by the supporters, my legs when i came off the bike. I was initially disappointed that there were no supporters but I realised, when the race started, that we had our biggest fan there: GOD!

He was watching over the 3 of us to ensure that we'd a safe competition; no shoes stuck at the bicycle pedal, no shoulder joint coming out and no fainting cases! The supporters were probably wondered why I was shaking my head like a mad person when I was spinning. Nope I was NOT praying!

This was due to the spinning classes that I attended in school. They would play those techno music that drove me nuts! Realising that I couldn't beat it, I joined it and started shaking my head in tune to the beat! Thus when I was spinning, the beat came to mine and I instinctively started to shake my head.

In between shaking my head, I just prayed the prayer in the subject line. Relating this whole spinning experience to my faith life, I felt terribly lonely at the bike. I couldn't hear the encouragement from Nick Tan, QQ, Joe and Esther, no placards spurring me, loud music distracting me and all my competitors faster than me!

What was worse was the stupid distance meter did not move! Even the taxi fare meter jumped faster than the stupid distance meter. I was so despondent and about to give up when I recalled the last line in the "Footprints" Story

"When you saw one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

With that in mind, I hung on in there and prayed. I closed my eyes and just let it go blank. I focused on God and just spinned real hard. The next thing I knew, it was 2.0 miles already. It was like a mini reflection of my current faith journey with God!

My dear friends, our faith journey is often lonely and filled with despair. Prayer and communication to God will help you to keep track of your objective of eternal happiness!

"I can do all things in Christ in he who strengthens me."

Your humble servant

Nick Chia

Tri-Challenge Part 2

I was one of supporters for the FIDES team, it was well down. I never know Nick chia could spin so fast. Dun be disappointed with the supporters, i believe the spirit is there. Lets look forward to our Working retreat.

Maybe i could teach the group a trick or two on enhancing our publications. I have created a web page for our tri-challenge photos. Do visit them.

http://www.smufides.os3.sg/album/trichallenge/

-----Joseph Sung-----

TriChallenge

Apart from the terrible splitting headache & disgusting feeling of vomit stuck halfway in my throat after my leg of the race,

all in all, today's TriChallenge was fun!! :D

And I'm very proud of my team... Great job Geri & Nick Chia!!!

God is good!... Although we din get anything, well we din get last either...!!.. hahaa... (& we even beat our secret rivals... ;P) aw c'mon, we were one of non-sports CCAs that took part k...

Thought it was quite retarded the way our singlets were oversized and how our promised Goodie Bag never came... sigh man... was looking forward to that too. haha. but whatever, we completed the race well and now more ppl know of Fides! ~YAY~

Anyway... to Jo, QQ, Nick Tan and Esther Heng, thanks soo much for coming down to support us..!. geri n i were admittedly kinda like a little disappointed initially when we did not see any Fides ppl arnd... so it was wonderful seeing the 4 of u!! :D heh

wow.. what a day worth remembering... can't wait to see all the photos! hah.

Luv, Van :)

The greatest sin is to be unaware that God is with us

I hope that today's sharing session was indeed fruitful to everybody. To reinforce what I've said, let me sum up what I mentioned.

1. Pray and Reflect on what you plan to do this Lent.

Examine whether you've committed the sins of commission (I did this and that) or sin of omission (I failed to do this....)

2. Resolve to do that thing during the season of Lent

Give up your favourite food, 'sin' or make time for prayer. Something that allows you to be closer to God

3. Remember to pray for the strength to adhere to your resolution.

Pray for Mother Mary's intercession to be there always with you

Nick Chia

Prayer

Tis the season for deep soul searching and reflection. From the sharing session at CANA we had not too long ago, many of us feel that our prayer life needed rejuvenation.

To be honest I've never really felt connected with God through prayer.

I don't what to pray about. And I don't like the idea of kneeling in front of picture of Jesus and Mother Mary racking my brains of what to say. It felt fake, because I was doing so out of obligation (don't pray is sin right?). After a while, I gave up.

Have you ever experienced one of those nights where by you've felt that you've an information overload from the reports or admin stuff you're settling at the computer that you just don't want to think anymore?
It was one of those nights for me. I shut off the lights and sat at my bed, feeling harassed and certainly not in sleep mode.
It was then I remembered the centering prayer we did at one of the earlier prayer meets conducted by Father Fred. At that time, my mind was too fried to do anything intelligent. But how difficult can it get to just focus on the word, 'Jesus'.

I didn't exactly go into the whole prayer, but that started the ball rolling for me.

The whole idea is just to be there for the Lord. The common misconception is that you must keep your tongue wagging in His presence for prayer to be considered prayer. But have you ever held a fruitful conversation with your friend by just talking non-stop? Our loving Father wants to hear about our lives from our own mouths, but He also wants to share His own. We want to have two-way communication with God.

So when I run out of things to tell the Lord I tell Him 'Speak Lord, Your servant is listening'. And I would sit in silence and wait for God's response.

It is wonderful, the things He does for us. That night, my hands felt a reassuring sense of warmness, as if He was caressing them and telling me everything was alright.

That night I snuggled into bed. I felt so loved and I could imagine myself being tucked into bed by a loving Daddy. It was the same feeling I had many many years ago, when I was still a little girl and I had to be patted to sleep by my real Father (I didn't have the privilege of knowing God then).

Ever since, I've spent time with God that way and I suppose, prayed in that way.

Its funny how God works because this started for me at the time Lent started and it wasn't an intentional effort that I made to 'communicate' with him. But what I think God wanted me to share with you is that personal prayer is not meant to be forced or unnatural.

God wants you to be comfortable when you speak to Him. Off the lights if you feel more 'in tune' that way. You don't have to say the words I've said. Develop your own style; God made each of us unique and connects with us in His own special way.

Prayer is God's invitation for you to share your life with him, because He loves you so much. So so much. More than you can ever imagine.

How fortunate are we to have a friend in Jesus!

Julia :) (eh let me know of any bad grammar hor, I composed this very quickly)

The Season of Lent

This is the first time that I am making an effort to do penance. Not that I didn't want to last time-- I hadn't been a catholic long enough realise the significance of penance.

Well guys, as most of you would already know...

I'm giving up chocolate for 40 days!

Sounds trivial, doesn't it? (I mean, I love chocolate but I don't eat them EVERY meal)
Well, you'd be surprised at how the little things matter

I've witnessed occasions that I was offered chocolate in class, passed around nonchanlantly by my friends. I would almost pick out one from the packet, until I am reminded of my resolution. Uncannily, its happened so many times throughout the week. Everytime I do so, I am think of God. Not necessarily the suffering He went through during the Passion. But I think of Him.

Perhaps that is God's way of reminding me that He is present in the setting of seminar room when I am having finance? Perhaps that is God's way of reminding me that He is present in the the LTB classroom where my group was dooddling on a mahjong paper for a presentation? Or when I'm at 4.6 studying? Or when I just decided I wanted to drop by Mr Bean? (suddenly, many of my friends have taken a liking to chocolate pancakes haha. In fact, a friend from stats class asked if I wanted a bite today).

God is truly shouting to me. Hi!! I'm EVERYWHERE. I'm EVERYWHERE you go. And I will be ANYWHERE you go or choose to go.

How many times have I remembered that God is walking with me, in the midst of school term, every minute, every second, and every millisecond of the day. I realised I have remembered God in school, only when I needed a miracle for comms presentation the next day.

Have YOU thought of God when you're solving some integration question for Econs, or when you're worrying about your final report for BGS? Even if you haven't, God is there with you, sharing your burdens.

And I just feel so thankful that I worship such a beautiful God. I love Him so much.

Your loving sister,
Julia :)

Is God your first priority in life?

In spite of all the preparations for the numerous projects and tests looming ahead, let's not forget to put God as our first priority in life this Lent... the way He has!!

-Vanessa

Thoughts...

Hi all,

This is my first post in this blog. We had a meeting with the FOC heads of the 2 other varsities this afternoon and these are my thoughts.... I shared them with Peter (President CSA) and Sean (President CSS). Would like to share them with you all now.

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Dear Sean and Peter,

I trust we all had a fruitful meeting this afternoon. It is good to see students from the three universities working together. For those who have never stepped into SMU before, I hope you guys had a wonderful time admiring our school. Now you know why our school fees are so high eh? This meeting has left me with some thoughts, which I would like to share with you guys right now. I know some parts might seem a little harsh, but I have no ill intentions. The reason why I am willing to share it with you all is because I believe, in the words of Sean, “we see each other first and foremost as friends…” So let me be brutally honest. You all might not agree with me, but do take it in the right spirit.

As I was sharing with the both of you earlier on, isn’t it amazing that the 12 of us spent almost 2 hours debating and arguing about issues that the previous FOC committee debated about and then come to almost the exact same conclusion? Basically it just shows that we never learn! As I was talking to Raphael after the meeting, he told me that the same thing happened last year. They spent a long time talking about this issue. I don’t blame anyone, because I believe with the exception of me, no one else in the room knew what happened last sem. The majority in the room were year ones. Peter wasn’t involved in the FOC planning com last year, and I guess Sean too. Having an event sheet might prevent this from happening next year. Then again, I don’t want the next FOC com to be constrained by the decisions made by the previous com. This is a fine line that we have to tread.

Did you guys realize that we were actually arguing over a small amount? It was totally absurd. Assuming we have $1000 of surplus Love Offerings after covering cost. By dividing it evenly between the 3 of us and by dividing it in the ratio of 2:2:1, NUS and NTU stand to gain a grand total of $67 more in love offerings! Such a minute amount, but we spent such a long time over it and worst still, tempers were getting short and bad blood was being spilled. How much of the deficit will that additional $67 cover? The issue about people giving money without taking a shirt…. Even if we can collect an additional $1000 in offerings, it would amount to only an additional $400 for NTU and $200 for SMU. How important is that amount to us? Certainly, it is always desirable to have more money in the kitty. If that is that case, what makes us different from the other secular clubs? Who is the centre of our clubs? What is the goal of our clubs? That’s why in my closing prayer I said “… may we do Your work, not ours…” FIDES always has a “money losing” mindset. For all our events, with the exception of fund raising, we seek to lose money and charge the participants pay as little as possible. This sounds weird, coming from a student from a business school. I certainly would not make my accounting and finance profs proud of me. I am not ashamed to tell you guys that we only have less than a thousand dollars in our club account. Pathetic isn’t it? If anybody should be fighting for a bigger share of a pie, it should be us. Yes, we could do with more money in our account, but money is the least of my worries. We will do our own fund raising and stuff, we will try our best, but we will never worry about it. Somehow, God has always been good to us. We are not rich, but we were never broke. I remember once when we were almost broke, Archbishop Nicholas Chia just took $150 from his wallet and gave it to us one fine day. The best part was that he didn’t know about the dire financial situation we were in. He simply gave us the money out of the blue! That was the defining moment. We were worried before that, but after that incident, we just had this child like faith that we will always have enough. I don't know why I remembered that incident as it was almost a year ago, but it really left a deep impression on me and on the rest of the exco members. Yes. God will provide.

We may have done our own fund raising. Some more successful than others. If you have done a successful one, be glad. The Lord has laid a banquet for you and you need not worry about where or when your next meal will come. It is indeed a blessing. However, Blessed is the beggar who shares his meal with a stranger. Again I will say that I would love to have the additional $200. It represents 60% of our disposable income. What percentage of CSS and CSA disposable income does $400 represent? 10%? 20%? But if one of us needs the money more, shouldn’t we help one another? Where is the Love? It was sole lacking this afternoon. In that room, we seemed like a bunch of cut throat bankers, trying to squeeze every single cent out from one another. I admit that I am to blame too. I am no Saint. Initially, I told my people that they should be careful and try to protect FIDES’ interests. Don’t get eaten up by CSS and CSA and try to fight for the most advantageous position. It was only in the midst of our debate that I realized my foolishness and short sightedness. Indeed, it was one of my members who told me that if CSS needed the money more than us, then we should help them. I was enlightened. Come to think of it, if I were to be a non catholic observing the proceedings this afternoon, I wouldn’t think that I am in the midst of a group of catholic students. Worst still, if I were to know that I was in the midst of members of the Student Catholic Society from the 3 varsities, I will be disillusioned with the Faith. We were arguing about money! Whatever happened to loving your neighbour and helping those in need?

If you ask me, I don’t think we are all petty people wanting to count every single cent that we should get. Money has always been a tricky issue. Even among friends. The problem is not money per se. It runs deeper than that. Maybe, as the Chinese proverb goes “the outsider sees the clearest” (literal translation). Allow me to point out my observations.

If we are really serious about working with one another, our mindsets have to change. Some of us want to make sure that we are not short-changed in any bargain, some of us don’t want to be seen as kowtowing to someone else and some of us want to ensure that we “compensated” according to the effort that we put it. I know the universities have had some issues with working with one another in the past. What’s frightening is that this group of people seemed to be have those mindsets… and they are all year ones! This is their first occasion working with one another and they are already carrying the emotional and historical baggage from the previous coms. It seems to me that we are all treating one another with a degree of caution and suspicion and are doing our very best to get into the most advantageous position. It seems that we have been warned and been told of the past problems and we are all wary of one another. Have we truly forgiven each other? Can we ever forget the past? Will we ever start with a clean slate? We have to change the mindsets of our members. Such is the severity of the issue. Such is the problem that we need to overcome.

We are not working together. We are simply in an “uneasy” alliance. There is so much jostling around. Who are we? SMU Catholic Students? NUS Catholic Students? NTU Catholic Students? Or are we Catholic Students in SMU, Catholic Students in NUS and Catholic Students in NTU? Which comes first? Our school or our religion? This seems like a no brainer, Religion, of course… but our actions do not tally with our answers. We seem to put our clubs first before Him, and it is ironic as our clubs are meant to serve Him. Whichever university we belong to is only transient in nature. After 3-4 years, we will no longer be students of that university, but we will still be Catholics. We need to see that fact and stop defining the boundaries that separate us. The fact that all three clubs exist for the same purpose is reason enough for us to cast away our differences and stop being short sighted. At the end of the day, does the exco want to be known as the exco that successfully added to the bank account? Or does the exco want to be known as the exco that made a difference to the club and the members. At the end of the day, would your FOC com want to be the com that successful “fought” for a couple of hundred dollars more and “stood” their ground against the other two universities? Or the FOC com that managed to reach out and attract a large number of freshman? Enough bad blood has been spilled over the years and it is time for us to move on.

I’m not telling you guys how to run your club, I am in no position to do so. But given our positions, we should make our members see beyond the horizon. We have masses and prayer meets and cell groups and such, but what’s the point if we are not living our faith? What’s the point if we are going to be so calculating with our own Brothers and Sisters? What’s the difference between us and the Pharisees and Scribes in Jesus' time? He called them hypocrites. It is time we start practicing what we preach.

This is the first weekend of Lent. How apt! Lent is a period of reflection and contemplation. It will be a good idea to take this Lenten period to and make our members take a good look at themselves and the purpose of the club. I believed we have been called to our positions. It is time to reflect how best we can serve, not our respective clubs, but God.

What do you want to be known for?



Wishing you all a reflective and contemplative Lent
Nicholas

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Nicholas Tan