Archbishop John Wong presiding over the feast day Mass
By Bro George Vaithynathan
July 12 2022
KUCHING – St Peter’s College (SPC), Major Seminary, celebrated its feast day, the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul, on June 29. The day began with morning prayer and meditation, followed by the traditional internal football match between teams Peter (red) and Paul (blue). Thanksgiving Mass was celebrated in the evening by Most Reverend John Wong, Archbishop of Kota Kinabalu, and attended by the seminarians, formators, lecturers, and a few sisters of St Francis of Sarawak (SSFS) from the convent next door.
The prelate began his homily by posing three questions to the congregation. Firstly, what made Sts Peter and Paul great? Secondly, what made them become such important figures in the Church? and thirdly, were they perfect and faultless that God used their lives as His instrument? He believed that as budding theologians, they knew the answer: that it was their humanity and imperfections that enabled God to use their lives to reveal His greatness and glory.
He further expounded using the philosophical principle of cause and effect by rephrasing them as signs and consequences. A sign is encountering, St Peter encountered the mercy, forgiveness, and love of the Lord when He looked at him; this led to him becoming the “rock” of the Church and later being crucified upside down. St Paul, on the other hand, encountered the Lord on the way to Damascus. He experienced mercy, forgiveness, and the love of the Lord, and as a consequence, sacrificed his life to the extent of being beheaded for his faith.
The archbishop further illustrated that very often in our lives, we look for signs so we may be sure of our vocation. When the prelate was at SPC from 1992-1998, every year during this solemnity, he would ask for a sign, an encounter with the Lord, but didn’t get any until it dawned on him — was he ready to face the consequence of the encounter? The prelate quipped that thereafter, he stopped asking for a sign.
“Looking back, each of us would have had a sign, an encounter with the Lord before deciding to enter the seminary. Jesus, after His resurrection, asked the disciples to go back to Galilee, the place where Jesus began His public ministry and where the disciples encountered the Lord. Likewise, we too need to go back to our first encounter with the Lord, to constantly remember and renew this commitment to journey towards the ministerial priesthood. Like Sts Peter and Paul, let us allow the Lord to use our lives for the greater glory of God,” said Archbishop John.
After Mass, the community also celebrated the “Ngiling Bidai” or closing of St Peter College’s Kaamatan and Gawai festival. This grand event, similar to the Chinese Chap Goh Mei, marks the end of the Gawai festivities. The prelate told the community to promote and take care of the culture for future generations.
As the grand and joyous fellowship dinner came to an end, the “Ngiling Bidai” would not be complete without the symbolic rolling of the mat. To signify the start of the festivities, the mat is symbolically unrolled, likewise to end the celebrations, the mat is rolled-up by the guest of honour, accompanied by the rector, formators, and sisters.
