By Lucille Dass
Jun 20 2023
PERAK – Continuing from our last issue, we feature sessions three and four of the Five Loaves and Two Fish programme organised by the Penang Diocesan New Evangelisation Commission recently.
Fr Simon Anand, parish priest of the Church of the Sacred Heart, Kampar (CSH) and head of Penang Diocesan Youth Network, spoke on migrant ministry, an outreach programme that has become synonymous with CSH because of the sizeable population of migrant workers in Kampar, mainly Indonesian, many of whom are Catholics. Other migrants include Bangladeshis and Nepalese.
The young priest gave an insightful and comprehensive coverage of the ministry in areas most wanting: sacramental, physiological, medical, and educational needs. Other church communities – especially the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit (CHS), the 11 ‘kelompok’ (group) leaders and their members, together with bodies in public office and institutions – all rallied to undertake the massive and manifold tasks for the positive well-being of migrants in Kampar.
He reiterated that the “key problem” was the urgent need for personal ID documentation of many Indonesian migrants. This Indonesian diaspora were from among the far and widely scattered 17,000 islands, that make up Indonesia. In many of these far-flung islands there is no registration office/department. “Personal documentation is closely tied up with the schooling system,” Fr Simon disclosed. Without any school records, one is tantamount to “being stateless,” disenfranchised, and deprived even of sacramental documentation!
Thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through the collaboration and goodwill of the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, this major problem was resolved by the CSH ministry. This important settlement not only safeguards the migrants in all security related matters while in Malaysia, it also guarantees their citizenry upon returning to their home country.
He also elaborated on various health measures undertaken, in particular, the prevention of maternal and infant mortality. Doctors, nurses, and public health officers helped raise good hygiene and health awareness among the migrants. After their monthly Masses, medical/health check-ups are made available within the church premises, especially for all pregnant women.
It was heartening to learn about the enthusiasm and zeal with which these migrants involved themselves in all church related events, especially in animating the monthly Masses. Another happy outcome the priest related was that they were well accepted by the local parishioners. Fr Simon ended his enlightening delivery with a call for “helping hands” for there still remains much to be done.
The next session was on Family Life Ministry which was presented by Theresa Wan, secretary of Penang Diocesan Family Life Commission. She began with a quote from Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia 53, “The strength of the family lies in its capacity to love and to teach how to love. For all a family’s problems, it can always grow, beginning with love.” And as we might know, this document opens with its eponymous exhortation, “The Joy of Love experienced by families is also the joy of the Church.”
Theresa documented the brief history of the Family Commission in Penang, initiated by Fr Edmund Woon in November 2011. The current spiritual director is Deacon Lazarus Jonathan. She harked back to the setting up of World Wide Marriage Encounter (WWME) programme by Fr Gabriel Calvo of Spain in 1952. ME Malaysia began in the early 1980s with a stress on marriage as a “domestic church” (Lumen Gentium #11) and its mission to extend this Catholic faith-based experience of couplehood to all dioceses in Penang. She also spoke about the ME weekend stay-in experience designated to help deepen and enrich spousal relationship and to help priests and the religious to strengthen their communication skills with their ‘spouse’ i.e., the people of God.
The goals of ME are: to strengthen communication skills between spouses and to nurture a deeper appreciation of “couple sacraments of holy matrimony.” She emphasised that the ME weekend experience was to “help improve intimacy between husband and wife.” It was not for troubled marriages nor was it a therapy/counselling session. – Herald Malaysia
