Woke up to a brand new year of the Rat at 8am today. Begin the day to complete my blog entry on Ash Wednesday. Today we went for 11am mass at the Holy Trinity Church. It was packed but not as crowded as the usual Sunday mass. Fr Joseph Nasanathan (St Mary of the Angels) gave the sermon…it was a beautiful sermon. He gave the example of the tradition of having Steamboat for reunion dinner for the CNY eve. Now I know the significance of it. The other day I was walking after work with my colleague to AMK mrt and along the way she told me it has always been the tradition of her family to have steamboat for reunion but the significance of it I did not really understood then. Today, Fr Joseph pointed out during the sermon, he was invited by a family to their reunion dinner last night and in the dinner steamboat was served as the main dish. The steamboat is to symbolize the strong union of the family as every single member actually dish out from the same pot. It was beautiful…how wonderful the meaning was. As opening prayer before the meal, he request all the family members there to reconcile with one another and be at peace with one another before commencing dinner. (That is exactly what we experience during the Mass). He went on by pointing in the direction of the Tabernacle that this is also same as when we celebrate the Holy Eucharist, we received the same body of Christ from the same source as one whole big family. How beautiful the celebration of mass is… He told us that the CNY traditions have a very deep meaning in them and if we look at it from the Christian perspective, then the meaning of CNY takes on a whole new meaning at a higher platform with God as the center of the our focus. He caution us while it is good to observe these traditions from a Christian perspective, we must be not be superstitious observing them. He gave us the example that after the reunion dinner while walking to the carpark and that was about 1am in the morning, he observed that there are lots of peopled washing their cars…so he began to ask why the next morning and the reply was that the Chinese believes that washing and having petrol filled to the fullest possible, the car would be clean and full tank for the rest of the year. This is superstition and as Catholics, we must be on guard towards such beliefs. I guess same goes with clearing your debts before the CNY otherwise you will owe money to that person for the rest of the year…and so on..and so on..
Absolutely beautiful! After mass , blessed mandarin oranges were distributed to all and here is what we collected. 10 in total 2 of which is for mum-in-law.
To all, A Happy Year of the Rat and May the Almighty God Bless you and your families abundantly, ALWAYS!
Albert Y
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