Dear All

For easy reference, in case we need to use it, I've appended the Student's Prayer below (courtesy of Lenz's email):

Personally, I find it a very appropriate prayer to get our priorities in life right and focused on God. No doubt, making enough money for a decent living is important, but work and the means to the end must be morally right.

As I guide my kids, I always have to pause and sometimes pray for divine inspiration, to give the right explanation, and the wisdom to speak according to the way God wants of me.

Love Theresa

Prayer of a Student

Lord Jesus, you are the Way, the Truth and the Life.

May I find your truth in the books and sciences that I study every day.

Many times I hear confusing voices in my studies.

Send your Spirit to guide me and to make clear your ideas, your doctrines and your truth,

That I may firmly believe in them.

Lord Jesus, you are the way that I must follow.

Help me be honest and sincere in my search for the right path and when I find it enable me to walk along it courageously.

Lord Jesus, let me grow in your divine life.

Help me share my God-given talents with others so that they may live in your joy and peace

Jesus my friend, you know there is so much fierce competition in schools, colleges and universities.

Help me cope with the pressure and tension but above all, Lord make me remember that my studies are not for money, power, position.

My education must lead me to contribute to a better society where people have opportunities for work, for family life, for peace and justice. Only in this aim of living for others will my education be worthwhile.

I ask this Lord, in your name.

Amen.

All Saints Day Quote from Fr Albert Ng

Dear All

Fr Albert Ng replied me and here is the quotation:

"Saints are like windows. Through them the light of God's wisdom streams into the world, banishing the darkness, and brightening the road for uncertain travellers. Through them the warmth of God's love radiates through the world, banishing the coldness, and warming the hearts of even the most forlorn of his creatures. And through them we catch a glimpse of another world, a world that lies not just beyond the walls of our earthly home, but even beyond the stars. Be a saint!" - Author Unknown

Love

Theresa

All Saints Day Mass - 1 Nov 2011

Dear All

I was searching for the poem Fr Albert Ng shared at the end of his sermon and came across this sermon website on All Saints Day, which I found very meaningful.

http://www.motherflash.com/sermons/range/allsaints3.html

The reading for All Saints Day is the beatitudes. Fr Albert's poem about what is a saint was beautiful. Saints are windows for us to see the beauty of God's love and for God's light to shine through. The Saints are windows for us to see heaven. We can always call upon the Saints to intercede for us, for they are in heaven and are always concern for us here on earth.

Have a Blessed All Saints Day and All Souls Day (which is today 2 Nov).

Love

Theresa

Birthdays of my loved Ones :)

Dear All

We recently celebrated the birthdays of Feli, Bert and Tiff. Simple celebrations, simple meals, simple gifts, and we thank the Lord for His abundant blessings in giving us the ability to celebrate our birthdays each year. There are many others, even in Singapore, who are not so fortunate to be able to either celebrate it, or no loved ones to celebrate it with.

The daddy opening his bd gift from the girls (below):

The happy dada with his sheep from Precious Moments (Below):

The inscription at the bottom of the figurine (below):

Tiffy celebrated her birthday last night with KFC and cake and 100+ facebook bd wishes (below):

We managed to squeeze in a baking session with Tiffany during the 1 week September school hols. She made the cupcakes below, practically all by herself, including decorating and washing up everything!! The trick is to use ready cake mix. Just add in the fats, water and eggs, and viola...instant cake batter! This is the 1st time trying such a cake mix. We used Betty Crocker super moist cake mix from Cold Storage.

Before I could take a pix, 1 cupcake was already gone!! It was that yummy! (Below):

This brand and type of mix flavour was recommended by Tiff's friends (below):

The measurements were all in USA, or had to google to convert to something understandable:

LC Sharing Session & 36th Wedding Anniversary @ M&L - 10 Sep 2011

Dear All

It has been a trying 1 week Sep school holiday for me and my family. We had to take turns to help my mum out with taking care of my dad whilst their maid had to return to her country, as her husband had met with an accident with a drunk driver and died in ICU. It has been a miracle that my brother managed to arrange for her to leave so soon so as to see her husband one last time.

Anyway, we still made time for LC, and we usually try to bring the girls along with us, although they are growing up fast, and sometimes would like to have their own space and time. But usually, they are wonderful girls, and try to join us as much as possible :)

The sharing question for the session was:

HDIF when we seem to be too busy for each other? Describe fully those feelings. Pretend today, the phone/internet/power if out. How do I feel about that?

Celebrating the 36th Wedding Anniversary with Mike & Lisa (pink shirt & lime green blouse) at their beautiful home (photo below):

It was a wonderful session led by A&P. They gave us a 1 page note on the importance of having an intimate relationship with God and sowing seeds to know and love Him. In a similar way, that's how we should be building an intimate relationship with our other best friend, who is our spouse. For in the end, we can only reap when we have sown. Otherwise, there's nothing to harvest when the kids have flown the coop and we are at the end of our earthly pilgrimage.

Lenz's sharing summed up the general feel of the session:

What we brought home from the sharing:-

1) You reap what you sow (see 2 Corinthians 9:6 ) and that we can’t expect to reap a harvest on seeds you’ve never sown

2) Time is the price we must pay for intimacy with GOD/spouse, if you have an intimate relationship with God, you will likely have an intimate relationship with your spouse.

3) What are "The Wretched Stone" of your life, beware of them.

4) When things are ok, pray 1 hr a day, when things are not and we are busy, pray 2hrs a day.

5) Your spouse is God's gift to you, how are you treating the gift?

Remember the 4 tools to continue the journey for a intimate spousal relationship ---

1) Dialogue;

2) Sexual Relationship;

3) Couple Prayer;

4) Journey with the like-minded, ie ME couples as in Lovecircle, ME Service Team, ME priests…etc.

Love Theresa

Our Visit to Maghain Aboth Synagogue

Dear All

Today, Sunday, Sep 11 2011, we visited the Maghain Aboth Synagogue located at Waterloo Street.

It was organised by our parish's Great Bible Adventure Class.

We understand from a member that is very difficult to visit a synagogue, so we were very blessed that our entire family could visit this Jewish place of worship.

As our Bible Adventure Class of 24 sessions cover both the old and new Testaments, it was opportune to have an insight into the life of Jesus as well as to get some understanding of the Jews practices. As security was very tight, we were not allowed to take any photos of the synagogue.

These are some photos taken from internet:

The Ark is behind the curtains (Below):

Behind the 3 dark blue panels of this "stage" at the very front of the synagogue is the Ark. This is NOT the Ark of the Convenant (which contains 3 items : Moses' 2 tablets of the 10 commandments, manna from heaven and Aaron's rod). The Ark here contains 40 ancient scrolls where the torah (or holy book) is written. It's written on parchment made of cow skin and written with special feather pens. The Jews do not have an altar since the destruction of the Temple.

Besides the 10 commandments, they actually have 163 commandments (inclusive of the 10). They have strings tied to the 4 corners of their garments to remind them of the 163 commandments. The head cloth they wear is a reminder that there is God who is always above them.

A beautiful take-away from the new going to be rabbi is this: Everything around us has a purpose. It's been put their by God and we should accept it (be it things, people or animals) for itself.

The Ark is on the top of photo, and in the centre of the photo, is the place where the Rabbi reads the Torah (Below):

When the Ark is revealed, everyone has to stand (otherwise they sit). Males 13 years and above sit separately from the ladies. The guys sit below, whilst the ladies and children sit in the gallery above.

When the torah (which is held in the Ark) is read by the rabbi at the raised stage at the centre of the synagogue, the people follow the text in something like our church's missal. The rabbi walks down the red strip of the carpet on the RHS facing away from the front stage to go to the centre stage. After reading, he goes along the other side of the red strip of carpet back to the front stage to return the torah to the sacred place behind the panels of curtains.

At the top right hand corner of the photo shown above, is a space where they keep glass bowls of oil and several white candles. Another beautiful view of life after death which I have learnt was, to the Jews, how they visualise souls, it's like a flame. After death, our souls still live on, and like a flame, no matter how it is lit, it always burns upwards. Just like our soul, it is always wanting to go up to heaven. For some Jews, the candle is lit for the entire 1st year of a loved ones death, to remind them that they loved one is still living but not in the bodily form. After that, a candle is lit on every death anniversary of the love one.

Another interesting view is that heaven is not just one place, but there are different levels of heaven. That's what I gathered from the briefing.

Another view of the centre stage and front stage (at top of photo). You can see the galleries on either side at the top of the photo:

The external view of the synagogiue (below):

The synagogue was built in 1878 by Jews from Iraq (middle-east) but based on the architectual style of Britain.

Interestingly, they sing without instruments. They love to dance and use the bells hang around the posts of the stages to jingle them as they dance (much like how king David used to dance and sing in the Old Testament).

The text is in Hebrew and they don't have any pictures of people on the walls. They have a few poster-sized frames of torah verses for the people to read as they respond to the rabbi prayers.

Sabbath day is actually Saturday, and not Sunday. Their day starts at sunset usually around 6:30pm.

Another view of the externals of the synagogue:

Lastly, they don't follow our Gregorian calendar. For this year, their new year is 28 Sep of the new year 5772 (That is, currently it's the year 5771). Just like our CNY, their new year changes every time, but usually falls either in Sep of Oct.

These are just little bits of info that I remembered of this visit. Hope you find them educational. We share so much similarity with various religions actually :)

Love Theresa

Hosting at ME House - 1 to 3 Jul (ME376)

Dear All

It had been some time since we hosted a ME weekend. The last time was in 2005, a year after our original ME weekend. I believe our LC did it as a 1st year anniversary celebration for our very young Love Circle then.

Below: The new signage of ME House

Below: Mike&Teresa from LC307

Below: Tucking into breakfast after a busy morning of preparation

It brings back sweet memories "living" within the 4 walls of ME House. ME House holds many sweet and a little "bitter" (at least for me) memories for Bert and me. It was the place we first went for EE Weekend. I still remembered the hosting EE priest, Fr Nicholas Ho. He was such a romantic priest, who was so in love with the movie Robin Hood starring Kevin Costner then. I remembered Bert and I had not seen the movie then, so Fr Ho was encouraging every couple to do so, and kept on singing the theme song. It's so important that our beloved priests supports married lives. We are so blessed with our wonderful EE and ME priests, not to mention Choice priests too!

Below: Tiffany preparing ham & eggs sandwiches

I remembered we had alot of couples from our LC either staying overnight, or coming in or going out over the Nov 2005 weekend. It was quite different for this month's July 2011 weekend. I supposed it's because it was not the school holidays, so parents are all working and unable to take leave, as the June school holidays had just ended.

But the show must go on. Couples have committed their time to attend the weekend, the priest has availed himself, the 3 presenting couples have committed themselves, heart and soul, into this. By combining couples from 2 LCs, we formed a team. In the end, only 2 "residential" couples, 1 each from each LC, were able to stay over at ME house. I am so edified that our LC couples came through....though they couldn't stay over night, J&J came early in the mornings to help in the breakfast and wherever they could. When they can't make it on the last day, and so too by the other hosting couple (they had to leave on Sat night), we were worried....only we had to host it...but true to the LC spirit, E&C came like manna from heaven. Indeed, thanks to the prayers and cooperation of everyone involved, we managed to host the July ME376 weekend, with our wonderful LC leader, L&J presenting that weekend as well.

Below : Bert & I taking turns to attend to the red bean soup

The girls stayed overnight with us. They were very helpful and after some guidance, were quite skilful in rolling paper napkins over the cutlery. Tiffany learned how to cook beautiful scrambled eggs for breakfast under the guidance of the uncles. With the help of the ME House residential couple, Andrew and Belinda, Tiffany learned how to blend the balance of the ham and scrambled eggs to make sandwiches for tea, and I learned how to make red-bean soup with whole orange! E&C added the final orange zined to the soup. Felicia was happily washing all the cups outside with her daddy carrying the washed cups back to the kitchen. She and her sister had never seen so many plates, forks and spoons to wash and dry!! It was great bonding time for the girls with us, and for us with our LC couples and M&T from LC307 (I believe - I cannot remember for sure). It was so nice to make new friends from another LC :)

The ME 376 weekend was a small group of 10 couples of which 2 couples were from Thailand. We also had 2 Thai priests. We could see that the Holy Spirit had touched the participating couples very deeply during the weekend as we witnessed their exchange of marriage vows once more during the Sunday Mass. We know (later on) that hosting couples should not attend the ME Sunday Mass, but we had no choice...we didn't know till then, and that was the last Mass for Sunday. Luckily Fr Louisou allowed us to :) As we watched the deep love that was rekindled between husband and wife, we also felt like a happy community with them. We secretly hoped we could be allowed to also exchange our marriage vows too, but I supposed this Mass was actually for them, so we should be as inconspicuous as possible. Anyway, Felicia was excited that she had the chance to taste the wine at the Holy Communion. It's been some time since I also had the chance to taste both Body and Blood, so all-in, we were so blessed to be allowed to attend this Mass.

Love Theresa