The Barefoot Journey Home

As I write this in Vancouver, I am well aware that back home in Singapore, many of us are busy celebrating the Lunar New Year. A time of merry-making, indulging in our favourite goodies, and for some of us, shopping for new clothes. It is also a time where we welcome in the wealth, good health, and prosperity that we hope to obtain during the course of the year, through the exchange of red packets, the tossing of Yu-Sheng, and for some of us, even through re-arranging the furniture in our houses (in other words, Feng Shui).  But for us as Christians, what does this celebration entail? After all, many of these Lunar New Year traditions, while fine to indulge in, have nothing to do with our Christian faith. The Christian faith is surely not a superstitious faith, and the first of the 10 commandments most certainly still applies to all of us, even as we celebrate a somewhat Pagan festival. " I am the Lord, your God. You shall have no other Gods but me " . It's perfectly ...

“Traditional” Catholics and “Mordenist” Catholics. How should the Mass should be celebrated? There are Catholics who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass (which some may call the Pre-Vatican 2 Mass), and there are Catholics who prefer the Norvus Ordo Mass, which is the general form of worship in most parishes today. Normally, I’d prefer to reserve my comments when it comes to topics such as these. These are grey areas which can potentially cause much division in our Church. However, I felt prompted to speak up when I saw someone share a post in a Facebook group. This post insinuated that the Traditional Latin Mass was, and is, the only way to go. The intent of the post was to throw the shade towards the Holy Father and the Bishops who were part of the Second Vatican Council, for “doing away” with the Traditional Latin Mass, and for “doing away” with many things, such as the priest facing the altar towards the East (or “Ad Orientam"), taking away the railings at the sanctuary, ...

I recently re-watched the sixth film in the Harry Potter series, or as some of you know it as, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The crux of this book focused on how Harry was the chosen one, to vanquish Lord Voldemort, the greatest Dark Wizard of all time. The hopes of the Wizarding World rested on an ordinary boy, sixteen years of age. He possessed no extraordinary wizarding powers, and he hardly knew as much about Dark Magic as Lord Voldermort. Yet, it was his destiny to rid the wizarding world of the most terrifying dark wizard to ever terrorise the wizarding world.  Of course, throughout the series, Harry never succeeded by his own merits. He nearly always had help from his friends, and quite honestly, Hermoine was clearly more skilled than he was. He also always had the guidance from his mentors, in particular, from Dumbledore and from the Order of the Phoenix. It'd be quite safe to say that Harry would not have succeeded without help from others. There were many othe...

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”  Growing up with the Harry Potter series, this is one quote by Dumbledore that always stood out to me for some reason. Sounds cliché? Maybe. Dumbledore used this quote in the third book, when Dementors were stationed outside the grounds of Hogwarts in search of an escaped convict in the wizarding world. For those of you who don’t follow the Harry Potter series, Dementors are amongst the foulest dark creatures in the wizarding world. They feed on human happiness. The presence of Dementors can make one feel as though he’d never be happy again. Get too near to a dementor, and you’d have every happy memory sucked out of your soul. It’s interesting that the charm which wizards use to defend themselves against Dementors, known as the Patronus charm, requires them to concentrate on a single, but powerful, happy thought. The thought needs to be strong enough in order to shield ...