NEWBEC: How do you interpret the bible faithfully?

A serious yet practical insight on how to use the Bible to its utmost. You may have noticed that the passage above makes several references as to how the Church and the Bible are bound intrinsically, hand in hand. This emphasizes the second Biblical truth, which is:

"Sacred Scripture was never meant to be read alone."

Read on , people. Let God lead you, and let He be the Superglue that holds you together, and to Him in eternal embrace.

God bless you, and have a pleasant week ahead =)

God our Superglue

"It follows the law of gravity that any unsupported body will fall. You break the law of God, you break yourselves. Never in my years as a missionary have I met a single person who sins and remain happy, exuberant. You'll feel broken. Broken. So ask yourselves today, what keeps you away from God?"

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-- Fr Augustine, CP, on yesterday's gospel calling for repentance (Mt 4:12-23) --

NEWBEC - Why do Catholic Bibles have seven more books than Protestant Bibles?

An insight to the seven extra books ( the Deutrocanonicals) in Catholic litreature bibles. If this is the first time you've heard about the seven extra books, it's never too late to learn! And the more you know about the Bible, the closer you'll be to God and the more you'll be able to revel in His awesomeness. Through God, His people have written a bestseller. Not any bestseller, but the bestseller, which has been translated into more languages than even The Simpsons Movie! So grab a copy today.

And also bear in mind that other people would probably want to read this bestseller as well, so share the Bible with someone today!

P.S. The world's no.1 bestselling book in the world is the Bible, by the way. It's a statistical fact as far as the author is concerned.

NEWBEC - God's Gift of the Word

Starting from this week, we'll be putting up the NEWBEC newsletters in JPG/JPEG (picture) format on the blog. These are particularly good reads, because they shed some light on what it really means to be a Catholic.

What on earth is NEWBEC?

NEWBEC stands for New Way of Being Church - it's a newsletter printed by the Peninsular Malaysia Pastoral Team, and is distribuletd free in every Catholic Church. Usually a four-page newsletter, NEWBEC has one feature article from the Pastoral Team printed on the outside, and the inside contains all the activites that particular church has for the week or so, eg. announcements, people to pray for and so on.

If this is the first time you've heard of NEWBEC, give it a read! It won't take a few minutes and it will be really worth your time. And be sure to pass it on to other people who haven't read it yet.

This was some time ago, but it was important that you all read this, especially since we're starting a new year and so forth. It explores the Church's theme from 2007, Deepening our Discipleship even further, about God's Gift of the Word and how the Word is Jesus, through whom the Father communicated His great love and His plan for salvation of the whole of humanity.

God bless all of you and happy studying to those who have been mugging like mad.

People to pray for:

P1/06 and M2/06 - who have been studying like mad people.

P.S. The scanner was working a little under the weather, and this particular copy of NEWBEC was slightly...damaged, so bear with the poor print quality for awhile. Better ones will be up!

IMU Inter-Religious Forum

Recently, IMU held its annual Inter-Religious Forum, and invited the religious societies to debate on the topic of ‘The Meaning of Life’. The Catholic Society was represented by Mr. Gerard Louis from HELP University College. Here’s a bit of biodata for those who might be interested.


Mr. Gerard Louis
BSc Ed (Hons) (UM), MSc (Distinction) (Guidance & Counselling) (De La Salle)

Mr. Gerard Louis has been a trained counsellor for the past 10 years. He has worked in various capacities as a Principal of a secondary school, a Program Director in a Youth Formation Center, an organizer of National and International Youth Leaders' Conference and Conventions. He is currently attached to the Center for Psychology at HELP Institute as a counsellor, lecturer and trainer.

Person Speaking: Mr. Gerard Louis (CSS). Other speakers from left to right :- The Sikhism speaker, Mr Vijaya (Buddhist Society) Mr. Nicholas Sylvester @ Muhd. Abdullah (Muslim Society), Mr Sherman Kuek (CF) and Sree (Moderator - Sem 4)

Other notable speakers included Mr. Sherman Kuek for the Christian Fellowship, Mr. Vijaya for the Buddhist Society and Mr. Abdullah for the Muslim Society. I’m terribly sorry, but the name of the speaker for Sikhism just escaped my mind – I’ll update when I remember.

Overall, the forum went quite well. The speakers bonded nicely, and there weren’t any openly hostile battles, or any of the ‘my religion is better than your religion’ propaganda. All in all, I think the speakers did their best to make the audience view religious meanings of life from each respective religion, which was the aim of the forum in the first place.

It was a shame, though, that there were no representatives for the atheists or free thinkers. There were originally plans to elect a representative, but I do not know what happened; perhaps they just decided that there was no time, or there was no one suitable enough to represent free thought as a general consensus.

There were some interesting points to ponder, especially about the concepts of abortion and suchlike – generally, everyone agreed that abortion and DNRs* were forbidden in one way or another by all major religions. The Buddhists, however, seem to have no problems with in-vitro fertilization and human cloning, and supported contraception, as they view that whether an individual gets born (or is prevented from doing so by contraception) is dependent on the karma of the parents and the unborn person. In contrast, Christianity (particularly the Roman Catholic Church – the church is very firm on this) does not condone contraception, human cloning, or in vitro fertilization, as the whole process of conception is seen to be an act of God.

At the inevitable sandwich-and-coffee session, the CF speaker, Mr. Sherman, suggested that only one speaker represent both the Catholic Students’ Society and the Christian Fellowship because “the differences between Catholic and Protestant faith are so slight that they would not show up in a forum.” Definitely something to consider for the next year.

The whole forum lasted about three hours, and everyone came away a little wiser.

And as an end note, it IS 2008, and this is a rather belated first post. But better late then never. Heh. Here’s something to think about – What is the meaning in your life? And what should it be?

Blessed 2008, everybody.

P.S. – congratulations to all the Sem 1 2s who recently received their results. And if they’re bad results, no worries…it’s only 12.5%. Just remember to give all the glory to God, be it a good or a bad result, for all things are possible with Him.

*DNR – Do Not Resuscitate – medical order given if patient is simply kept alive by means of medical equipment ie. brain dead. A form of passive euthanasia.