Gospel Inquiry - 17.10.10

Hey there friends, gospel inquiry this week this week focused on the Gospel of Luke and the parable of the widow and the judge :

Luke 18:1-8[18:1] Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. [2] He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. [3] And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'
[4] "For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, [5] yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "
[6] And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. [7] And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? [8] I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

What did YIS have to say about it ?? What thoughts or verses provoked us and how we saw it ??

18:1 > Never lose faith . .

18:2 > Some were provoked by the thought that the judge being a mere human didn't fear God . .
       > The judge being a judge should live based on judgement which comes from God, not man . .

18:3 > Believe in second chances, even for criminals and sinners, this brings about realization and repentance.

18:7 > When we pray for the right things and for the glory of God, God will answer and bless us and our prayers.
       > When we pray to God, His help does not come right away or when we are expecting it, God will work in
          mysterious ways . .

18:8 > Some were provoked that in this time and age, people have no faith in God and live under coincidental
          circumstances entirely . .
       > People tend to forget God, and that all things happen for a reason.
       > When good things happen, do we put God first ??
          When bad things happen, we end up blamming God when he is actually there to support us . .       > On judgement day, we will meet Jesus; so whatever we do now, we will 'get back' some time . .
       > When Jesus comes, will people believe and change their ways ??

Ovr  > Some said, what if we put ourselves in the shoes of the judge instead of the common perception of being in
          the shoes of the widow. Being the judge, we are constantly being 'pestered' by God. . What do we do ?? do
          we choose to listen to him or turn him away ??
What are your thoughts on this ??
peace be with you
=)

Gospel Inquiry ( 16.05.10 ) - Mother Mary and Pentecost !!

Hi dear friends,
as we move from easter into Pentecost, the day we get fire on our heads !! XD we had a gospel inquiry specially   on the topic of Pentecost . But wait thats not all, we also had a double whammy a.k.a buy one free one, whereby we also discussed the role of Mother Mary in this pentecostal celebration. Especially for those of us who have forgotten or thought pentecost is all about the holy spirit .. 

The Topic : Mother Mary and Pentecost, is there a correlation ??

Can't be bothered to read the whole thing, click here : https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9QAjT3jE8YpdP5yLmYFn7-W-xxqhG87kam_jP21SfI1zL5ki-oN0z2nAOLWu46Z2AbOrjAdcXj073wL9e8Y_K5Sl08k3zwKAvsTSW8v2iZsRQqV1SAPj4-tsifnSFlumSUHljYExQzQ/s1600/Mary+and+Pentacost.jpg

Just as a short intro, May is the month dedicated to our lady. And simply put, Pentecost also falls in May 

So, Let's start with what we know about the woman we all love so much . .

Pop Quiz :  She gave birth through IMMACULATE CONCEPTION !! huge words !! 

- What does this mean ?? Go google it to find out lah . . 

Well, what it means is simply that Mother Mary was from the very start BORN WITHOUT ORIGINAL SIN !!

God had a plan for her even before she was born which simply was to bring His son Jesus Christ into this world !!

Don't believe me ??

Fine, even the Angel of the Lord said to Mary when he came to her, " Blessed are you among women " .

Based on this mere fact is why we catholics Honour our lady (We don't pray to her in case anyone is still unsure)

Here comes the second part of the discussion, Pentecost.
What is it ?? What significance does it have ??

I won't bore u guys with the same old story we hear every other year (which we will hear at mass again next week) about the tongues of fire and bla bla bla. .
This time we look at it from a different angle.

Imagine this, the scene where tongues of fire falls on the disciples. The next thing u know, these holy men are running about preaching, praying and praising in tongues and with full glee and spirit !!
They seem like a bunch of drunk, crazy people. But they are far from it !!

What happened to bring about the sudden change in mannerism ??
1.The apostles realized their true identity as christians.
2.They found their true 'mission' and 'purpose' in life as they were thought by Christ.

So in brief, Pentecost day was the day of revival !!
It was the real beginning of the church as we know it today !!

Now, your gonna ask me, " you talked about mary, then you talked about pentecost, whats the link ??"
Here it is;
"Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives,
a Sabbath day's walk from the city.
When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James.
They all joined together constantly in prayer,
along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers" - Acts 1:12-14

This is the room where the great tongues of pentecost fell on the apostles.
Guess who was also present in this whole situation ??

MOTHER MARY !!

I'll now leave it to you dear friends to think about.
=)


Once again here's a 'mind map' version of it as a short recap and for all u people who are "reading impaired" a.k.a lazy to read long stories !!
(P.S. Click on the picture for larger view)

-DST_ephata_03- 

And we call this ProJeCt FHL !!

The date: 25th April 2010

The time: 11.30am-3.30pm

The venue: San Pedro Children's Shelter, Old Klang Road.

Guess what, YIS lauched ProJeCt FHL last month at WYD a.k.a Palm Sunday a.k.a best day ever
(yes the day we had the youth mass -__-)


if u already know what i'm talking about and u wanna noe what we did, scroll down XD


If u don't know whats ProJeCt FHL
OMG u dunno wats project FHL ?? or i qoute Suzzane's shirt OMG, LOL
or what it means by now please read here:

ProJeCt FHL is a project we started whereby it is based on the words "faith", "hope" and "charity" whereby i qoute St Paul, "of these three things remain, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love"
So yea. Dats d gist of Project FHL.

(now for the super-uber-blur-ones) =p
Project FHL breakdown: 1.Project = charity  project laaaa . . =p
                                       2.FHL = Faith + Hope + Love
Simple enough eh ??
. . lol  . .

___________________________________________________________________________

OK. Time for the 'serious' business. .
We went 2 d San Pedro Children's Shelter and had hellofatime an awesome time there.
We had a great outreach whereby we spent half a day with the kids and had lunch with them as well.

Great times accompanied with great food, leads to great fun !!
=)

well, i won't bore you with words because a picture tells a thousand words;
follow our outreach through these photos :

[planning before leaving. . . ]

[the 'banner' for FHL]

[group photo]

[teaching the kids how to spell 'DUNCAN']

[some of the kids]

[rejected look]










[some games we playing]













[group photo part 2]










[hair ??]












[before we left]

-DST_ephata_03- 

Gospel Enquiry ( 18.04.10 ) - Pope's Message for WYD !!

Hey there friends !!
sup ??

We had an awesome holy week and easter !!
Now back to YIS 'normal' activities !!
LoL . .. 


So, let's see, this morning we had a rather EXTRA long version of the gospel from Fr Chris. . I guess he got excited and got carried away ??  a.k.a "Shiok Sendiri" . . . hehehe . .
=)


Moving on with more pressing matters . .
=)

We had a gospel enquiry session this morning with our friendly neighborhood guest speaker Mr Ben G !! sounds so gangtsa !!It's Mr. Ben George . .
lol . .

This morning we discussed the Pope's message for World Youth Day (WYD) 2010 which was held in St Peter's, Rome i think . . . =)
Simply put and in a language that you and i both understand , here's my rendition of it !!

For the lazy ones, just click here for the overview . . https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_bAAfy0H4pDlw8B7srkntd6YjdgdffLacFylmSWYFKxZyLdt117-XUB-6yyQyYvSf2u3JIb7NxL-Q6RRPc9Tr0aZo12GbbpixzeUcWsInk8VjQYQ5RXArJWxed9VnOIh6Mr41mdbyAw/s1600/Pope's+Message+for+WYD+2010.jpg

The Theme 
Good teacher, what must i do to inherit eternal life ? - Mark 10:17

The Scene

• We see a young man approaching Jesus, he was like "Hey Jesus, how am i gonna inherit eternal life ??"
  (not his exact words larh . . . XD )
• The mere fact he was curious about the whole concept of eternal life : shows the man's sincerity ..
• Now we can pose this question to ourselves;
  "Could this man be a spy ?? or a false witness ??"
  -------------------------------------------------
  In my opinion, this is highly unlikely cos' when Jesus replied him "Go sell everything you own and follow me" , he felt sad and disheartened !!
  i mean who wouldn't if someone told you to sell all you have and follow him ?? XD
  (doesn't that tell you something ??)
• With this scene in mind, let us reflect on the pope's message for young people.

The Message

The message is simple and can be divided into 7 major parts:

1. Jesus meets a young man
   - We see the man speaks personally to Jesus, where it's not a general encounter or somekind of speech or something . . It's a PERSONAL encounter with Jesus.
   
    - This simply means the pope encourages us the young people to start having a personal encounter with Jesus !!
   why not, He is our Lord and Saviour after all right ??
   
    - Also, we noticed that this passage talks of the on-going thoughts on the minds of the youth.
   (Expectations, Hopes, money, power, futsal, music, hehehe etc.)
   
2. Jesus Looked at him and LOVED him
   - Jesus knows he came to seek eternal life.
   
3. Finding a new plan to life
   - We are posed with more questions; what is it with the catholic teaching and asking us questions when we ask questions ?? XD
   * What makes my life successful ??
   * Ask yourselves about life and don't just ask keep a commitment
   (e.g: Write it down, make sure by a certain period, you achieved something !!) or at least try . . =p
   
   - He also says we should not only talk to God but also LISTEN to him.
   It's called COMMUNICATING with God not just one way traffic.
   
4. Come and follow me.
5. Directed toward eternal life
6. The commandments , the way to authentic love
   - The commandments are there to help us gain true happiness !!
   Not simply to trouble us or things like that. . haha . .
7. We need you
   - Who are "we" ??
   footballers ?? musicians ?? humans ??
   "we" are the church !! the people of God !!
   -Pope has issued us some challenges as well in his message (specially for us):
   * Value the earth's resources.
   * Fair distribution of goods and financial wealth
   * Solidarity with poor countries
   * Fight against world hunger
   * Respect to human persons : The culture of life
   * Peace
   * Interfaith dialogue

That's about it dear friends . .
=)

here's a 'mind map' version of it as a short recap and for all u people who are "reading impaired" a.k.a lazy to read long stories !!
(P.S. Click on the picture for larger view)

With that, if you have any enquiries or any additions or complaints of my inaccuracy or stuff like that, please do shoot me not physically a mail at duncan_scott_3@hotmail.com and i will address ur concern ..

peace be with you,

-DST_ephata_03- 

I will start a fire within you and it will never burn out

Say to the southern forest: 'Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it.

Ezekiel 20:47

Good day and God bless you all,
This is the official blog for the Young in Spirit Youth Ministry (YIS) 

Basically let me start by introducing the group, the YIS is a ministry with a long running history as the Youth Ministry of the St John's Cathedral for the past 30+ years.

We live and run our ministry by these 5 simple principals or pillars as we call it :
1. Spirituality
2.Fellowship
3.Outreach

4.Service

5.Leadership
Simply put, at the end of ones "lifespan" with the YIS, we hope that they would have these pillars inculcated in them to shine for Jesus in thier lives of faith.

We meet every 1st and 3rd Sundays at 10.20am for all those interested to join us and grow in faith !!
peace be with you

-DST_ephata_03-