Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Scandal of the Cross

**This is a Blog entry I wrote on 18-2-2008 ( in my old Blogger)


Sunday, 17-2-2008, The Gospel reading is the Transfiguration of Jesus. Jesus revels his Divinity to the Apostles, to prepare them for the scandal of the Cross.

On the same Sunday, in a corner of Batu Tiga, Selangor, a scandalous event taken place . It is not the manifestation of the Glorified Jesus, but the blowing out of the light of Christ. (There is no Mass on this particular Sunday at the Chapel too).

An 80 years old priest was unceremoniously removed from an institution of Jesus. No goodbye, no farewell, no assistance, no thank you and no mercy. He is just an item to be removed from the Institution founded in Jesus' name, an Institution formed to manifest the love of Christ. He is being treated as a contract worker and be removed upon expiry of the contract. As the picture (right) depicts, he is liken the leaves, to be swept and dumped. ( I sent my foreign housemaid personally to the airport and waved her goodbye)

Do they considered the feelings of an 80 year-old priest? Is moving house as easy as changing clothes? is the physical and emotion of him being considered? Can an institution who takes in hundreds of students, with millions of dollars budget, not able to accommodate one old man? What more he is the Chaplain!

Does St. Louise Marie De Montfort's " Those whom the world rejects must move you the most" means anything ?

He is being sent away not because there is no place to put him, not because he is useless, or the institution lack of resources, it is simply because he is a Priest of Christ. If he is not a priest, if he does not celebrate Mass everyday, then he may stay. He is asked to leave because he is a priest, he is the CHAPLAIN !

He is downtrodden and dejected !

Scandalous ! shameful !

I am not judging the spirituality of person(s) or an organisation. I am looking at things as a human being, with basic moral values and conscience of Malaysian society ( which this Institution relies on to get fund).

Jesus says : When I am hungry, you feed me, naked you cloth me.........This people looks at the old priest would say: He looks like Christ, he sounds like Christ, but he is not Christ !! Then I would like to borrow Tengku Adnan's words ( on lawyer Lingam's case ) : he is either drunk or crazy (to say so) !!















P/S: Fr. Leo Chang's diabetic condition worsen after the move.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

scandalous..%@#f&*%X%...