“The Lord is Risen Alleluia, May
our Risen lord bless you all and be with you always”
The every ministerial experience makes the man
to grow towards the perfection and it molds the human beings to balance every
aspect of life. Human life is a gift of God, which integrates all the fields of
life to get maturity, through the valuable and unforgettable memories and
experiences, received from the variety of programs. Actually, I value the
experience that I received from the Easter ministry places and peoples, like Hultsdrof
Colombo-12 and Kattunayaka parishes. The season of grace comes to the end, but
these last days of Lent and Holy Week helped me a lot to grow in my spiritual
and human life.
As
we know, Claretians are known as Missionaries, going to the different places,
having the purpose of proclaiming the Word of God and making present the Claretians
where they are, in the style of St. Anthony Mary Claret. I was very glad
hearing about my assignment for Easter ministry, which has begun with the Palm
Sunday in the “Hultsdrof” parish, situated in Colombo City. It has around 350
families. This is one our (CMF) parishes. This was a sacred time and joyful
moment being with our beloved Claretian Priests Rev Frs. Joy Mariaratnam cmf
& Ravikanth cmf who were exemplary for me to get inspirations to grow in my
missionary vocation.
The place was very much familiar, but
parishners were not acquainting to me ahead of time, so it was a kind of block
to move with them. As the time went on, I was able to mingle with them and
experience their fraternal love and concern. Since there were both Sinhala
& Tamil communities, it was a facilitating mean to adopt their culture, and
new atmosphere, learning and communicating new languages.
This
made me to initiate the dialogue with the people and to maintain a healthy
relationship, without any discriminations and partialities with everybody. I
also had an opportunity for house visiting which made me to experience God’s
Presence everywhere. I never thought of getting this kind of opportunity in
this place, but I felt that it was grace filled moment in my religious life.
With the effective assistance of some parishners I could meet different minds
and hearts of people whose Christian life style touched my heart to be firm in
God gifted vocation and their open sharing aided me to deepen my Christian
faith in God that strengthen my spiritual life too. Visiting different and many
houses paved the way to equip and join new skills for my present and future
pastoral life. I really appreciate all the parishners for their witnessing
Christian life and sufficient involvement in the parish activities.
Spiritual
activities of the Holy Week, such as Holy Week Tridum services and Way of the
Cross assisted me personally to encounter the suffering and passion of Jesus
Christ. Though I was assigned to Hultsdrof Parish I was able to extend my
availability to another parish called Katunayaka, when there was a humble
request from the parish priest. Therefore the parish priest of Hultsdrof parish
understood the need of the Katunayaka parish and paved the way for assisting to
that parish. So he sent me there to help him. In this parish, my main help was
distributing the Holy Communion to the people. For me, it was the first time
experience of distributing Holy Communion to such a massive crowd. Actually,
this way of assisting made me to feel and understand the sense of being ready
for all the moments and to be available to respond generously to the needs of
God’s people.
About
all, I am gratefully happy because I have been in both parishes and learning
many good and necessary things for my personal growth and am grateful the
parish priests Frs. Joy Mariratnam cmf and Deshan, in the same time, I thank
the parishners for their supports, hospitality and accepting me in their
parishes. My mind and heart glorify the Lord for all these pleasant and
valuable experiences. The Risen Christ continue guiding our Church!
By - T. P. JOHNSON
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