OMPH Church Appreciation Dinner 2019

Fr Joseph Stephen receiving his lucky draw prize from Parish Secretary Cindy Gough. Looking on is MC for  the night Terrence Yeoh 

The parishioners of Our Mother of Perpetual Help Church gave their outgoing Parish Priest Fr Joseph Stephen and assistant Fr Paul Michael Kee an appreciation dinner recently.

Each of the Bahasa, Chinese and Tamil Apostolate Ministries rendered performances during the dinner and there were impromptu performances from other individuals such as the incoming Parish Priest Fr Patrick Massang which contributed to a wonderful evening.  

The Bahasa and Tamil Apostolate ministries (above) 

'Guest artists' Fr Patrick Massang, Peter Fernandes and the Harmonica Amigoes 

Fr Joseph who is 69 this years has been appointed the Vicar of the Redemptorist Congregation. The term of office lasts for four years.

In his speech he said that he won’t be coming back as a Parish Priest as he won’t have the ability to carry out this very challenging work. He advised the parishioners to pray for a young priest with great passion and dedication to come forward.

The packed hall decorated with balloons

...and OMPH parishioners

He added that “the Holy Father refers to the Church as a Field Hospital a word that conjures an dirty and ugly image and attends to all kinds of difficult problems.

We never ran a perfect Parish. That is the responsibility of the Parish Priest to work with some in pain, others in difficulty and endless challenges which we have to respond and serve.

I have tried to do that over the years though I did not leave a clean Parish for the next Parish Priest. There will be problems and challenges all because this is a Field Hospital”.

Fr Joseph first came to OMPH Parish in 1984 and served as the acting Parish Priest. Since then till his last posting as Parish Priest in 2016 he has journeyed with this Parish and was instrumental for upgrading the Church to include air conditioning and a host of  other facilities.

He acknowledged that installing physical structures such as air conditioning for the church are easy, you source for money and eventually you achieve your objective.

It is easy to change policy but to build a Parish of people is hard work and challenging because you have to change peoples mindset and the way the community thinks. We decided to do that with lots of generous men and women in our parish.”

The Chinese Apostolate ....

The Youth Group and the Twist...

                      

In my time there were 375 lay ministries and it has grown. Whatever they did however small like the challenge of getting up for morning mass to read and sing or go around soliciting for funds to help feed the poor was for the good of the Parish.

There are a lot of ministries that lay people carry out who without them the Parish cannot carry out one tenth of the ministry.

Incoming Parish Priest Fr Patrick poses with the youth 

He thanked the Parish Council, an excellent body of people who worked with the priest tirelessly to implement things for the good of the Parish, the religious of this Parish, the parish finance committee, my dedicated staff for their endless help and all the ministries of this parish and parishioners.

JAG