Thursday 16 March 2006

Friday Morning Prayer for 2006-03-10

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Good Morning, Mr Kwok, Teachers and Students!
You may all know that we have already begun the season of Lent. LENT. Lent is the forty days before Easter. Every morning each class receives a donation box. We all make a donation of Lent.
Lent is a period in which Christians prepare themselves to celebrate Easter, which is at the end of these forty days. Lent is the past participle for the word TO LEND. But here, LENT has a different meaning. The original meaning of the word LENT comes from an old English word, Lente, meaning Spring. In Latin, Lent is simply “The Forty Days”, which is Quadregesima, quite a long word. In Chinese, we simply call it the Period of Four Ten-days(四旬期).
So what do we do during Lent? Every morning, we pass around a donation box to collect money. Most Catholic schools would do the same thing. Some churches would even give each Catholic their own personal donation box. We give money to the needy as a way of being merciful. MERCY. Mercy means kindness so being merciful is being kind. When we help others, we are being merciful.
We do works of mercy and show kindness because we want to be like God who is merciful and kind. That’s why in the song on page 17, we call God – the God of mercy. The word mercy is very useful. If you have forgotten to bring your homework and when your teacher wants to punish you, you can ask for MERCY. That means you want the teacher to forgive you. Is your teacher going to forgive you for all your big and little mistakes? Well, I wish you luck on that one. However, God always forgives us because He is God of mercy.
So let us sing the song on page 17, we will first sing verse one and then, we will pray the Our Father together, asking God for His mercy. Let’s pray that all of us would become more and more merciful towards each other in this season of Lent.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
God of mercy and compassion….
Our Father in heaven, Holy be your Name, Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Do not bring us to the test but deliver us from evil. Amen.
St Joseph, pray for us. St Francis, pray for us.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brother William OFM

Friday Morning Prayer for 2006-03-03

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Please take out your Hymn and Prayer Book.
Good Morning Mr Kwok, Teachers and Students!
Today is the last day of school for our Form Seven students. They are leaving us to prepare for their Advanced Level Examination. The Advanced Level Examination is the last major public examination to sit for as a teenager. You see, this is quite an important examination. The result of this examination determines if you are going to further your studies or you have to start looking for a job. If you are going to further your studies, the result will determine what kind of courses you are going to follow and where you are going to study: either a university or an IVE. Well, this sounds very important. But believe it or not, taking examinations or even studying is not the most important thing in life. You may ask, why do we have to take examinations or why do we have to study at all?
Well, we study to learn about how to look, how to live, how to love. The knowledge that you have received, that is the things that you have learnt at school, by doing projects, writing reports, doing experiments and reciting passages by heart etc, should become wisdom: wisdom to help you to look at the world around us, wisdom to live a meaningful life and wisdom to love God and others. Indeed, wisdom is far more important than knowledge.
In any case, I hope all of you will remember that studying is not just to receive knowledge but also to learn the wisdom of life. One wise thing you should have learnt at St Joseph’s is to pray always.
So let us now pray for God’s protection for the Form Seven students as they leave St Joseph’s to prepare for their Advanced Level Examination. We pray that they would study hard and the exam results would truly reflect their ability and efforts. And, we pray that God would give us all wisdom, wisdom to look at the world around us, wisdom to live a meaningful life and wisdom to love God and others.
Let us say one Our Father together. I invite all the students, especially the Form Seven students to say the prayers loud and clear, since this is the last morning prayer for these F.7 students.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Father in heaven, Holy be your Name, Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Do not bring us to the test but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Now let us sing the song on page 5 of your prayer book. We will sing the first two verses.
St Joseph, pray for us. St Francis, pray for us.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Brother William OFM

Friday Morning Prayer for 2006-02-24

Good morning Mr Kwok, teachers and students.
For those who are in form 4 or above, you may remember me. For those who are in form three or below, you may be wondering who I am. I am Brother William, a Franciscan brother who was teaching here three years ago. I used to teach English, Music and of course, RE (that's religious education, in case you don't remember).
I have been away for the past two years to do further studies. I am very glad and thankful to come back to the big happy family of SJSS, although I am not going to be a regular teacher. You know what, during the time that I was away, I really missed saying morning prayer with you, singing songs and sharing stories about God and life. Therefore I am very happy to be back in your midst. Many students have asked me what I am doing here. Well, to make a long story short, I am the same Brother William, although I am not doing the same work as before.
Two days ago, it was announced that the Bishop of Hong Kong, Bishop Joseph Zen, will become a Cardinal of the Church. As a cardinal, he will be allowed to vote for the Pope. He is the same Bishop Zen, although he may not be doing the same work as before.How about you? Are you the same as the one of yesterday? Would you tell your teachers that it is not the same you who has forgotten to bring certain homework or class work to class?

Friday Morning Prayer for 2006-03-17

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Good Morning, Mr Kwok, Teachers and Students!
I am sure you are looking forward to the holiday on Monday, right? I hope you remember why we are having a holiday. Yes, it is the FEAST OF ST JOSEPH. FEAST is another word for festival. Traditionally, March 19 is the actual date of the festival, the feast. Since March 19 is a Sunday this year, so we are going to celebrate the Feast of St Joseph on Monday.
In a few moments, Mr Mackenzie will tell you something about the Feast of St Patrick, which happens to be today. But as your Brother-in-Residence, let me remind you something about St Joseph.
Joseph is the husband of Mary and since Mary is the Mother of Jesus, so Joseph is the father of Jesus. But we all know that Jesus is really the Son of God. So, Joseph is not the real father. He is Jesus’ foster father. And Joseph has been a very good father for Jesus, looking after and taking care of both Jesus and Mary. I am sure Joseph has been very loving towards both Jesus and Mary.
St Joseph has a special place in our school because our school is called St Joseph’s School. Since our school is called St Joseph, it means St Joseph is our patron. A patron is someone a person chosen to be a supporter. If your name is Joseph or Josephine, then St Joseph is your patron saint too. To have a patron saint means that St Joseph prays for everyone whose name is either Joseph or Josephine or those who study at a school with the name of St Joseph. There are three schools in Hong Kong with the same name. They are St Joseph’s College on Hong Kong Island, St Joseph’s Anglo-Chinese School in Kowloon and us here in Ma On Shan. All the students in these St Joseph’s schools ask St Joseph to pray to God on our behalf. Since Monday is the Feast of St Joseph, it is the Feast Day of these schools. That’s why students from these St Joseph’s schools, including you, are going to have a holiday on Monday!
Let us pause and think for a minute to think about why we have St Joseph as our patron saint. St Joseph is a popular saint because of his many excellent examples given to us. I will just tell you one. Although he is not the real father of Jesus, Joseph has taken very good care of Jesus and Mary. In this way, Jesus has a very good upbringing and is well prepared for his future work. Joseph is not the saviour but Jesus is. By taking good care of Jesus, Joseph is preparing Jesus in his great work as a saviour. Perhaps we can take very good care of those around us, because we may be helping others to do great work too. So let us pray to God, asking Him to give us the grace to be like St Joseph who can take good care and be loving to our family members. Let us say one Our Father altogether.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Father in heaven, Holy be your Name, Your kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Do not bring us to the test but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Brother William OFM