Special Ministry Tg Aru members attend retreat

TANJUNG ARU – Twenty-three members of the Special Ministry of Stella Maris Church gathered for a retreat on the joy of serving God, guided by Fr Jeffri Gumu, at Pace Bene Retreat Centre, Purak, on 6-7 Feb 2015.

In his first apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis offers his sweeping vision of the Universal Church called to action. At the heart of this vision is a powerful invitation to all of us to embrace Christ’s love to spread the good news of the Gospel through the joy of serving His Church.

The objectives of the retreat are aimed to bring about an enlightenment of the role and spirituality of the ministry, an understanding of our duty as Catholic, and to give and share in love.

Special Ministry is a ministry which serves in the choirs and liturgies for wedding and funeral Masses of the parish.

The retreat began with an Opening Mass presided by Fr Jeffri, who pointed out that there are a lot of temptations and challenges in serving the Church, “There are many forms of distractions to stop us from serving such as gossiping, jealousy, envy … but, without humility, it is impossible to serve in this ministry.”   He reminded the retreatants that the retreat was a means to reflect on our journey in this ministry and to encounter Christ.

In the first session, the members of the ministry were encouraged to exemplify Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd. He added “There is no meaning to serve in the ministry if we do not know who we actually serve. It can either be ourselves, people or God that drives us to serve in this ministry,”

The second session which was held on the next day was on Self-Discovery and Our Roles in One Body of Christ (Church).    Fr Jeffri explained that each of us play a specific role in the Church.  As Catholics, our main mission is to evangelize those who do not know Christ.  To be an effective evangelizer, we need to be first a disciple who listens and does the Word of God.

The final session, Understanding the Liturgies of Wedding and Funeral Masses was to give understanding as the ministry is mainly involved in these Masses.

Through the imputs,  sharing and prayers, the members were once again refreshed to serve the ministry, being reminded that ‘whoever wants to be first must be slave of all, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:44-45). – Joshua Yangus