Address at the Archdiocesan Assembly 2025

I presented the following remarks to open the Archdiocesan Assembly on Saturday, 1 March 2025. It is one of three. The other two were made by our Archbishop, William Cardinal God and my co-chair, Kwek Mean Luck

Archdiocesan Assembly 2025: "With faith, in hope, let us"

Opening Remarks

Good morning, Your Eminence, my brother priests, our religious sisters and brothers, dear friends.

Here we are as Church. Whether we chose to come or were nominated here, no other than God gathers us. 

God also gathered the Magi to find Jesus. They journeyed with faith in the hope of finding Him. Their story reminds me of ‘gift’ and ‘task.’ Jesus was God’s gift to them, and by retelling their story, a gift to many more, even beyond the faith. Their journey to seek Jesus was the task. 

Like the Magi, we’re here to make a journey of faith in hope. For Fr Andrew Lin, “The Archdiocesan Assembly is a gathering of the voices of the people. God is using the voices of the people to show us where and how to move forward."  Indeed, ‘gift’ and ‘task’ help us value what this day is about. 

Gift, because God has a plan for us to move our Church forward. 

Task, because God calls us to discern how our diocese can fulfill His plan; we can by listening to the Holy Spirit as we converse and co-discern the proposed pastoral directions and priorities in the Schema.

To prepare for today, the APC has had similar conversations on the Schema with different groups in the Church. They feel it is dynamic, hope-filled and life-giving; this suggests a newness God is inviting us to glimpse as His hope to renew our diocese. Many support its direction and the pastoral priorities proposed. Others are concerned whether the pastoral priorities will be implemented and how. 

Perhaps we’re like the Magi as we begin. They must have been excited, eager, to begin the journey because the star pointed them to a promise. However, they must have also been anxious, concerned, even hesitant to start. Yet the star beckoned them onward with hope.

Today, we are not beginning a journey as we’re continuing it. Over the past two years, we have considered the gift of God’s call to renew our pastoral plan and we’ve participated in the collective task of discerning it.  

Gathered here, we might be grappling with differing thoughts and feelings about the Schema, contrasting concerns and dreams about our future. This simply reflects our assembly –  the richness of our myriad hopes and our shared goodwill to hope together.

What must matter now is that we acknowledge the consolations from God along this journey thus far, even more, value them. They will encourage us to continue this journey of faith in hope. Let us join the Magi and find God in all things along this journey for these will lead us to Jesus with whom we can build the kingdom of God. To help us do this during this assembly, let me suggest three pointers: one, being led by lights, not shadows; two, being together; and three, staying focussed.

Lights, not shadows - The Magi  were led by a star. Its light consoled them in the dark, even as it drew them onward and guided their direction. Like them, God’s light has guided our journey and illuminated the conversations along the way. Even as we honestly confessed what is lacking, what needs improving and what we must honestly review, God’s light has enabled us to see more clearly the good that is already happening in our diocese. 

Like these: parishes combining to run Confirmation Camps and sharing their facilities with non-parish groups; OFC partnering CFL and Clarity to help our catechists understand mental wellbeing to better support our young; and the efforts many parishes make to care for our seniors. 

These shine; they are lights calling us to look up and about, and to celebrate God laboring to care for us all, even renewing the Church pastorally. In our conversations today, let us also look for these lights, not the shadows and dark. We must because they assure us we can make the journey onward with hope. Even more, they assure us as being the hope God promises - that is, as a Church, we light up the world.

Together, not alone -  The Magi came together from different places to journey to Jesus. We are the same: here with different agendas and aspirations for our Church’s future.  Yet we’re to pray, dialogue and discern as that one body of Christ – to think with the mind of Christ, to put on the love of Christ, to act in the way of Christ. 

In almost every conversation the APC has had, there’s a resounding recognition that coming together as Church is very good – at the district level among the PPCs, or when ONE brings the parishes, offices and organizations to reflect on the call to be missionary parishes and a vibrant and evangelizing Church, or, even when we priests with our Archbishop have time at the presbyterium to converse about the care and salvation of souls. 

If we take for granted such experiences of being church together – expressed so well in how we welcomed, learned from and worshipped with Pope Francis last year – we will lose sight of the “unity and hope” that is already present, and which calls us to more. I wonder if the Magi had disagreed, argued and gone their separate ways, might they have lost hope, gone astray, failed in their journey, and not find Jesus? 

Stay focussed, not distracted – Besides their encounter with Herod, the story of the Magi doesn’t say much about the challenges they must have faced, like changing terrain, weather and cultures, even misreading their maps. Our journey to this Assembly has been challenging too. Different groups invited us to reflect, rethink and rewrite parts of the Schema for better. Some clergy asked about awakening the faith of nominal Catholics. Some youth asked how our Church can be synodal and co-responsible yet one, holy and apostolic. Some religious, asked about the Church’s social mission to all peoples, especially the marginalized like the poor and migrant workers. 

These deepened our commitment to listen more attentively to God and stay the course. Whatever the challenges, I believe the Magi found Jesus by focussing on the star. We are also called to stay focused as we discern how we will build the kingdom of God, individually and together, with Christ.

For me, these reflections are God’s consolations that He has walked faithfully with us to this assembly and, more significantly, He will continue to because this task, this work is His. I wonder if the Magi were wise not because they were just learned about prophecies, clever to read the stars, smart to navigate the journey. Rather, they were wise because they understood the star that beckoned, the impulse to seek, the courage to respond were somehow for them God’s work. So, they let God draw them to Jesus. And because they did, God could labour to transform them from seekers to believers.

Perhaps, this is how God is also inviting us to enter today’s assembly – wise enough to let go and let God lead. Wiser too that we bring ourselves as a gift to Jesus and let Him renew us as His disciples and His Church. 

Let’s do this  by committing ourselves – not others – to God’s plan, not because we have to but because we want to. Even more, let us be open to receive the gift of God himself, through Christ, who is waiting to especially encounter us today in each other and as His body. So join me to entrust ourselves and the task before us into God’s hands, with faith that is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11.1).  We do this because God first loved us to love one another, for as Pope Francis said to us at the National Stadium, “without love, we are nothing.” Shall we?

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