In conjunction with the Year for Priests declared by Pope
Benedict XVI for the period 19 June 2009 to 11 June 2010, the SFX Marian
Devotion Group (MDG) invited the faithful to write letters of thanksgiving for
priests who have made an impact on them. These letters were read out at the
Novena and thereafter given to the respective priests where possible.
With due respect to a consensus among MDG members in 2015 to
reserve letters received for the Novena to be read only at the Novena to Our
Mother of Perpetual Help, we have not proceeded to upload the many letters
prepared for this page. However, the writer of one letter, which is also
suitable for general reading, had offered to have that letter published. The
following is only one of the many letters received.
Thanksgiving letter, 6 February 2010Dearest Mother of Perpetual Help,
Last year, God had been very gracious to me by blessing me with a long-awaited pilgrimage and tour of Europe with my family, with my eventual graduation from Master’s degree course, with my first born on the way and many more. Words cannot express how grateful I am to God our Father and to you, my loving Mother.
This new year, the theme – Year for Priests – which is being promoted at your Novena, reminds me to be grateful for our priests in SFX who serve us. I would like to thank you for taking care of them, especially for one of them who fell seriously ill last year and is now recuperating at home, that is Father OC Lim. I feel very grateful to him because it is from him that I learned the importance of social justice and public awareness of the truth.
Coming from a small town in Sarawak, my impressions of a model Catholic at that time was one who accepts life as it is, be peace-loving and able to endure suffering patiently and offer them up for the salvation of holy souls. Of course, till now, I still believe those are Christian values. However, this same priest made me aware that our faith is much more than that. One of the things he said that struck me most is the meaning of your beautiful prayer, the Magnificat. He said that from your Magnificat, we learn how you were a brave woman who seeks justice for the oppressed. I had a cultural shock. I refused to be convinced at first. Slowly but surely, after 6 years in the parish, I learned to understand where he was coming from. Now, I myself go around sharing with friends the meaning of the Magnificat and keeping in mind what he said one time, that “humility is not denying who I am, but it is a recognition of the truth”.
Thank you, dearest Mother, for taking Father OC by the hand and led him to be a wise priest of God. He has said before that when he first decided to be a priest, the hymn that came into his mind was “On this day O beautiful Mother” which he sang at the top of his voice. Please continue to help him and pray for him as he shepherds the people of God on earth.
Your loving son.
