Parish Pastoral Council (PPC)

Father Damian DeWind: Parish Priest
Father Peter Tan: Assistant Parish Priest
Father Venus Praveen: Assistant Parish Priest
Joseph Kwok: Chairperson
Tricia Kat: Vice Chairperson
Leonard Louis: Focus on formation
Aloysius Lim: Focus on the elderly
Julian Lim: Focus on the family
Michelle Anthony: Focus on liturgy

PPC Chairman Message

5 October 2024

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

I apologise for this overdue message.

Let me share that myself and the ExCo team have discerned that we would continue serving another 2-year term, till December 2025. We thank Jane Lee for her service on the last term, and welcome Michelle Anthony to the ExCo.

“Come home” is still at the heart of our mission (desire) to bring Catholics back to church – to the Sacraments and to a sacramental life.

It is encouraging that the membership numbers in our Parish Ministries is holding well overall. All Ministry members give a large chunk of time to serve and a big “shout-out” to the Servant Leaders who step forward to serve their members and our parish.

I am also pleased to put on record that as of 5 October 2024, CDM has 23 Neighbourhood Christian Communities (NCCs). Our NCCs play an important role in helping extend our reach beyond the walls of our physical church into the homes of our Catholic parishioners in Pasir Ris-Loyang. Our NCCs are sustained through prayers, worship, service, fellowship and mission.

Please also join me to thank Andrew and Sharon Khng for running the canteen as we re-opened post-Covid. The canteen is now run by ANEW, and is now called Good Little Phil’s Café, offering yummy home cooked breakfast and lunch fares. Please come down for a ‘kopi’ or ‘teh’ and enjoy the fellowship with other fellow parishioners!

Activities abound (no pun intended) for the elderly and this is an area that even our government is planning for.

The youth…. How do we engage them? What holds their attention and captivates them? Have they met Jesus? And if they have where do they go to meet Him?

This is just one of the many areas of the parish the ExCo is trying to improve.

Beyond our parish, I shared in a previous message about the Synodal process that Pope Francis initiated in 2021.

But we were just coming out of COVID and everyone was lethargic.

But we made the effort to hold small scale sessions in the parish.

The ExCo and our Clergy rallied the Ministries to gain further traction and in March 2023, we gathered all the Servant Leaders for a day of recollection and followed this up in September with an envisioning workshop with our parishioners. We listened to the vision for CDM to be missionary … But many ideas appeared to be focussed within…

On 18 May this year we held a parish Day of Recollection (DOR) to try and re-invigorate the parish to think out of our doors – to recall what our mission is – To bring the Good News to those who have not heard of it.

So in my Introduction at the DOR I reminded everyone that …

When we become exclusive we turn inwards;
But when we need to be inclusive we have to go outwards.

In the larger context the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council has also drafted 5 Pastoral Priorities for the Archdiocese and is trying to engage all of us in “Conversations” to give our feedback on these priorities.

At one East District Conversation I attended one participant asked if there was going to be any changes with these Pastoral Priorities … and so while it may appear that the Church takes time to effect changes, I reminded myself that the Church seeks to listen to us … and I scribbled these in my notes:

Be Joyful instead of Cynical
Be Humble instead of Critical
Be Hopeful instead of Sceptical
Be Synodal instead of Silent

So let us use our voice to help shape the future of the Church, and join the conversations being held at our parish.

And as I close this message, I am thankful also for the success of our Holy Father’s visit to Singapore. His visit had ignited much joy, hope and unity amongst Catholics, not just in Singapore, but also from the region.

God Bless you and your loved ones.