ALiFe

My weekend was spent at St Joseph's Institute attending a mini fair on paper engineering, otherwise known as Origami. The session teaches educators how to keep students preoccupied during free periods at school.


Fr Champoux playing with a paper spinner.

On a larger note, a talk by a priest on Human Sexuality was also conducted within the same vicinity. What does a priest know about sexuality, right? Not that he knows everything there is to know, but he has dealt with the issue, studied, researched, and counselled many. Fr Roger Champoux, S.J., a Jesuit from Quebec, Canada, has been stationed here in Asia for the past few decades and dropped by Singapore for the 2-day talk. The knowledge and experience this humourous (and very sincere) 67-year old proved invaluable for our society here to pick up.

Instead of sharing what I learned like how SECARE, the latin word for sexual, means "to cut into two" or why cornflakes was invented as a sexual depressant (it would be pointless!), I would like instead, to share a story within a homily I heard on Pentecostal Sunday from Holy Family in South Pasadena, California. I feel that this story would best encapsulate what I got out of the sessions.

This story comes from the community of the monastic anchorites in the North African desert from the 4th century. Abu was a young and spirituality perfect monk. Many would go to him for spiritual advice, only to leave even more depressed.

Somewhat confused, he sought council of a wise monk called Macarius. Macarius began by asking him, "Abu, do you have any sexual fantasies?" The perfect young monk replied, "No, no definitely not me."

Macarius said, "Well, I do. " On hearing the him, the young perfect monk Abu said, "Well, now that you mentioned it, I do too." And in a confessional manner, Macarius leads Abu through the entire moral order and sets him free from the mask of perfection.


Here are some of my classmates.
(Click on images for a larger view to see if you can spot anyone familiar?)