Opening the door to Faith

Shalom! CUS USM had organized the CUS Camp at 5th - 7th of April 2013. The CUS Camp is held at the House of St. Andrew at the Church of the Assumption, Penang. With the aim to increase our inner faith in Christ, each day we have specific theme in trying to open our door to faith.

5th April 2013: "I Believe"

6th April 2013: "Walk With ME Today"

7th April 2013: "Got Faith? Be A Light."

Alas, perhaps it was written by God Himself, the van that was supposed to be our medium of transportation to St. Andrew's House was not available. Thus, we went there by public bus, perhaps following in our Holy Father Pope Francis who uses public transport, depicting humility. With His blessing, we are able to safely arrive at St. Andrew's House. After preparing ourselves and doing a Praise and Worship (PnW) session, we begin with a movie screening. Father Dominic came to provide the DVD as well as some snacks for us. For that, we deeply appreciate and thankful for his assistance. The movie that we watched was...

"The Way"

It was a really moving and inspiring movie that shows how people go for the traditional pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago or the Way of St. James. Truly meaningful for us who desires to seek our inner faith.

The next day, its all about walking. All participants are divided into four groups; RMB, Aa~, Lenlian, and Low. We had group discussion on "What makes one distant him / herself from the church?", had a talk session by Bro. Kevin Eruthayanathan on Faith, outdoor activity or Explorace CUS and a Cultural Night show. Then, we had 5 friends visiting from UMP, led by Costello.

On Sunday, we served the morning mass at the Church of the Assumption in choir. Then, we had a sharing and reflection on the camp. It is very good to know that all participants do not regret on joining and each have learned something from the camp. Hopefully all those lesson they had learned could uplift their inner faith.

CUS USM would like to deeply thank Father Dominic and Brother Kevin for all the helps and supports they have given us. We are truly blessed by all the assistance.

The Wall of Serenity. All the works of the group discussion is pasted here (for awhile) Photo by Tiffinny.

Giving a token of appreciation to Bro. Kevin. Left: Tiffinny, Flora (Project Director) and Bro. Kevin. Photo by Deejay.

Us with Bro. Kevin. Photo by Tiffinny. 

CUS USM with friends from UMP. Photo by Paul.

God bless!

"Let all that you do be done in LOVE" - 1 Corinthians 16:14

"I could do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me." - Phillipians 4:13

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Semester 1 2012/2013

Sorry for the hiatus of the blog. As the current writer of the blog, I apologise for not being able to take the time to post about the updates of CUSUSM. Here I would like to summarise about the activities done by the CUSUSM in the first semester of 2012/2013 academic session.

Penang Diocesan Youth Day 2

16th till 19th of November 2012. Unfortunately we are only able to stay until the 18th because most of us have class on the 19th. It is a wonderful experience to be able to join this spiritual journey. WE HAD FUN! :)

CUSUSM members joining PDYD2. Photo by Theodora

PDYD2's Bahasa Malaysia's group. Photo by Flora

CUS Family Day

15th of December 2012. Project director is Natra Joseph S. The theme – “Celebrating Family Love”. Held at Youth Parks, Penang. One day out to relieve ourselves from our hectic university lives and get together. Had fun playing games, singing and dancing.

Celebrating Family Love. Photo by Natra

One of the song we create action songs with; Better Than Life by Hillsong.

Christmas Carol

22nd of December 2012. Project director is Silverstar Anyie. Held at the Little Sister of the Poor – Home of the Aged, and Penang Adventist Hospital.

Caroling at the Little Sister of the Poor. Photo by Natra.

CUS hot stuffs ;) Photo by Natra

At the Penang Adventist Hospital. Photo by Flora.

Christmas Stay at FM House

23rd till 25th of December 2012. Project director is Deejay Daxter. The theme – “Feels Like Home”. Held at FM House, with Christmas sharings and bible discussions were made. Oh, and also homemade cooking done together.

Celebrating Christmas at FM House. Photo by Natra.

Cheers in changing gifts. Photo by Natra.

Happy faces celebrating Christmas Mass at OLS Church on the 24th December evening. Photo by Natra.

I think that’s about it for this semester! Looking forward to the next CUS events during the second semester. The highlighted events for next semester would be CUS Camp, Breakfast Sales and CUS Nite (Dinner). But who knows, there would probably be more surprise events coming… ;)

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” – 1 Peter 4:8

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PCC Meeting at Alor Setar, Kedah

Shalom! It's been a long time since the last update! I apologise for the being busy and unable to write the updates in here sooner.

Penang Coordinating Council (PCC) Meeting

Place: Sham Homestay, Alor Star, Kedah

Date: 14th September - 16th September 2012

CUSUSM Representative: Kevin Juliano, Tiffinny Shally, Deejay Daxter

INTRODUCTION TO PCC

"The Penang Coordinating Council (PCC) is a coordinating body which links and coordinates all the Catholic Undergraduates Society (CUS) in the campuses of the Diocese of Penang, for students events in the direction of the vision and mision of the PCC. It is also a platform for intellectuals to share ideas, discuss and train leaders in light to be Christ-like leaders." -http://www.penangdiocese.org/pages/cmo/penang-coordinating-council-pcc.php

The CUS or CF (Christian Fellowships) that are in the the PCC web are all from the Northen side of the Peninsular Malaysia, which includes IPTA, IPTS, IPG as well as Polytechnic in Penang, Perak, Kelantan, Kedah and Perlis.  

It had been a great experience to be interacting with our brothers and sisters in Christ from other institutes and share our spiritual knowledge as well as building up friendship with one-another. Coming from different institutes from different states and surroundings, we learnt a lot about all the strengths as well as the struggles each CUS or CF have been in their respective campuses. 

THE AGENDA

Let us move on with the update of PCC. There will be a big event of PCC coming up, which is as stated below:

Event: The Penang Coordinating Council Gathering (PCCG)

Date: 11th - 14th of April 2013

Venue: to be confirmed later

Vision: "Students rooted in Scriptures, Sacrament and Social Teaching."

Mission:

1.  To develop current tertiary students to be future leaders in search of truth and justice.

2.  To rediscover rich and abundant opportunities for personal and spiritual growth.

Theme: Footprints

And the following will be the secretariats team for PCCG:

Director: Corina (UUM)

Vice Director: Albert Ko (UNIMAP)

Secretary: Lornetha Lloyd Daim (UiTM Kampus Bukit Mertajam, Penang)

Treasurer: Terry (UPSI Tanjung Malim Perak)

Tech & Logistics: Blase Bernard (USM SA)

Food & Lodging: Tiffinny Shally Tasing (USM Minden)

Publicity: Samson Antonius (USM KK)

Music: Samson Lian (IPDA, Jitra)

PCCG is one of the event that would make us retrace back our steps on our faith in Christianity, particularly in Catholicism. This event is open to all students comprising the whole CUS or CF under PCC. Hence, this event will be one of the opportunity for us not only to make friends with our saudara seiman from other campuses, but also a medium for us to restrengthen back our faith. This would be a huge job for the committee of the project, so I encourage us all to pray for all the secretariats mentioned above so that all their works may always be blessed with the Holy Spirit. More updates will be stated from time to time.

OTHERS

We had fun! Of course, we did learn a lot of things from the meeting. More spiritual events are needed for us  to build up our faith and strength. Moreover, we made lots of new great friends, learn about their experiences in their respective CUS or CF, and get to relieve our stress from our other commitments. Till the next meeting, I shall update! Peace out! :)

SMILES FOR THE CAMERA :)

In the homestay, smiling through the meeting. :))) Photo by: Kevin Juliano

Happy people sitting closely pack together in the van. Photo by Kevin Juliano

In the Church of St. Michael, Alor Star. Photo by: an auntie using Tiffinny Shally's phone

Grotto in front of the Church of St. Michael, Alor Star. Photo by: our dear friend Megan Renee

The Church of St. Michael, Alor Star. Photo by: our dear friend Eugene Wong

Tightening our friendship bonds by playing fun games together. Photo by Megan Renee

Waving goodbye to beloved friends of PCC. Till us meet again next time, mates! yeaahhaaaa! Photo by: Eugene Wong

"Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
'God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.'
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world." - 1 Peter 5:5-9 New King James Version

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The new semester is about to begin!

Shalom! It's been awhile since my last post. How are you? How was your holiday? Let's not talk about mine because my holiday has been so boring, I'm pretty sure everybody else was having a great time while I'm happy gaining weight. Haha!

Anyhow, It's about 3 days left until the new semester starts... at least for the fresh undergraduate students. Orientation week starts off on the 2nd of September, if I'm not mistaken. But for the "old ones" like me, we'll start off on the 10th. Hehe

UPDATES

As of now, the only update would be about the official t-shirt design of CUS 2012/2013. 

Most votes goes to this design; CUSers sure does love singing. Haha!

Since the design have been agreed, we shall proceed by ordering the shirt. I estimate the shirt will be done maybe in October. Most late would be in the mid of the semester. I really wanna try my best to make this shirt design not just be a 'design', but shirts, literally.

Oh yeah, if you have some spare time, do share this promo poster of CUS on your Facebook wall! :)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4116512524864&set=a.4116511844847.157187.1644763297&type=1&relevant_count=1

FOR NEWBIES

And, if you're a USM newbie visiting this site up, contact us! We would love to get to know you guys and expand the family tree! 

Promo poster of CUS 2012/2013

As an introduction, you could look up to older posts to see the faces of the new board of EXCOs of CUS 2012/2013. We are based in USM, Minden, Penang, which is the main campus of USM. There are several churches that is available here in the island of Penang, but we usually go to the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows (OLS), which is near to Komtar. Some of us sometimes go to other churches like the Assumption Church, St. Francis Xavier Church, and Church of Divine Mercy. 

We held our usual CUS Weekly Gathering every Friday, thus we call it our Friday Gathering. However, we might wanna let all things settle down first, so I estimate that our first gathering would be on the third week of September. That is the usual time we get together and get to know each other better, do our sharings and discuss more on our faith. Attending classes and other activities could be stressful at times, and for some of us like me, attending the Friday Gathering made me calm, peaceful and joyful at the moment. 

When we try to find places, people often tell to 'Google it'. I'm sure when you're here in Penang for the first time, you will get difficulty in going to church. Don't worry, just contact us, and we can go together! We usually do that, we would gather at the bus stop together and go to church together. Any CUSers really love to help each others, y'know. So save our contact number, and contact us whenever you need help. Last time I got lost in Queensbay Mall, so I had to call Alvin, one of the CUS senior about which bus should I take to get back to the hostel. Hahaha

When the semester open, we will set up a booth for registration. Probably one week after the orientation week. The booth will be in DK Foyer. If you don't know where is it, don't worry, you'll know it eventually during your orientation week. 

Add yourself up in the official Facebook group of CUSUSM here: USM Catholic Undergraduate Society (CUSUSM). BUT before adding yourself into the group, it would be nice if you could add us first, just so we could chat and get to know each other first. Admin will not simply approve your request, y'know, because it is a closed group, and we wouldn't want no strangers in it. Only members of CUSUSM will be approved.

Anyhow, I'll see you guys soon, alright! :))))))

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Life Goes On...

Peace and salam satu CUS kepada semua. Sebenarnya sudah lama saya rancang untuk mengarang sebuah post untuk blog ini and since I have some time to spare now, here it is. Saya rasa pada masa ini kamu semua tentu sedang sibuk berkemas mahu pulang kan? Maklumlah kita sudah tiba di penghujung semester and that post by Deejay before this more or less sums up how things have went. Thank you Deejay! The ups and the downs. Essentially, these both are complements to each other and pada pendapat saya, kedua-duanya amat diperlukan untuk membolehkan seseorang itu berkembang.

Some of us may think that we can do without the pains in life but in my opinion (which you are free to challenge), a smooth-sailing life can result in one taking matters for granted. On the other hand, when you experience heartaches, you are well aware of how some things are precious to us and we start to treasure things and people around us more. To those who agree, we may have realised this already but we have to keep reminding ourselves each day. We tend to forget. Well, we’re only humans.

It is important though how we handle our joys and pains. Bak kata pepatah ‘buang yang keruh, ambil yang jernih’, perhaps we should let only positivity reflect in us. Looking at it, we do feel happy when we see happy people, right? I don’t know about you guys but I do feel joy and tranquillity whenever I see happy kids or people showing their love to each other. Can we be like them? We all have the same thirst after all.

 The bad stuffs are inevitable sometimes. What we can do is to share and deal with these together. And we will overcome them together as a family. That’s what we have each other for. I hope you guys find this comforting. I do.

And something I've always believed in is that there’s nobody who wants to be bad in this world. Everybody wants to be good. It’s just that the way they handle things might not be in accord to our expectations or rather the way we want to see things done. And then, judging on relativity, we have good and bad people. See, that’s us being judgmental. If we don’t judge, we’ll see everybody in the same light-as equals. Therefore, I don’t think it’s fair to fix nasty labels on people. Unfair la.

During my last confession, the Fransiscan brother I went to shared something which really opened my eyes to things. He said that we are in no position to judge others. We are all sinners kan? But God the Father constantly gives us second chances. Every single time. And He is happy if that one kambing sesat returns to Him. Now when it comes to our neighbours, who are we to judge and not forgive? Even in the Lord’s prayer we have a line, “Forgive us as we forgive those who sin against us”. It’s normal to be angry and to find it hard to forgive but if we pray about it, I’m sure it’ll be easier to put our past behind us and to move on.

We have come to a point in life where we will have to say goodbye to people whom we have journeyed with for some time. It can be sad but we always have to consider the viewpoint from the other end of the spectrum. They are only moving towards more advanced and rewarding phases of their lives. It was an honour to have known each other. And nothing says that we cannot continue to be close. In this CUS, I believe that real bonds are fostered. Not temporary ones. We will be in touch come what may. And with the entry of fresh undergraduates in September, this family of ours will only grow in number.

Here, I would like to thank all you seniors who have made the CUS what it is today. You may have graduated already or you may be graduating very soon. Whichever it is, do bear in mind that you always have us for support as you go through the other phases of life be it postgraduate studies, working careers and the rest of it. And we hope to have your support and guidance too as we walk along the paths that you may have already crossed. In short, please don’t be strangers.

Another thing I would like to share about is this e-mail I received from Dr. Jacqueline, our advisor. It’s entitled, “Beyond Disrespect”. I hope you guys take time to read it and think about it. If you feel the urge that you should do something, just pray about it.

The content of the e-mail is as follows, 

Sharing and for your action. God Bless. Beyond Disrespect!  Abraham asked the Lord to spare 50 righteous people. God responded to Abraham's plea "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all ....Genesis 18:16-33 The movie " Corpus Christi " is due to be released this June to August. A disgusting film set to appear in America later this year depicts Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals! As a play, this has already been in theaters for a while. It's called " Corpus Christi " which means "The Body of Christ". It's revolting mockery of our Lord. But we can make a difference. That's why I am sending this e-mail to you. If you do send this around, we just might be able to prevent this film from showing around the world . Let's stand for what we believe in and stop the mockery of Jesus Christ our Savior. Where do we stand as Christians? At the risk of a bit of inconvenience, I'm forwarding this to all I think would appreciate it, too. Please help us prevent such offenses against our Lord. There is no petition to sign, no time limit, or minimum number of people to send this to.. It will take you less than 2 minutes! If you are not interested and do not have the 2 minutes it will take to do this, please don't complain when God does not have time for you because He is far busier than we are. Hey it's worth a shot! Apparently, some regions in Europe have already banned the film. All we need is a lot of prayer and a lot of e-mails. JUST GET THE WORD OUT! ....Will God be able to find at least 50 righteous people who are willing to express their concern and voice their opinion against this.

With that, I end this post. Again I stress here that these are only what I think. I’m not imposing and you don’t have to agree. Do feel free to discuss what you think or feel in comments below. Remember that we can also grow in faith through dialogues. Let us continue praying for each other and God bless you all..

Eh, sorry ar if my Bahasa very bida. I’m still working on it.. XD 

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Edited by,

"We love because He first loved us." 

1 John 4:19

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