RBC Meeting - Keningau

The next meeting of the RBC will be held in Keningau, Sabah from the 2nd to the 3rd August 2011. There will be a "Meet the People" session on the evening of 2nd August. Venue and timing for this evening session will be advised by Bro Fredoline Umis on the first morning meeting.

 

Agenda 

a. Minutes, amendments and matters arising

b. Communication from Archbishop John Ha

c. Reports of (Arch) dioceses

d. Bible Sunday and planning ahead - Apostolic Exhortation of the Pope

e. “Making sense of the Bible” – Fr. Andy

f. Media and Web sites

g. Other business

Malaysia-Holy See Establish Diplomatic Relations

Note: The following news item is not directly connected to our Biblical Apostolate but it is nevertheless of some interest to our region.

Malaysia: 179th State With Diplomatic Ties to Holy See

VATICAN CITY, JULY 27, 2011 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican today announced that Malaysia is the 179th nation to establish diplomatic ties with the Holy See.
The announcement follows a visit last week of Najib Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia, to Benedict XVI.
The Vatican statement confirmed that the diplomatic relations will be at the level of apostolic nunciature on the part of the Holy See and of embassy on the part of Malaysia.
The Church has been active in Malaysia since 1511, when the first Portuguese missionaries reached Malacca. St. Francis Xavier also arrived in that city in 1545. Today the Church has nine ecclesiastical circumscriptions centered on the Archdioceses of Kuala Lumpur (on the peninsula) and of Kuching and of Kota Kinabalu (on the island of Borneo).
There are 11 bishops, 274 diocesan priests, 119 religious priests, 123 male religious, 759 female religious and 270 major seminarians. Catholics number 850,720 -- around 3% of the population.
The religion of state is Islam, professed by 60.4% of the inhabitants. The next largest religious group is the Buddhists (19.2%), followed by Christians (9.1%), Hindus (6.3%), Chinese religions (2.6%) and Animists (2.4%).
The Church in Malaysia is active in evangelization and in the pastoral care of families and young people, through education, charity and social work. The Church runs numerous primary and secondary schools, as well as institutions for the poor and for migrant workers. Initiatives exist to promote social harmony and reconciliation among the various religious communities, through dialogue, equality of rights and duties, and mutual respect.
An apostolic delegation to Malaysia was created Feb. 2, 1998.

ZE11072702 - 2011-07-27
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-33164?l=english

Bible Sunday 2011

Bible Sunday in Brunei
14th July 2011

The second Sunday of July is traditionally celebrated  in the various Catholic dioceses in the region of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Malaysia Singapore and Brunei. This year Bible Sunday fell on 14th July 2011.

 As usual, various activities are organised on this Sunday to bring out the importance of the written Word of God in the lives of individual Catholics.

In the Vicariate of Brunei Brunei Darussalam, for example, the three parishes commemorated Bible Sunday with activities such as Bible enthronement, Bible quizzes and competitions. After one of the Sunday morning masses, parishioners were invited to the parish Hall to participate in a program where the Bible is given prominence through song, dance and sharings by members of the community. 

The Church of Our Lady of Immaculate Conception in Seria took the opportunity to officially unveil their hand written volume of the New Testament. This took several months to carry out. Each Sunday, at one of the masses, a family would come forward and receive the unfinished manuscript. They would also receive good quality paper to write on their contribution. In this way, many  families has this special experience of "writing the Bible"!

This year one of the highlights was the implementation of a Bible Reading survey for committed Catholic youths, which was recommended to all the Diocesan Bible Commissions to undertake in their individual dioceses.. The results of the survey will be compiled and it is hoped that it will give us a better insight into the role of the Bible in their lives.

As has been the practice for several years already, on behalf of the Regional Biblical Commission, Archbishop John Ha of Kuching prepared a Bible Sunday Message based on the Apostolic Exhortation "Verbum Domini". This was sent to the various Catholic newspapers for publication to coincide with Bible Sunday. The message was also translated into Tamil, Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin. In Brunei, the message was disseminated through handouts distributed to the faithful during weekend Masses and priests' homilies were dedicated to expounding on the Bible's importance in lay Catholic spirituality.