- Fr Terry Burke, MHM
KUCHING — 68 participants braved the heavy rain to attend the first session of talks on Social Teaching of the Church by Fr Terry Burke at 7.30 pm on 11 October at St Joseph’s Cathedral parish centre. It was the first talk for a series of seven talks every Tuesday.
Fr Terry shared that the basic ethical teaching of the Lord is “Love one another as I have loved you.” This call to love is a process. It begins with “justice” as the minimum demand of love. To answer the question of ‘What is Justice?’ Fr Terry started from the beginning on why Jesus came – not only to save human kind but also to gather us back unto himself, to build up Society. Fr Terry quoted many examples from the Old and New Testaments concept of Justice, for example St Paul’s “knowing Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:8) is expressing his concern and love for the community. Our communion with Christ is a communion of doing.
The talk also touched on the need to be aware of the political Theology – to listen to, educate / teach and to help the poor, the needy, the marginalised as love of God is best to be lived out in recognising human dignity and to make a difference in this world. Fr Terry’s input also showed how “institutionalised sin” causes suffering and injustice around the globe, kept in existence by mankind’s refusal to look honestly at the situation with eyes of justice and so change.
The first session of the talk was an eye-opener for everyone present.
Janet Brodie
Fr Terry Burke is a Mill Hill Missionary, who has served in Sarawak, Indonesia, India and England. Currently, he is a resident lecturer at St Peter’s College and also assigned to do formation work in the Archdiocese.
