By Emma Chaong
KUCHING — In conjunction with St Joseph’s feast day on 19 March 2021, Empowered Youth Ministry has organised their first Facebook Live session. The feature guests were Fr Alvin Ng, SJ and Ralph Balan, who is a servant member of Empowered Ministry discussing on Lent and St Joseph.
To kick off the session, Fr Alvin shared a video on the background of the Year of St Joseph and what indulgence is. On 8 December 2020, Pope Francis has declared it as the Year of St Joseph. The dedication is to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Proclamation of St Joseph as Patron of Universal Church where Christians can obtain special indulgences at anytime and anywhere in this year. Below is a summary of the video on how indulgence is granted:
- Meditating on the Our Father for at least 30 minutes
- Performing a work of mercy
- Families or engaged couples praying the rosary together
- Entrusting work to St Joseph and praying to him that all may have a dignified job
- Praying to him for the Church and for persecuted Christians
- Praying to St Joseph on 19 March (Feast of St Joseph), 1 May (Feast of St Joseph the Worker), 26 December (Feast of the Holy Family), the 19th of each month and every Wednesday.
Fr Alvin explained that the 150th year of dedication to St Joseph was to remind Catholics that sacred tradition as such should not be forgotten but to be carried forward because the Holy Spirit wants something to be done among the people as in the past. It is the responsibility of the Church to remind the people of God so that we can grow and unite ourselves with every Catholic in the world to pray with one goal. Besides that, Fr Alvin also shared about how St Joseph can be related to his life and how he inspires him. Born as a Catholic in Kuching, many grew up with tradition of St Joseph due to St Joseph’s school and parish. Although St Joseph spoke less in the Gospel, he is an important person in the bible. The qualities of St Joseph are humble and wise. Likewise saying, “the quiet are the wisest of them all”. He is a man of actions rather than a man of words.
Empowered Ministry Kuching
