St. Sebastian Church

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ on 25^th December. The significance for Christians is their belief that Jesus is the ‘Son of God’, the messiah sent from God to save the world from sin. Christmas is the festival of peace, joy, love and goodwill when families are reunited, houses are decorated with lights, x’mas trees and gifts exchanged. Saint Nicholas is associated as Santa Claus – the fat, jolly, red-clothed, white bearded Santa.

The real meaning of Christmas actually is Emmanuel, God with us. Christmas is special because it reminds us concretely that God is indeed with us in every circumstance of life. So let us embrace Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior.
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Recently the church sounded an advisory cautioning the use of plastics in our celebrations. This shows that the church authorities too are aware and very much concerned about the growing menace of the use of plastics.

Plastics! What are they? In simple words they are large molecules made from small units which get repeated to form the large one (macromolecule)

Can anyone guess the age of plastics, when they actually came into existence? It was in the year 1950, and from then, there is no turning back. Why was it so important? Those born in that decade or earlier, will recall that all articles we used then were made either of wood or metal. Now most of the articles are made of plastics name it, it is there – furniture, toys, bags, pens, refills to name a few.

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We all believe that after we die, our soul goes to heaven, hell or purgatory. We fear Death and nobody wants to die, probably because of the final judgement before God. Do good on earth and you are rewarded with eternal glory in heaven. God has given each one of us an Indication Panel to guide us through life and prevent us from getting turned upside down and crashing! That indication panel is the value system given to us in the Gospels in clear terms, summarized beautifully in just one sentence “Love God and Love your Neighbour”. All the Saints kept their eyes on this Indication Panel and never lost sight of what was important. They have been rewarded with Sainthood by the Church to be honoured and glorified by the faithful. We also have our very own, those that have died and gone before us. Maybe our father, our mother our grandparents, our brother or sister, our friends and acquaintances who have attained eternal salvation. They too are praying for us and keeping a watch over us. They may not be declared as Saints but they are Saints in equal measure. All Saints’ Day is therefore a solemn holy day celebrated annually on 1^st November and is dedicated to these Saints of the Church, that is, all those who have attained heaven.

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Social media can best be described as web based communication tools that enable its users to interact with each other efficiently and effectively. Some of the prominent examples of social media are Facebook, Twitter, What’s app, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat etc... Social media has revolutionized the way people communicate with each other, share their views, pictures, videos and do business. With growing reach of technology people are bound to use social media in some way or the other. From developed to developing nations people are connected via social media.  However, on the other hand it has also adversely affected society. As the saying goes, ‘’water can give life, and water can also take life. It all depends on how you use it.’’. Similarly social media can be a boon or a bane, it all depends on how constructively and effectively it is used. Willingly or unwillingly it can still have positive and negative impacts on its users.

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1 Peter 3:12 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers.”

What is Righteousness?

A person is righteous in the eyes of God when he/she has right relationship with God and with self, (guided by constructive self-love as opposed to destructive self-love), with family members, with others and with the environment.

We can rightly infer that our prayers – Thanksgiving, Praise, Worship and Petitions become powerful when we love God. First and foremost let us thank and praise God for the gift of life. There could have been a situation where I am not created. I do not exist. Also for Redemption. Are not all other gifts secondary?

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Every year the month of November is dedicated as a month for Holy Souls. We need to pray for the souls of our near and dear departed ones. As well as the unknown souls. Souls who have nobody to pray for, the abandoned souls. EVERY SOUL needs our prayer to their salvation. We have plenary indulgences during this month, whereby we get benefit of number of days in Purgatory.

We pray that everyone goes to heaven. Heaven is the ultimate goal. No one would like to go to hell. But due to various reasons, best known to souls, they go to Purgatory. These souls are in need of our prayers.

Why we should pray for these souls? These souls are in Purgatory because they are on trial and they will attain salvation only if we pray for them and redeem them.

They do suffer in Purgatory but their suffering in this place is only temporary as they will definitely go to heaven one day once they accomplish their salvation.

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Organ donation

Organ donation and transplantation is one of the remarkable medical success stories of this century. Besides eyes and kidneys it is also possible to transplant other organs like heart, lungs, liver and pancreas. To make all these transplants possible and alleviate the sufferings of many, the Indian Government in 1994 passed an act called “The transplantation of human organs act’’

Over the years, organ donation has proved to be very successful.  Donor card is the first step in this regard and your signing this card can save many lives.

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Newspaper is a powerful means of mass communication conveying current information. Its basic function is to provide info-edu-tainment (information, education and entertainment).

You pick it up, carry it, read it and move on. It is a serial publication containing news about politics, sports, religious topics, art, music, classifieds, obituaries, letters to the editor, advertisements, and other informative articles and so on. They are found all over the world and published in different languages. It has become a part and parcel of our daily life.

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