Talk On St Paul, Holy Trinity Church, Tawau

In conjunction with The Year of St Paul, Holy Trinity Church organized a talk on St Paul by Fr Lukas of Indonesia on 29th and 30th April 2009.

Talking to almost a packed audience in the church basement hall, Fr Lukas first tried to bring the parishioners to understand the geo-political background at the time of the apostles in order to appreciate how St Paul was able to spread Christianity at the beginning of our Church.

He highlighted the Hellenistic environment of that period, where well populated towns and cities were rather close to one another and where people all used the common language Greek. The Roman rule later provided a good network of roads and good security for travel, further helping the growth of the Church. He concentrated the second part of his talk on Paul’s 3 missionary journeys and his great letters.

While explaining the rational of using letters to establish and strengthen the various churches in the region, Fr Lukas asked the participants to know them well in order to understand the liturgical practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

Fr. Lukas Jua SVD

Hailed from Flores, Fr Lukas is a member of the Society of the Divine Word (Societas Verbi Divini or SVD), a Catholic missionary order dedicated to the preaching of the Gospel to people not yet evangelized. Trained at the major seminary of Flores, he later studied at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of Rome.

Fluent in English, he was invited by the Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu and the Diocese of Sandakan for these series of talks on St Paul. Prior to his visit to Holy Trinity, Fr Lukas has also been to Sandakan, Telupid and Lahad Datu.

Bishop Julius welcoming Fr. Lukas Jua to the Diocese of Sandakan.

Contributed By: Marcus Chin HTC Tawau.