Higher education costs in Pakistan

Through this paper, please allow me to express my gratitude to the Mission Fund for their donation of €3,000 towards our MSSP mission in the periphery of Lahore, Pakistan. Thanks also for €1,000 in mass intentions.

This donation will go into a fund we MSSP fathers serving in our parish have set up to enable young people from the parish to pursue their higher education.

Our young in Malta receive a stipend after their Form V studies but studying at tertiary level in Pakistan is very expensive, even in government institutions. Our families simply cannot afford the fees. State institutes of higher learning offer few places and private colleges charge very high fees – on average PKR 150,000 a year (c. €500), when the average monthly salary of a factory worker is PKR 20,000 of which he must pay PKR 10,000 in rent (at least) while inflation runs at 30 per cent; electricity bills are exorbitant. I myself had to pay PKR 54,000 (about €184] for the month of October for our school electricity bill.

In our own high school, the MSSP shoulder the full burden of all the teachers’ salaries every month (€2,500) to keep the students’ monthly fee as low as possible: from 75 cents to a maximum of €2.50 monthly.

May I also appeal to benefactors to continue in their support of the Mission Fund by sending them used stamps, and/or making direct donations on line or by bank transfer in any of the following accounts: BOV (IBAN: MT70VALL22010000000 16300798022), APS (IBAN: MT67APSB77079005231820000 820762), BANIF (IBAN: MT94BNIF1450200000000087963101) or LOM (IBAN: MT65LBMA0500000000000 1440822115.

Further information about the Mission Fund is available on www.missionfund.org.mt.

Anticipated thanks to all. God’s blessings.

Fr Gerard Bonello MSSP – Lahore, Pakistan

Doing away with God

Statistics demonstrate the ever-decreasing numbers of those who attend mass. Photo: Jonathan Borg

Every so often we get statistics demonstrating the ever-decreasing numbers of those who attend mass. Various reasons are given for this phenomenon, the main one being the secularisation that has engulfed western societies.

Most people do not, it should be noted, leave the faith because of shortcomings witnessed in the Church. Those who are cognisant with the history of the Church know that, sadly, faults and failures have never been missing from her life, starting from the beginning and the apostles’ abhorrent behaviour during Christ’s passion.

They do so because in our affluent societies belief in God has become almost irrelevant. The Lord is not needed because modern man mistakenly believes that he can be self-sufficient and thus able to solve problems and difficulties all by himself.

However, there is one flaw in this reasoning.

Doing away with God means also the inability to give any sort of meaning to suffering but only grope around in darkness unable to find a way out of a tunnel that promises no light at the end. It means not knowing where one comes from, what one is doing here on earth and, most importantly, where one is heading. The believer groans amid tribulations as much as the unbeliever does but knows full well that he has someone to cling to amid distress.

Unlike what many believe, Christ never promised to do away with all suffering but, amazingly, He gave meaning to it. This is what gives believers the strength and serenity to face whatever life hurls at them knowing full well that neither suffering nor death has the last word.

Jacqueline Calleja – Naxxar