Yangon, Burma, Nov 29, 2017 / 04:39 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a meeting with the bishops leading Burma’s small Catholic community, Pope Francis stressed the need to prioritize healing and pastoral accompaniment as the nation continues to reel from both past and present conflicts.
In a Nov. 29 meeting with Burma’s bishops, Pope Francis said the Gospel they preach “is above all a message of healing, reconciliation and peace.” This message, he said, is especially potent in Burma, which is still working “to overcome deeply-rooted divisions and to build national unity.”
Many Catholic faithful in the country “bear the scars of this conflict and have borne valiant witness to their faith and their ancient traditions,” he said, explaining that the preaching of the Gospel “must not only be a source of consolation and strength, but also a summons to foster unity, charity and healing in the life of this nation.”
Echoing his words to interreligious leaders on his first full day in the country, Francis said this unity “is born of diversity. It values people’s differences as a source of mutual enrichment and growth (and) invites people to come together in a culture of encounter and solidarity.”
He prayed that the Lord would guide the bishops in their efforts to promote healing and communion at all levels in the Church, so that “God’s holy people can be salt and light for hearts longing for that peace the world cannot give.”
Pope Francis met with the bishops during his Nov. 27-30 visit to the country – also known as Myanmar – after which he will travel to neighboring Bangladesh from Nov. 30-Dec. 2 before returning to Rome.
He arrived Nov. 27 and has so far met with both religious and civil leaders. The meetings were politically charged on various levels, stemming from the fact that Christians are a small minority in Burma, as well as the fact that the nation is still working to transition to a democratic government after more than 50 years of military rule.
In his speech to the bishops, Pope Francis offered three words for reflection: healing, accompaniment and prophecy.
He praised efforts made by the local Church to care for the poor and the displaced, many of whom are members of the Rohingya Muslim minority who have been forced to flee their home in Burma’s Rakhine State as a result of what the United Nations has called “a textbook case of ethnic cleansing” in the area.
The Pope voiced his thanks to those who “bring the balm of healing to these, their neighbors in need, without regard for religion or ethnicity.”
This healing, he said, is also relevant when it comes to inter-religious dialogue, and prayed that the bishops would continue building bridges of dialogue and join followers of other religions “in weaving peaceful relations will bear rich fruit for reconciliation in the life of the nation.”
Francis then stressed the importance of pastoral accompaniment, saying a good shepherd is always at his flock’s side, and must constantly “bear the smell of the sheep.”
He emphasized the need to go out to the peripheries, telling the prelates that in their role as bishops, “your lives and ministry are called to model this spirit of missionary outreach,” which is primarily carried out by regular visits to the parishes and communities in their local Churches.
In the spirit of the first missionaries who evangelized the country, bishops, as pastors, must “continue to imbue the laity with a spirit of true missionary discipleship and seek a wise inculturation of the Gospel message in the daily life and traditions of your local communities.”
To this end, the role of catechists is essential, he said, adding that “their formation and enrichment must remain among your chief priorities.”
With few bishops and clergy ministering to the entirety of Burma’s small Catholic population, catechesis plays a key role in the formation and education of the faithful in the country.
Burma is a majority Buddhist country. Catholics are a small minority, making up just 1.3 percent of a population of nearly 52 million.
They are led by 22 bishops; 888 priests, both diocesan and religious; 128 non-ordained male religious and just two permanent deacons, making the ratio of Catholics to priests in the country around 742 to one. Women religious serving in Burma number just under 2,000. The country includes three archdioceses and 13 dioceses.
Given the unique challenges of being a minority, Pope Francis stressed the importance of pastoral accompaniment, specifically of the youth.
He urged the bishops to give special attention to their formation “in the sound moral principles that will guide them in confronting the challenges of a rapidly changing world,” including the threats of “cultural and ideological colonization.”
Turning to the upcoming synod of bishops on youth in 2018, to be held at the Vatican, Francis said young people are one of the greatest blessings of the Church in Burma, and pointed to the high number of seminarians studying in both minor and major seminary in the country, numbering around 1,100 total.
In the spirit of the Synod, which will listen to the stories of young people and help them discern how best to proclaim the Gospel in their lives, Francis asked the bishops to “please engage them and support them in their journey of faith, for by their idealism and enthusiasm they are called to be joyful and convincing evangelizers of their contemporaries.”
Francis then emphasized the importance of the Church’s prophetic witness in Burma, and recognized their daily efforts to bear witness to the Gospel through works of charity and education, but also through the defense of human rights and “support for democratic rule.”
He prayed that they would enable the Catholic community “to continue to play a constructive part in the life of society by making your voices heard on issues of national interest, particularly by insisting on respect for the dignity and rights of all, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable.”
With a word on the importance of protecting the environment and preserving the rich natural resources in Burma, Pope Francis concluded his speech with a bit of pastoral advice for bishops themselves.
Recognizing the demands of their ministry, the Pope noted that the bishops, along with their priests, “often labor under the heat and the burden of the day.”
He urged the bishops to be balanced in caring for their spiritual and physical health, while also keeping a paternal eye on the health of the priests in their care.
Francis encouraged the bishops to spend time daily in prayer and in “the experience of God’s reconciling love,” which he said “is the basis of your priestly identity, the guarantee of the soundness of your preaching, and the source of the pastoral charity by which you guide God’s people on the path of holiness and truth.”
Prayer is the first duty of bishops, he emphasized.
In a special greeting to the Pope, Bishop Felix Lian Khen Thang, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Burma, told Francis that his visit brings them “courage, joy and hope in trying to live and witness our faith, as we take part in peace and nation building process.”
“Like the dry parched land that is waiting for the first rain, we are also eagerly waiting for your visit which will be like the morning dew, a great blessing for our people and our country,” he said, adding that Pope’s “timely visit” fills their hearts with love and peace as they strive to be “the salt of the earth and the light of the world” in their nation.
He wished the Pope “good health and peace of mind” during his visit, and assured him that they would always be “your faithful collaborators in the mission of peace and love.”
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To invert a truism–in electronic sacraments “there’s LESS here than meets the eye.”
It isn’t just canon-law legalism that restrains telemarketer sacraments. If a virtual electronic splash through a computer monitor and speaker can administer the sacrament of penance, then why can’t 3D virtual sex toys substitute for the sacrament of marriage–another abused and previously real thing?
The Church reminds us of the mystery of human personhood precisely by acknowledging the personal contact faithfully supplied at least (!) in the sacraments, AND is more starkly noticing the gut-level difference between reality and the mere phantasms of Technocracy. To what depths have we sunk, to need such a reminder?
First, the sacramental Real Presence (the Word) in the consecration at Mass is replaced by Gutenberg’s printed words on paper (bibliolatry?); then personal participation in God’s acts of creation of new persons is replaced by the Sexual Revolution and nearly anonymous contraceptive/recreational sex (etc.); then the reality of unborn children is dismissed/disposed as diseased tissue. The revealed/infinite Truth of Christianity is replaced by the boundless carnage of 20th century ideologies; at the street level, real personal encounter and wonder are replaced by media special effects and boredom; the Descent of the (indwelling) Holy Spirit at Pentecost is replaced by microphones, power-points and chandeliers in bishops’ conferences and orchestrated synods; plastic transformer toys groom toward gender theory and out-of-body transgender experimentation; and now the Sacrament of Penance is simulated through computer chips and smartphone apps. High resolution, of course!
Enough. Distance learning is one thing (maybe), but all this stuff is another. One can notice these incremental deceptions without being a reactionary Luddite.
The POSITIVE meaning of my above rant, I hope, is the real mystery of the singular Real Presence. And therefore also the mystery of EACH seemingly obscure priest and bishop in the trenches who, surely, are desperately looking for ways to serve their people in this wretched time of isolation.
The Lord is not isolated (or even self-distanced by “six feet”). Is the good already being drawn out of our evil moment an assuredly greater astonishment that EACH Mass—each and every Mass even when celebrated with only the priest present—is the undiminished “extension and projection” (St. John Paul II) of the once-only passion of Christ on Calvary? Not any lesser assembly-line symbol, but the singular Eucharist as both “a symbol AND that which it symbolizes.” Numerically distinct, but actually ONE.
There is no distancing of the singular and historical fact of Calvary from our own time and place(s). Are we open to the stunning reality of the Mass—and, with opened eyes, can we also see the ordained priesthood as it really is—-ALTER CHRISTUS (truly in the person of Christ). And then even see ourselves and each other, sacramentally, as gifted and fully “new persons”?