Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Yangon (Agenzia Fides) - A "Rainbow Church", which brings together different ethnicities and cultures in "a new Pentecost": is the image used by His Exc. Mgr. Charles Bo, SDB, Archbishop of Yangon, in describing the Burmese Church which celebrates her Jubilee, which opened on November 22, recalling the 500th anniversary of the first evangelization of the country. In the message issued by the President of the Episcopate of Burma and sent to Agenzia Fides, the Archbishop recalls that the Burmese Church lives the Jubilee as described in the Bible: "A time of grace, of restitution, of thanksgiving, of the triumph of freedom of God's children". "The Jubilee Year is also a time of rest", recalls the text. "Rest from all oppression, wars, rest from poverty and suffering. This is a year of grace not only for Christians, but for all the brothers and sisters of Myanmar", notes the Archbishop.
"In this Jubilee Year we gather to seek justice, peace and prosperity" is the appeal launched by the Burmese Church. "To ask freedom from hate and from every kind of oppression. The Jubilee Year opens a season of hope".
Recalling that the path of the local Church began thanks to "a grain of faith sown by Saint Francis Xavier", the message recalls the history of the small Christian community in Burma, fueled by the work of the Dominican missionaries, Jesuits, Franciscans, and then other orders such as OVM (the Oblates of
the Virgin Mary), MEP, Barnabiti, PIME, La Salette. Christians have kept the light of faith also "resisting centuries of oppression".
The message then indicates the path for the Church in the future: if the community remains steadfast in faith - as the early Christians - by continuing to engage in education and care for the weak, it may be a reference to "promote peace, reconciliation and justice", and will be able to live a season of "new evangelization", entrusted mainly to the laity. The missionary commitment is an answer "to the sacrifices of the missionaries who arrived here", remarks the text, choosing the approach and the spirit of the Good Shepherd "in reaching those who are outside the parish structures" and have not received the proclamation of the Gospel of salvation.
The evangelization of Burma, today Myanmar, began in the early sixteenth century. After entering the country, the presence of priests Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits allowed to give birth to the first Christian communities. Today the Church in Myanmar consists of 16 dioceses and has about 750 thousand faithful, amounting to approximately 1.3% of the population. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 24/11/2014)
