"This is the day which the Lord has made, Jet us rejoice and be gland in it. "

At this inaugural Eucharist of this First Asian Mission Congress we are united in the precious Name of Jesus who has promised to be present where two or three are gathered in His Name. While we recall the "joys which Asia has benefited from receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ, let us humbly ask God to bless our deliberations on the many challenges we face in our mission to spread His Gospel in the length and breadth of the vast Asian Continent and to inspire us to take relevant decisions as He bids us anew to "launch out into the deep".

It is with legitimate pride that we note that the Asian continent has had a privileged place in the mind of God ever since, in the garden of Eden after the fall of Adam and Eve, He promised to send humankind a unique and universal redeemer. Adapting Jesus' words to Nicodemus, we can truly say that God so loved Asia that He sent His only Son to be born and to work out His redemptive mission there, so that all those who believe in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. Yes, we can be truly proud of the fact that the "Story of Jesus" which started in Asia some two 'thousand years ago has now become "history" Le. His-story for the whole of humankind and for all times and ages.

During this Holy Eucharist there are many intentions we would like to present to God our heavenly Father, through Christ, with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Looking to the past, there are many persons we must remember - for gratitude is, indeed, the memory of the heart. We remember all those who from the first centuries of the Christian era, starting with the Apostles, spread the sweet fragrance of Jesus Christ in the Asian continent. The Gospel message. was in fact carried down the centuries - even in the midst of trials and sufferings - from the cenacle in Jerusalem to countries and kingdoms in central and southern Asia, from the Middle to the Far East. We cannot forget the great missionary thrust given from the sixteenth century onwards by stalwarts like St. Francis Xavier, Matteo Ricci, Roberto de Nobili, Blessed Joseph Vaz, the laymen who brought Christianity to the Korean peninsula, and many others. And we recall those who have suffered or are suffering under adverse regimes or who were victims of persecutions all over the Asian continent: in Armenia, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, India, China, even here in Thailand, and elsewhere. They are our intercessors in heaven and may the blood they have shed for Christ's sake be the seed of new Christians (Tertullian).

Looking to the future, during this Congress we shall recall the missionary mandate we have received from Our Lord Jesus Christ to preach the Good News to every creature, and the challenges to proclamation it poses within an ecumenical and inter-religious dialogical framework. The modern challenges are many and varied:

from lifting high the sacred Person of Jesus to people who are worshipping an unknown God to the urgency of inculturating the Gospel and evangelizing our cultures, remembering that we are children of our respective cultures and parents of the cultures which will follow us. On the one hand, we cannot ignore the self-centered New Age mentality which prevails in Asia today, where God is considered irrelevant. On the other hand, we must be alert to the demands posed by what Pope John Paul Il, in his encyclical Redemptoris Missio (n. 37), called "the modern areopagus" where he mentioned new areas of evangelization which transcend all geographical, cultural and social boundaries, viz. the world of culture and research, of migrants and poverty, of social communication and international relations - which include, of course, information technology and the media in all its forms - commitment to peace, development and the liberation of peoples, the rights of individuals and peoples, especially those of minorities, the empowerment of women and the education of children, the ecological safeguard of the created world. Ali these sectors of the modern aeropagus, says the Pope, need to be illuminated with the light of the Gospel, and hence enter within the missionary mandate of the Church. Let us present all these intentions to the Lord during this Holy Eucharist.

Finally, let us remember the many peoples and persons in the Asian continent who have not yet received the Good News of Jesus Christ, or rather, the Good News who is Jesus Christ, true God and true man. Evangelization, we know, is primarily the action of the Holy Spirit, who has been at work in all cultures since the beginning of the

universe. It was He who prepared the Incarnation of the Son of God and His redemptive sacrifice two thousand years ago on Asian soil. He has left pointers all along the history of world cultures: they are the “seeds of the Word” which would lead honest seekers towards the fullnes of the truth in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit started the work of evangelization with direct and indirect proclamation at the very moment that Christ Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Lk 2:8-20; Mt 2:1-12). Direct proclamation: when the Angels announced the glad tiding of Jesus' . birth to shepherds who watched their flock that night. Indirect proclamation: when a star rose in the East and led some Wise Men laden with precious gifts to Jesus, the new-born King and Savior of the world. Applying this to the Asian peoples, we must acknowledge and respect the precious treasures of the cultural and religious heritage which - like the Wise Men - they carry in their bosom, as also the efforts they are making to discover Truth by following their respective scriptures and saints as guiding stars. Just as the Wise Men were restless until they found Jesus and placed their treasures before Him and adored Him, so also the peoples of Asia, with their varied rich cultures and religious traditions, will be restless until they find and adore Him who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life. "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You" (St. Augustine).

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of the New Evangelization, bless this Asian Mission Congress, its participants and all those who are dedicated to telling the "Story of Jesus" al~ over our beloved Asian continent.