Life of the Congregation

Apart from his many activities, whether ministering in his multicultural parish in Birmingham or seated at his desk, editing books or working on translations, Father Dominic, with his cheerfulness and approaching 82nd birthday, always has a suitcase packed and ready to jet away to discover the day-to-day existence of his brothers in religion and in humanity. This is what happened last July-August during a trip to Thailand: armed with his camera he learnt – as is his custom – a rich lesson of life in that country.

Living in town, we Europeans often take things for granted such as shopping for food, having electricity and running water. The priests and brothers of our mission in some cases do not have any of these facilities. During my visit this year I experienced a little of their life. One can admire the first Fathers who had virtually nothing when they began this mission.

My visit to Mephon coincided with the season for planting rice, the monsoon season. Being interested, I accompanied those who took part in it. To my surprise, I found everybody took part. The priests, students, sisters, the children and their parents who did this by way of paying back for their children’s up-keep and education. All dressed to step into the muddy water of the paddy field which meant bare feet and shorts. The skilled planters picked up the floating batches of seedlings and planted them in neat rows moving from one paddy field to next: back breaking work. These were usually the parent farmers, the sisters, priests and students and the older children. The other children walked along the lower embankments between the paddy fields distributing bunches of seedlings and bringing drinks and food from the house to the workers. Other children went foraging in the forests for various types of food: like bamboo shoots, certain wild vegetables, frogs or any other small animal that came their way or fish from the streams or pools.

All the mission stations had to support themselves by growing and finding food to survive. Each mission had to find food for the priests, the sisters, the brothers (usually two in each mission) and the children whose numbers ranged from 200 to 20. So besides the pastoral mission of the fathers, they had to work to survive.

Another venture I was able to see was fruit picking in a large area of land called the foundation, not too far from Chieng Mae, the main city of northern Thailand which is the centre of our mission. I accompanied a large number of members from our mission; priests, brothers and the pre-postulants who had been taking a course in catechetics and lay people from our Missions. They were picking a fruit which I had never seen before and have never seen in England.

It is, I am told, called Longon. Groups of people spread plastic sheets below the trees while climbers perilously walked along the branches to cut off with large knives the smaller ones bearing loads of fruit. Large numbers of people picked the fruit from the branches after it had fallen. Then it was bagged and sold to dealers on the spot.

One doesn’t have to travel far in Thailand to find patches of water. They can be found in all our missions and are a vital source of food in the form of fish. At the Seminary in Sampran one can find Fr Jirapat, the Superior, and the cook on certain days with their rods pulling out fish from the pool; meals for the whole community. Other communities have their own pools and fish tanks.

But man does not live on bread alone and the mission provides spiritual nourishment by doing pastoral work in well over 200 villages in their care and in the hostels and schools as at Mephon, a Karen People’s Hill Centre, and at Ban Pong, the Holy Family Centre, for children and young women of the Aka tribe. The former was started by fathers Seguinotte and Oxibar in the 1950s and the latter by father Pensa in the 1980s. He is still there today.

Betharram in Thailand is very blessed with vocations. Today the Fathers are reaping the harvest planted by our early missionaries from France, Italy and Spain. A few weeks ago three young men made their final profession in a packed Cathedral in Chieng Mae; a wonderful sign of solidarity: Thais from the town, Karens from the mountains and a beautiful Aka girls’ choir from the North. Later this year there will be five young men enter the diaconate. The harvest is great and the call from nearby lands of Vietnam, Burma and China grows louder.

Dominic Innamorati, scj