By Joseph Jin Xiuzhang, cicm

When I was working at the Diocesan Seminary and later at the Spirituality Center as preacher of retreats or lecturer, I had a very narrow view of the pastoral ministry. As I had never had the chance to work in the parish, I used to minimize the pastoral ministry which I considered as an easy job compared to what I was doing in the Seminary.

I regret for having kept long in mind a wrong conception of the pastoral ministry, which brought me sometimes to criticize the priests whose performance in the ministry was not well appreciated by their parishioners.

My misunderstanding of the pastoral ministry was challenged as I got involved in the pastoral work together with our confreres. Indeed, the experience has taught me a lot. Especially after I encountered unexpected difficulties and challenges, I started questioning myself.

 I am Chinese and I was sent to China for mission; but in my own country, I first met with the language limitation problem. In fact, the place I was assigned to is different from my birthplace and I realized that most of the local inhabitants are not able to speak Mandarin, the official language. Of course, I can’t blame them for that. I realized that this is because of their education background. Many people in the District where I am working are not highly educated. Moreover, here people prefer to speak their local dialect instead of the official language (Mandarin).

One day, a lady came to my office in tears, and she shared me her story with emotion. She was complaining about her husband’s violent behavior. I could hardly understand her plea as she was talking with emotion in a language that I did not fully understand. Although I could guess from her emotions what she was trying to say, I was lost and very limited linguistically. My command of the language could have definitely given me more confidence to be of help to her. In trying to be of help, I asked her to speak slowly and clearly, but she just looked at me and continued to talk as before. I felt so sorry for not being able to grasp the meaning, and the more, I was getting frustrated. I told myself that I should listen to her with my heart instead of my ears. That was the most disturbing experience of the language limitation I ever had.

Some days later, another lady approached me and said: “Father Joseph, we do not understand what you are preaching to us.” This was a touching and frank remark. It challenged me to learn and adapt to the local language and realities for the effectiveness of my ministry. With this personal experience, I can imagine and understand what our Founder Theophile Verbist and his companions went through at the very beginning of the CICM Mission in China. Still today, many of our confreres are going through the same experience all over the world.

However, in my pastoral experience in China, aside from the language difficulty, I came across another reality that is also most challenging: the Catholic faith.

Due to various reasons, Christians are not properly practicing their faith, even though they claim that they are baptized. In fact, their religious practice is influenced by the Chinese traditional religions, such as Daoism, Buddhism, and other religious sects.

For instance, in order to avoid bad luck and gain good fortune, many Catholics seek enlightenment from Fengshui Master, who usually provides concrete directions to solve problems. Then, they come to Catholic priests for implementing what they are asked to do by Fengshui Master. They do this without the awareness of the work of a Catholic priest and their own faith. It looks strange to me that people put their faith aside to follow their traditional beliefs in times of great needs.

I think that many priests made efforts to prevent this from happening, but so far they failed. And I understand that this cannot be changed in one or two years: it is a long process to which we need to devote more time for the formation of the youth and the next generations. We can better foster the link between faith and culture / traditions, and help the people accept or overcome their painful experi- ences such as illness, bad luck, accidents and death.

As CICM, the youth’s education is one of our priorities in the pastoral ministry as we hope to bring new understanding of the faith in China. We introduced the Sunday School for the youth, which was never seen in this Diocese before. This became the place where we try to make a significant change to distorted belief and performances. In addition, we initiated the summer and winter camps in the parish for the children and the youth who are willing to participate, and we also encourage others to join. I know that it is not always easy, but we hope that God will help us in this ministry, which I believe is worthy and meaningful. As Saint Paul says, “So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow”(1 Corinthians 3: 7).

Honestly speaking, the most challenging hardship comes from the political environment. Even though it is written in the Constitution that every citizen enjoys the freedom of religion, the Chinese government still regards religions as a threat to the communist regime, particularly, the Christian faith. We have seen that the central government issues orders and regulations to forbid children from participating into religious venues and activities. For them, this is an ideological war between faith and the Chinese communist government power and interest. Just recently, a local religious office issued an order to close Tian’ai Children Center, the center where we take care of children, because it is just located near the prayer house (Church). Obviously, the local government fears that children will be influenced by the Christian faith. Moreover, the Principal of the Primary School where children study threatened anyone remaining at the Children Center to be kicked out. Meanwhile, some teachers keep telling the students that the Catholicism is a heresy, evil organism, superstitious and spiritual opium.

We have nothing to do except to verbally defend ourselves from these false accusations, and strengthen our faith that God is on our side for the good of the children and the society in general. This is the actual situation in China. While facing these difficulties and challenges, we must find another way to carry out our mission since we, CICM missionaries, never give up to preach and sow the seed of faith as our Founder Theophile Verbist did. As we recently commemorated his 150th death anniversary, his words are still resounding in our ears: “For those who love, nothing is impossible.” We count on your prayers and support for the sake of CICM mission in China, and for the wellbeing of the children we serve. (ASIA News Bulletin n°33, MayJune 2018, pp.2-4). ■

By Jan Hoet, cicm

I have been a missionary in Haiti for forty-seven years (1967–2014). My notion of mission has evolved over these forty-seven years. This prompts me to share the following reflections:

Mission is certainly no longer what it used to be for many people at the time of the colonization: to convert pagans or, later, to bring the true faith and development to poor and illiterate people. Somehow, this last vision was still accepted at the time of my training.

Today, I rather want to define a missionary as follows:

A true missionary is someone who behaves like a citizen of the world with a Christian inspiration as foundation. He is a stranger in his home country as well as in the country where he resides as a missionary. He calmly takes note of this situation that does not make him unhappy. Very grateful for being accepted by the members of the society that welcomes him, he tries to be present in this very society in a humble and attentive way.

A true missionary rereads the Gospel in the context of the new country in which he lives, and he is prepared to reread the gospel with the people. He wants to join his new friends in their condition of poverty, exploitation, insecurity and political instability. With them he looks for ways to get out of this situation. He shares the frustration and helplessness of the people and with them he wants to find ways to gain true human dignity.

A true missionary is the spare wheel of the old jeep with which he has to travel. He does not want to be the driver.

This spare wheel is rather invisible. It is the driver who decides on the objective of the trip. The missionary is a passenger on an anguishing road, because the driver is driving recklessly without respecting the traffic rules.

A true missionary wants to free his mind from the idea that he knows everything and that the values that he knows and appreciates are the best. He tries to become a Haitian with the Haitian people, but without losing his own identity. He keeps in mind that he is a foreigner. He sincerely remains himself and gives humbly witness to what inspires him and to the motives of his attitudes and deeds. He wants to be a mirror for those who are different from him so that they may know themselves better and discover their own values and wealth when facing somebody who is different.

The missionary is not a professor lecturing from a pulpit to inculcate knowledge and “truth” in his students. He is rather the student who allows himself to be evangelized by the poor and the little ones of this world.

The missionary is somebody who is happy to celebrate the Eucharist with poor people while allowing himself to be touched by the depth of the messages that they discover in the Bible and the strength they draw from sharing this word and this communion.

Yes, to be a missionary remains an exciting and very valuable challenge.

By Alexandre Kakolo Beya, cicm

I was appointed as the national chaplain of the Kiro Youth Movement in 2003. It’s was a big challenge for me to be in charge of this Catholic Youth Movement founded by a Belgian Missionhurst missionary in Holy Family Parish, Cerca-Carvajal, in the Central part of Haiti. I had to learn not only about my responsibilities as national chaplain, but also about the Kiro Youth Movement itself.

One day, during the celebration of the anniversary of a local Kiro group in Port-au-Prince, the parent of a Kiro member told me: I’m proud of my son because he joined the Kiro Youth Movement. I asked him what Kiro had done for his son. Then he told me that before he had joined Kiro, he used to misbehave and often fought with other kids. But now, after becoming a member of Kiro , he has changed completely: he has become more polite and respectful towards his friends and other people. From that time on, I began to understand the value of the Kiro Youth Movement for children and young people and its influence on Kiro members and other people that they interact with.

In 2006 we held a reflection in view of the preparation and the celebration of the Kiro’s fiftieth anniversary.  We reflected on the impact of the Kiro training, I became more aware of the important role that the Kiro Youth Movement played in the formation of children and young people from all social levels. Several Kiro members and former Kiro members did not hide their satisfaction with the human and Christian values they learned in Kiro. They witnessed how these values helped them to be more responsible in their lives, families, schools, work, etc. This is due to fact that the main goal of the Kiro Youth Movement is to make children and young people live in Christ so that they become good Christians and committed citizens serving their Church and Country. The word “Kiro” refers to the first two letters of the Greek word which were used by the first Christians to refer to Christ (XRISTOS).

How has Kiro helped children and young people? The Kiro Youth Movement is a place where all the children and young people, regardless of their social level, are welcomed and accompanied according to Christian values.

Through all Kiro activities such as weekly meetings, games, themes, annual camps for Kiro members and formation camps for local leaders, they are taught how to live together, to respect each other, to take up their responsibilities in school, their families, and communities. Members must make decisions and choices that help them grow integrally wherever they are, because they are Christ’s followers, Christ soldiers. They live to love and serve, making Jesus Christ the main goal of their life.

Because of the great significance of the Kiro Youth Movement, we gave heart and soul to celebrating its 50th anniversary with a program that stretched out over three years, from 2007 to 2010. In fact, Kiro is a national Youth Movement which is present in all the provinces or dioceses of Haiti... It has over 600 local groups and more than 62,000 members. That’s why in 2005, we elaborated preparatory and celebratory program on the local, regional, diocesan, and national levels to celebrate this great anniversary. We officially launched the celebrations for the 50th anniversary in November 2007 on the Feast of Christ the King, the patron of Kiro members. We organized many activities to reflect on the impact of the formation Kiro offers to children and young people in Haiti, so that we can accompany them better, helping them to deal with their concerns, worries and future projects. We also held many activities to spread the word about the Kiro Youth Movement in the Haitian society.

Through all these activities, we helped the Kiro members to become more involved in service of others through Christ, especially in order to build a just and brotherly society. Everyone has his rights and duties in mutual respect and in searching for the common good. This is very important because in this society, where there are not many good role models, where people are often victims of exploitation and injustice, and where there is poverty, division, corruption, selfish- ness, Kiro training empowers these thousands of children and young people to act responsibly for their human and Christian growth and for the wellbeing of their communities. We understood the need to look for more and better means to accompany these children and youth. That is why we committed ourselves to building a youth training center. The Haitian government, in recognition of our formation work with children and young people, gave us a plot of land on which to build this Center.

The preparation and celebration of Kiro’s golden anniversary met with many obstacles. Between 2008 to 2010, many natural disasters hit Haiti. We will never forget 2008, the year that 4 hurricanes hit the country. Then in 2010, the terrible earthquake on January 12th followed by hurricane Thomas and the cholera epidemic as well. All of these caused considerable damage and many deaths, some of them Kiro members with whom we had been preparing    our celebrations. In all we lost some 70 Kiro members, victims of the January 2010 Earthquake. May their souls rest in peace.

All of these events hit us incredibly hard, and we often asked ourselves if it was really worthwhile carrying on with the preparations. However, along with these terrible events, there were strong moments of solidarity and mutual help. Even if Kiro members were victims of the earthquake, even if they lost their family members, their friends and their houses, they involved themselves, according to their Kiro training, in relief services for the victims of these disasters and in the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake.

In the early hours after the earthquake, when people were crying not knowing what to do, when there was no electricity, no water, no communication, many Kiro members were present to rescue people from collapsed houses, to take injured people to hospitals, to  set up shelters and bring food and water to people who had  lost their houses. Local Kiro groups visited their members and families to encourage them. Kiro members were talking with people, praying with them, and especially playing games to encourage children and young people in the refugees’ camps. 

So, we worked on comforting our suffering brothers and sisters. We said to ourselves: no catastrophe, especially not an earthquake, can destroy our projects. Rather, it gave them new meaning, a new perspective. Therefore, we gave an important place to the victims of all these disasters in the preparation and celebration of Kiro’s 50th Anniversary. The golden jubilee taught us to work together, to unite in order to help the victims of the disasters: cleaning flooded cities, sharing tents, distributing food and water, building shelters, giving psychological assistance, campaigning for the prevention and treatment of cholera. Taking care of the victims of the earthquake and hurricanes became part and parcel of our preparation and celebration.

For the closing celebration on national and diocesan level, we chose the theme “ Kiro, 50 years  in  the  service  of Christ, let’s celebrate it with love” ( Kiwo, 50 an nan sevis Kris la, ann fete l nan renmen). We can work together to make things better despite disasters, the loss of human lives and destruction. That’s why we could also participate with other Youth Movements, in the formation of aa national Council of Haitian Youth. We decided to work together in order to better promote young people’s interests and to contribute as Youth Movements to the well- being of Haitian society.

All the training camps we had planned for the celebration of the golden anniversary of Kiro all over the country, became places where we gathered together local Kiro leaders to help them understand the destructive forces of nature and to teach them what they should do before, during and after such events. In fact, in the more remote areas of the country where there is no media available and many people believe that natural disasters are God’s punishment, Kiro members were instrumental in teaching people in their communities what they had learned about natural disasters and the people’s responsibilities towards the environment and how  to protect themselves from such disasters.

In spite of these disasters, we were able to hold all of our planned activities and to close the golden jubilee celebrations. We built and inaugurated a monument marking the 50th anniversary of Kiro in Cerca- Carvajal, in the central part of Haiti where Kiro Haiti was founded. Members from all around the country gathered to remember Father Joseph Berghmans, the Belgian Missionhurst missionary who founded the Kiro Youth Movement in Haïti and Father Noel Martens, another Belgian Missionhurst missionary who was Kiro’s first national Chaplain.

This inauguration was followed by a national congress from November 11 to 14 where we started reflecting on the next 50 years of Kiro. During the congress there were several activities, such as a National Kiro Fair. On November 21, 2010, the day of the golden jubilee and the Feast of Christ the King, there were several diocesan socio-cultural and religious activities to mark the end of these celebrations that had lasted, including the preparations, almost five years.

I would like to close with an enormous «Thank You» to everyone, to all the organizations and institutions that have helped us to realize and celebrate Kiro  Haiti’s golden jubilee, especially Missionhurst promotion with all its benefactors. Thank you too, to all the Kiro members who gave their best despite the hard times, for holding Kiro Haiti’s torch high.

The celebration is over, but the work continues. We still believe strongly in the necessity of accompanying children and young people according to Christian values. It’s one of the best ways to make them responsible for themselves and for the society in which they are living in and in which they are called to take up their responsibilities at all levels. With Kiro training and Christ’s Gospel, they will be able to face this challenging world with its difficulties and its promises.

By Jos Das, cicm

By Jessie M. Hechanova, cicm

By Jan Reynebeau, cicm

Living in community can be a blessing, or a hell; sometimes a purgatory. Community life leaves no one indifferent. But it can sometimes turn cold. That happens when the warmth disappears. And that rarely happens suddenly. Living in community is done from diversity. Everyone has his personal temperament and sensitivity, personal preferences and aversions. And this often provokes in the other person a reaction of sympathy, or antipathy, or nervousness. These feelings usually fall on us. We do not choose them ourselves. The question is then: what are we going to do with it? We certainly have the freedom to dispose of it.

Living together is not always easy. Nowhere. Not even in a model family, let alone in society. We live as brothers with one another. Godfried Bomans wrote: “Men are our brothers. But we sometimes get tired of this family.” That is true. We do not have the same af- finity with all our brothers. Moreover, as religious, we often have cultivated an ideal image of brotherhood. And if reality does not match with it, we react by criticizing. If this criticism is not heard and it is not immediately followed by a positive effect, we easily slip into our shell.

This shell is like a safe cocoon, where unrealized desires and unanswered feelings keep on boiling. If this happens often, and occurs in more than one person, and persists, the dynamic in a community becomes a downward spiral. This does not make anyone happy.

Itching powder

It sounds pretty negative. Fortunately, our communities are good communities. However, even communities which are initially good are not immune to latent infections. These begin with symptoms that are at first sight innocent: someone does not come to the table for a meal or does not take the potus anymore; another one locks himself up throughout the day in his room; at a table of four or six people, no one says a single word; two tables almost empty could easily have been made one; others are constantly absent without any notice. This is not a drama if it happens from time to time. In fact, there is no need to chat and talk all the time. I do not always have to “like” everything, and I can at times spend the whole day all alone with myself. And it is certainly acceptable for me to send everyone out for a walk, or send them to hell.

It would be only if these ‘sometimes’ become a ‘habit’ that one can wonder whether it really promotes the quality of our living together as a community. And if we let things happen like this, would that be the sole responsibility of the rector? Or, are we mutually responsible for each other?

To be responsible means to respond to the demand and expecta- tion of others to get together as a community.

Words like intimacy, privacy, freedom, and justice, are here valuable and precious concepts, unless they are invariably preceded by the inflexible adjective ‘my’. In this case, an answer becomes an anti-word. Thus, all communication is suppressed or stifled.

In fact, communication is precisely the reality around which everything gravitates when it comes to life in common. Good communities are those where confreres talk to each other. And that is more than just putting on hearing aids. Someone said, “I am fine here, but I would like to talk to somebody about something serious. That is exactly what I do not find here.” Another would say, “We are all brothers of each other, but in fact we do not know each other.” Another one would only live again when one speaks about ‘the mission’, because that is what overflows from the heart.

Openness, communication, and life stories

The following are three things that we need to pay special attention to in our communities: openness, communication, and life stories. We would like to consider them quickly one after the other. Openness to what is happening in the nearby and the faraway world, good and bad things. But also reciprocal, openness to the joys and the sorrows of each of us, and to what interests others.

This openness gives us the opportunity to say something between us (communication). It can be serious, but it is not always required. By talking to each other, we get to know each other. Speech and response create animation.

Lastly, life stories are an ideal way to let the past and present blend together. Today, many of us are old and exhausted. This is only a limited part of a person’s life. The most important part of our life is in the past. Therefore, being able to tell these stories completes the image of who I really am. This is how I would like to be known as a human being; starting today, and not only during my funeral. Perhaps, we could now and then talk about it to one another.