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Decrying extreme poverty, discrimination, conflict, displacement and other ills that still continue to plague Myanmar, the country’s cardinal has appealed to the rulers, the army, armed groups and religious leaders of the south-east Asian nation to let ‎peace and hope be resurrected in their land.  “Come let us join together to roll down all the mighty stones of despair from our life and bring the hope ‎of Easter to this nation,” Cardinal Charles Bo appealed in an Easter message, entitled, “Let Peace Rise from the Ashes of Hatred. Let Easter be a new morning of Hope in Myanmar.”   The cardinal who is Archbishop of Yangon said he visited the states of Kachin ‎and Rakhine, where he was pained to see a chronic conflict hitting the poor hardest.  Extreme poverty, displacement, refugees, unsafe migration, drugs and human trafficking are plaguing the people, especially the poor, he said.  “We urge the rulers of this country, the army and the armed groups, roll down the stones of ‎conflict. Let peace be resurrected,” Card. Bo appealed.  “As we celebrate Easter, we call upon the religious leaders of this country to rise above all narrow ‎interest and bring the hope of resurrection,” the cardinal added.

Please find below the full text of Cardinal Charles Bo’s Easter message:   

Let Peace Rise from the Ashes of Hatred! Let Easter be a new Morning of Hope in Myanmar

Easter Message from His Excellency Charles Cardinal Bo.,

Archbishop of Yangon

Happy Easter! Hope is an overflowing stream in human hearts. After forty days of Lent a new dawn is in our lives. Christ is risen Alleluia! The Easter vigil reminded us about how the light dispels inner and outer darkness in our lives. I wish you that all darkness of sin, selfishness, conflict, poverty and human suffering may be dispelled by the great mystery of Resurrection. With St Paul we affirm today:  the Resurrection is the core of our faith.

I wish every one of you the joy felt by women when they met the angels in the tomb, the joy they felt when they saw the stone rolled away and when they saw an empty grave. Christ suffering ended in great glory. As Fr Timothy Radcliff OP says, resurrection has changed the way we see God, we see one another. It is the risen Savior standing in front of you, my dear sisters and brothers, and uttering the great words he said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. (John 11: 25). With Peter we proclaim today, “We are saved not by gold or silver but by the blood of the Lamb.”  Christianity is not only about the way of the Cross. Christianity is about the mountain of hope. Easter has put us on the mountain of hope. Let us celebrate God’s Hope today. The early Church had only one feast: Easter and Christians celebrated this feast for full 40 days.

Easter is time for spiritual nourishment

The readings of Easter Vigil nourish all of us with the great spiritual nourishment. We finished forty days of lent, we will observe 40 days of resurrection till Jesus ascends into heaven. These forty days are based on the three forty days we find in the Bible. These three forty days theme should give us deep spiritual guidance in our personal life:

Exodus: The book of Exodus speaks of God delivering the Jews who were oppressed by the Egyptian kings. Moses led them through the desert for forty years before they reached the promised land. In our own lives we face many deserts: deserts of sin, deserts of hatred, deserts of poverty, deserts of oppression, deserts of despair…. Pope Benedict talked about ‘inner deserts’ - all of us undergo the desert experience of being abandoned and long suffering.  May this Easter bring hope to each one of us that it is God who told Moses that he would be with us, bless us today and be with us all through our life.

Jesus in the Desert: Christ is in the desert. He is tempted. He needed forty days for fighting evil. The devil tries to tempt Jesus to be selfish and not to fulfill his mission. We are tempted and often we are in the desert of temptation in our life, in sin, in selfishness and running after wealth and power. Resurrection tells each one of us: Christ is enough. The disciples were empowered not with gold and silver but the power of a living God.

Resurrected Jesus with the disciples: After resurrection, Jesus stayed with his disciples for forty days encouraging them. During his ministry the disciples walked with him, witnessed his miracles, heard his good news. But when difficulties came they ran away and found it difficult to believe in his ministry. We are often in similar situations. Christ is the center of our lives, yet when difficulties come we are faced with unbelief. Resurrection is an assurance, that the living  Christ never abandons us. The disciples became fearless proclaiming Good news to all. The risen Christ is our hope. For those of us buried in the tomb of suffering, resurrection is an event of encouragement.

Message of Easter to our Land

What is the message of Easter to our land, Myanmar? So many good things have happened in the last five years. Like Christ resurrection was witnessed by women, his message of hope was brought to the disciples by women.  This country came out of long years of way of the cross through the intervention of a woman. The stone that covered the tomb was removed by the moral courage of a woman. We do think from the tomb of oppression, our country has seen hope of resurrection.

SHALOM – The Peace of the Resurrection

But the message of Resurrection has not reached all. There is war. Conflict and displacement in Kachin and Rakhine states. There are thousands of refugees. The resurrected Christ brought a great message: Shalom. I pray for Shalom - Christ used this to greet his disciples after His Resurrection. “Peace be unto you” (Luke 24: 36-38). The is a great word used by Christ after His Resurrection. Shalom means peace, prosperity, harmony and joy. Recently, I visited Rakhine and Kachin states. The chronic conflict in these areas have affected the poor. Extreme poverty is forcing our youngsters to adopt unsafe migration. Drugs and human trafficking plays great havoc. Our people are buried in the tombs of poverty. Our people are buried in the tombs of despair. Easter is the time to say “roll down the stone that keeps our people dead”. Bring in peace to our land, let Shalom flow in the mountains and valleys of Myanmar. Myanmar needs Shalom. Many thousands were crucified to poverty, many of our people are Good Friday people, knowing only suffering. Many of our people are buried in many problems which are like tombs. Myanmar awaits the resurrection from its past and live in the shalom of Easter. Inner peace, peace in the families, peace among communities!

Roll down the stones from various tombs of Myanmar

Mark in his Gospel talks about the anxiety of women who were going to the tomb of Jesus. The tomb was sealed with a huge stone. To see Jesus and anoint his body the women needed someone to roll down the huge stone.  The women were asking among themselves: “Who will roll the stone for us?” But to their surprise the stone was already rolled and they found a young man. “Christ has moved to Galilee”,  From death to life, from despair to victory over death.

Yes, Myanmar was once crucified. Our people were called Good Friday people. Many thought there is no resurrection. But the country has ‘moved’ from some tombs. But we need to roll down many stones. Who will roll down the stone for the people of Myanmar so that they can encounter the Christ of peace and harmony?  The Church in Myanmar works with all the people of Myanmar to roll the heavy stones and make the resurrection of hope a reality. There are some more stones to be rolled down and move towards the Good News.

Roll all the stones conflicts and move to the house of Peace: This country is buried in war, conflicts and displacements. Millions are affected. Peace is possible. This year we are organizing the national peace conference. We urge the rulers of this country, the army and the armed groups, roll down the stones of conflict. Let peace be resurrected.

Roll the stones of hatred and move to the house of love: Those who preach hatred continue to poison the mind of our people.  These people have brought sorrow to the innocent and a bad name to the country. We urge all, especially the religious leaders to roll down the stones of hatred and move to the house of love.

Roll the stones of division and move to the house of unity: We are a rainbow nation. But those who wish to destroy the diversity of the nation are the direct cause for conflict and war. We urge that this nation roll down the stone of discrimination and treat everyone full citizen of this country. Let equality be resurrected!

Roll down stones that prevent the development of people: This country needs development, education, good health and livelihood.  Wrong policies have buried our youngsters in the tomb of despair. We pray the authorities roll down all stones that prevent our youngsters full development. Let the life of our youngsters be resurrected through the right to education and development. Move towards building people!   

Roll down the stones of injustice and move towards a just society: Pope Francis attacked an economy that ‘excludes’ the poor. The economy does not serve the poor but the poor serve the economy, the Pope says. The economic condition of our people continue to be dismal with more than 40 percent extremely poor. The rich nation has the poorest people in Asia. In this Easter Season, we pray that this nation may roll down all unjust economic stones that do not allow justice to the weak and the vulnerable. Myanmar’s resurrection is based on its ability to become a just society.

The mission entrusted to religious people of Myanmar 

Christ entrusted his mission to his disciples after resurrection. His work of the Kingdom was carried on by his disciples since the power of resurrection energized them. People without any power and wealth were the first apostles who could bring about a great change in the history of the world.  As we celebrate Easter, we call upon the religious leaders of this country to rise above all narrow interest and bring the hope of resurrection. We

are 16 dioceses, more than 700 priests and 2000 religious. We appeal to all the Buddhist religious: there are around 500,000 monks ( almost equal to the number in Myanmar Army) and 70,000 Buddhist nuns.  Also the protestant churches have hundreds of pastors, the other religions have their own religious leaders.  Come let us join together to roll down all the mighty stones of despair from our life and bring the hope of Easter to this nation.

Let Peace Rise from the Ashes of Hatred!  Let Easter be a new morning of Hope in Myanmar!

SHALOM – PEACE - HAPPY EASTER.

EASTER 2017

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis presided over the Via crucis at the Colosseum in Rome on the evening of Good Friday. In keeping with tradition, he briefly addressed the faithful gathered to participate in the devotion. Below, please find our English translation of his remarks.

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O Christ! Abandoned and betrayed even by your own and sold for next to nothing.

O Christ! Judged by sinners, handed over by those in Authority.

O Christ! Suffering in the flesh, crowned with thorns and clothed in purple.

O Christ! Beaten and nailed in excruciating pain to the Cross.

O Christ! Pierced by the lance that broke your heart.

O Christ! Dead and buried, you who are the God of life and existence.

O Christ! Our only Saviour, we return to you this year with eyes lowered in shame and hearts filled with hope:

Shame for all the images of devastation, destruction and wreckage that have become a normal part of our lives;

Shame for the innocent blood shed daily by women, children, migrants and people persecuted because of the colour of their skin or their ethnic and social diversity or because of their faith in You;

Shame for the too many times that, like Judas and Peter, we have sold you and betrayed you and left you alone to die for our sins, fleeing like cowards from our responsibilities;

Shame for our silence before injustices; for our hands that have been lazy in giving and greedy in grabbing and conquering; for the shrill voices we use to defend our own interests and the timid ones we use to speak out for other's; for our feet that are quick to follow the path of evil and paralyzed when it comes to following the path of good;

Shame for all the times that we Bishops, priests, consecrated men and women have caused scandal and pain to your body, the Church; for having forgotten our first love, our initial enthusiasm and total availability, leaving our hearts and our consecration to rust.

So much shame Lord, but our hearts also feel nostalgia for the confident hope that you will not treat us according to our merits but solely according to the abundance of Your mercy; that our betrayals do not diminish the immensity of your love; your maternal and paternal heart does not forget us because of the hardness of our own;

The certain hope that our names are etched in your heart and that we are reflected in the pupils of your eyes; the hope that your Cross may transform our hardened hearts into hearts of flesh that are able to dream, to forgive and to love; that it may transform this dark night of your cross into the brilliant dawn of your Resurrection;

The hope that your faithfulness is not based on our own;

The hope that the many men and women who are faithful to your Cross may continue to live in fidelity like yeast that gives flavour and like light that reveals new horizons in the body of our wounded humanity;

The hope that your Church will try to be the voice that cries in the wilderness for humanity, preparing the way for your triumphant return, when you will come to judge the living and the dead;

The hope that good will be victorious despite its apparent defeat!

O Lord Jesus! Son of God, innocent victim of our ransom, before your royal banner, before the mystery of your death and glory, before your scaffold, we kneel in shame and with hope and we ask that you bathe us in the blood and water that flowed from your lacerated heart; to forgive our sins and our guilt;

We ask you to remember our brethren destroyed by violence, indifference and war;

We ask you to break the chains that keep us imprisoned in our selfishness, our wilful blindness and in the vanity of our worldly calculations.

O Christ! We ask you to teach us never to be ashamed of your Cross, not to exploit it but to honour and worship it, because with it You have shown us the horror of our sins, the greatness of your love, the injustice of our decisions and the power of your mercy. Amen.

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Washington D.C., Apr 15, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Global religious persecution spiked from 2014 to 2015, the Pew Research Center noted in a new report released this week.

“Government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion increased in 2015 for the first time in three years,” the latest annual Pew Research Center report on “Global Restrictions on Religion” began.

In 2015, there were “very high” or “high” levels of animosity shown towards religious groups in 40 percent of countries, the report noted, either through restrictive government laws targeting religious groups or violence or harassment toward adherents of specific religions by other members of society.

The 2015 percentage was up six points from 2014, when 34 percent of countries reported such levels of hostility to religious groups.

Pew's report drew from various sources on global religious freedom, both from the U.S. government (annual international religious freedom reports of the State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom), the European Union and United Nations, and other non-governmental organizations.

The report was part of the “Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project,” funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.

Certain countries and regions of the world showed especially high hostility towards religious groups. Russia, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria all showed both government harassment of and social animus toward certain religious groups.

Some of the most common instances of hostility included “mob violence” waged against people for their religious beliefs or violence conducted in the name of religion, and also “government harassment and use of force against religious groups” Pew explained.

Certain regions fared worse than others on religious tolerance. Countries in the Middle East and North Africa featured the highest median levels by far of both “government restrictions on religion” and “social hostilities involving religion,” Pew reported.

However countries in sub-Saharan Africa showed the “largest increase” in the median levels of government restrictions in 2015, Pew noted, and both Europe and sub-Saharan Africa showed marked increases in “social hostilities involving religion.”

In Europe, there were many reports of harassment or violence against Muslims and Jews, continuing a pattern of both anti-Semitism on the continent and verbal or legal harassment of Muslims as the European Union deals with an influx of refugees from Muslim-majority counties like Syria and Iraq.

For instance, Switzerland showed an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents, including the desecration of a Muslim cemetery and an assault of an Orthodox Jew where one perpetrator shouted “Heil Hitler!”

Mosques and Muslims were targeted for vandalism or violence in the wake of the January, 2015 terror attacks on the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher market in Paris.

“France's Interior Ministry reported that anti-Muslim incidents more than tripled in 2015, including cases of hate speech, vandalism and violence against individuals,” the report noted.

Thirty-two countries in the continent showed “social hostilities toward Muslims” in 2015, more than the 26 countries reported in 2014. Meanwhile, the number of European countries where there were social hostilities shown towards Jews remained high.

“The widespread harassment of Jews is notable because about eight-in-ten of the world's Jews live in just two countries – the United States and Israel – but Jews continue to be harassed in a relatively large number of nations (74 in 2015),” Pew stated.

However, government officials also showed hostility to religious groups either through restrictive laws or rhetoric.

France and Russia in particular showed a spike, with over 200 “cases of government force against religious groups,” the report noted. These were mostly due to laws aimed at specific religious groups targeting the public exercise of religion, from France’s burqa ban to Russia’s treatment of some Muslims and groups like Jehovah’s Witnesses as extremists, jailing them without due process.

Some governments have been particularly restrictive of religious freedom for years, like those of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, and Uzbekistan, the report noted. Others have more recently shown greater hostility, like Iraq, Eritrea, Vietnam, and Singapore in 2015.

Some of the government restrictions on religion were supposedly in reaction to terrorism. For instance, Muslim women in Cameroon and Niger were barred from wearing full-face veils after militants wore those veils to conceal bombs.

Both Christians and Muslims saw a sizable increase in the number of countries where they experienced harassment in 2015. Christians “were targeted by the highest number of governments in the Asia-Pacific region, where 33 countries harassed Christians in 2015,” the report said.

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(Vatican Radio) In this the final reflection in our three part series on Holy Week, we look at Holy Saturday and the emotional void left after the events of Good Friday.

We also ask what are we as Christians called to do as we wait for the resurrection or Our Lord Jesus?

Monsignor Eugene Sylva, English language official at the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization talks to Lydia O’Kane about the importance of being alone in prayer at this time.

Listen: 

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis presided over the via crucis at the Colosseum in Rome on the evening of Good Friday.

Beginning after nightfall, and conducted by torchlight, the Way of the Cross featured meditations by the Ratzinger Prize-winning theologian, Anne-Marie Pelletier.

Listen to our report:

In her meditations, Pelletier deviated from the scheme of the 14 “Stations of the Cross” traditionally used in the popular devotion, with her meditation on our Lord with His mother occupying the 11^th station, immediately preceding His death on the Cross.

“Standing there,” writes Pelletier, “[Our Lady] does not desert him: Stabat Mater.”

“In the darkness,” she continues, “but with certainty, [Our Lady] knows that God keeps his promises: in the darkness, but with certainty, she knows that Jesus is both the promise and its fulfilment.”

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