Exploring Images Of The Church: Church as Bodhi Tree in Myanmar

TITLE PAGE

EXPLORING IMAGES OF THE CHURCH: THE BODHI TREE

AS IMAGE OF THE MISSIONARY CHURCH IN MYANMAR

BR. MAUNG JOHN

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Theology of Consecrated Life

Major in Missiology

GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET COLLEGE

April 2008

ii

Approval Sheet

The thesis attached hereto, entitled “Exploring Images of the Church: The Bodhi Tree

as Image of the Missionary Church in Myanmar” prepared and submitted by

BRO. MAUNG JOHN in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of

Arts in Missiology is hereby accepted.

(Signature)

Fr. Edgar Javier, SVD

Advisor

(Signature)

Fr. Domingo Moraleda, CMF

Member

(Signature)

Fr. Jose Ma. Ruiz Marquez, CMF

Member

Accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts

in Missiology.

(Signature)

Beulah D. Nuval, Ed. D.

Dean

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DEDICATION

To

Christians of Various Theological Persuasions

And

People of Different Religious Professions

In Myanmar

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The Gift of Dharma Excels All Other Gifts.

“To pay homage to God, Dharma, Sangha, Teachers, and Parents” is the fivefold

Burmese socio-religious teaching (annandaw annanda nga pa) which the researcher is

deeply obliged to fulfill for the accomplishment of his thesis.

Fr. Edgar G. Javier, SVD his professor and mentor has fully deserved this homage

in a special way for his great enlightenment. Fr. Daniel F. Pilario, CM his professor in

methodology has equally deserved this homage for teaching him research skills. Dr.

Emmanuel de Guzman, Ph.D. his humble professor has duly deserved this homage for

challenging him to conduct this research.

Fr. Domingo Moraleda, CMF his academic supporter and protector has genuinely

deserved this homage for his various helps for studies. Dr. Beulah D. Nuval, Ed. D. dean

of Dean of St. Anthony Mary Claret College has deserved a big gratitude for her valuable

help for this research. The colleagues and friends of the student are given “a big thanks”

for their criticisms, suggestions, and insights in the process of this thesis writing.

The personnel of Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA), St. Vincent

School of Theology (SVST) and Maryhill School of Theology (MST) are fully

acknowledge for the academic support and for all their generous supports throughout this

study. The anonymous supporters are gracefully thanked for their generosity. Again, all

these persons have deserved the greatest gratitude of the researcher for all their noble gift

of Dharma of intellectual support which surpasses all other gifts.

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THESIS ABSTRACT

There were the images of the Church. They change throughout the history. But

some remain. Yet some disappear. Few emerge gradually. Each generation has their own

self-images. The new generation reflects its identity and nature with visual images. One’s

self-understanding changes in an environment and when the circumstances are changed.

There are many images of the Church. The nature and identity of the Church are

discovered by exploring its present images. Images mirror the reality. They become self-

discovery tools. We can envision, project the Church to be in a new way by giving new

images as we turn out to be as we dream. Thus, Christians propose many images for it.

Many images are so intangible in other contexts that the right images are required.

First, this thesis inquires the current images of the Church in Myanmar. It then explores

the historical images of the Church in the Bible, Church documents and theologies.

Thirdly, it proposes “the Bodhi tree” as an appropriate image for the missionary Church.

This research intends to be of help for lessening the foreign face of the Church

and the growth of Christianity. It finds out a new way of being the local Church in a

multi-religious context. In this new way of being Church we also discover the proper way

of doing theology of mission.

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ABBREVIATIONS

AAS Acta Apostolicae Sedis

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

BEC Basic Ecclesial Community

BHC Basic Human Community

BIC Basic Interfaith/Interreligious Community

CBCM Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar

CRCM Catholic Religious Conference of Myanmar

EA Ecclesia in Asia (1999)

EU The European Union

EN Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975)

ES Ecclesiam Suam (1964)

FABC The Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences

FAPA For All the Peoples of Asia (Volumes I-IV)

EAPR East Asian Pastoral Review

GS Gaudium et Spes (1965)

LG Lumen Gentium (1964)

MCC Myanmar Council of Churches

NA Nostra Aetate (1965)

NT-OT New Testament - Old Testament

RM Redemptoris Missio (1990)

SPDC State Peace and Development Council

UK United Kingdom

US United States

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE…. ................................................................................................................ i

APPROVAL SHEET ........................................................................................................ ii

DEDICATION….............................................................................................................. iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................................. iv

ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................................... vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... vii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1

A. Background of the Study ................................................................... 1

B. Statement of the Problem .................................................................. 3

C. Significance of the Study .................................................................. 3

D. Scope and Limitation of the Study .................................................... 5

E. Review of Literature and Related Studies ......................................... 5

F. Conceptual Framework ...................................................................... 9

G. Definition of Terms ......................................................................... 10

H. Methodology ................................................................................... 13

I. Organization of the Study ............................................................... 13

CHAPTER II IMAGES OF THE CHURCH IN THE BURMESE CONTEXT .. 15

A. Mapping the Genesis of the Catholic Church in Myanmar ............. 15

1. The Spread of Catholicism among the Ethnic Minorities ........... 15

2. The Church amidst Diverse Cultures after the Missionary Era .. 17

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3. Churches among Pagodas, Temples, Mosques and Spirit Houses

.................................................................................................... 19

B. Analyzing the Foreign Faces of the Church .................................... 20

1. The Cultural Faces of the Jesus-Community .............................. 20

2. The Political Portrait of the Christian Minority .......................... 21

3. Animist and Buddhist Images of the Church .............................. 23

C. Religious Encounters and Mission Challenges ............................... 26

1. Mission and Religious Pluralism ................................................. 26

2. Specific Mission Challenges of the Church ................................ 29

CHAPTER III IMAGES OF THE MISSIONARY CHURCH IN BIBLICAL,

TRADITIONAL, MAGiSTERIAL AND EPISCOPAL

STATEMENTS .................................................................................. 32

A. Biblical and Traditional Images of the Church ............................... 33

1. The Church in OT Typology and NT Imagery ........................... 33

2. Images of the Church in the Apostolic Writings ......................... 35

B. Images of the Church in the Magisterial Statements ....................... 38

1. Pre-Vatican II Models of the Church .......................................... 38

2. The Ecclesiology of Vatican II .................................................... 39

C. Images of the Church in the Asian Episcopal Texts ....................... 41

1. The FABC Imagery of Asian Ecclesiology ................................. 41

2. The CBCM Images of the Church ............................................... 44

D. Trends in Contemporary Missiology in relation to Images of the

Church ............................................................................................. 47

1. J.A.B. Jongeneel and J.M. van Engelen ...................................... 47

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2. David J. Bosch ............................................................................. 47

3. Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder ................................ 48

4. Edgar G. Javier ............................................................................ 49

5. Felix Wilfred ............................................................................... 50

6. Aloysius Pieris ............................................................................. 50

7. Lode L. Wostyn ........................................................................... 51

8. Donal Dorr ................................................................................... 52

9. Avery Dulles ............................................................................... 53

10. Arnulf Camps ............................................................................ 54

CHAPTER IV THE BODHI TREE: IMAGE OF THE MISSIONARY CHURCH

IN THE MYANMAR CONTEXT .................................................... 56

A. The Bodhi and the Cross ................................................................. 57

1. Hindu Tree of Immortality .......................................................... 57

2. Buddhist Tree of Enlightenment ................................................. 59

3. Nats’ Residence Tree .................................................................. 60

4. Christian Fig Tree of Knowledge and Salvation ......................... 61

5. The Bodhi and the Cross in Dialogue ......................................... 63

B. Christianity, Church and Mission in the Bodhi Tree Allegory ....... 66

1. Bodhi Tree: Image of the Church in Myanmar ........................... 66

2. Christian Life as the Bodhi Tree ................................................. 68

3. Models of the Church and of Mission ......................................... 71

a. Church as Basic Interfaith Community .................................. 71

b. Church as Community of Disciples in Co-Pilgrimage ........... 72

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c. Church as Sacrament of Universal Salvation ......................... 74

d. Church as Humble Servant ..................................................... 75

C. Mission Spirituality and Methodology ............................................ 76

1. Mission Spirituality under the Bodhi Tree .................................. 76

2. Mission Approaches: The Cross Encounters the Bodhi ............. 79

CHAPTER V SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............. 83

A. Summary ......................................................................................... 83

B. Findings ........................................................................................... 85

C. Recommendations ........................................................................... 88

BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 91

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ....................................................................................... 103

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Being brought up in a traditional Catholic family in a predominantly Buddhist

setting, the researcher examines the present images of the Catholic Church in order to

propose a fitting image of the Church which will lessen its seeming alien face in the

contemporary Burmese1 society since, as Christopher O’Donnell says, artists, poets,

preachers and theologians are challenged to present images of the Church suited for

each time and place.2

Reflecting on the Church as the center of its concern, the Second Vatican Council

(1962-65) attempts to bring the Church relevant to the modern times by presenting the

three images of the Church: “society,” “people of God,” and “servant”3 from its Conciliar

documents.

1 In this study, “Burmese” also refers to the citizens and expatriates of Myanmar/Burma and to the

official language of Myanmar/Burma. “Burman” or “Bama” refers to the dominant ethnic group. The

ethnic group that makes up the majority will be identified as “Burmese/Bama Buddhists” and the other

minority ethnic groups as Burmese.

2 Christopher O’Donnell, Ecclesia: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Church (Minnesota: The

Liturgical Press, 1996), 208. [Emphasis mine].

3 Lode Wostyn, Church Images and Pastoral Strategy (Manila: Communication Foundation for

Asia, 1976), 5-30. Here Wostyn classifies the Vatican II images of the Church into three. First, there is the

static, hierarchical and juridical picture of the “perfect society” (Lumen Gentium 20, 22, 23). Second, LG

17 presents the Church as the people of God, the Body of Lord, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Third,

Gaudium et Spes (3, 40, 43, 44, 92, 93) characterizes the Church as a humble servant, a community of

dialogue, being dynamic and eschatological.

2

Since Vatican II, theologians have proposed different ecclesiological models, and

images. Images and metaphors play a powerful role in how we construct our communal

self-image, which in turn shapes and are shaped by our experiences of the Church.4 Such

ecclesial images and metaphors are informed by historical, social, cultural, as well as

political and economic conditions and agendas.5

Some images for the local Churches of Asia have been pictured by the Federation

of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) since its initiations. Such images touch the

realities of Asia. A product of the "sign of the times" spirit of the Vatican II, the FABC

has been taking seriously the multi-religious context of the milieu in its discernment of

what it means to be Church in Asia.

Being pre-dominantly a Buddhist land, the political structures and socio-cultural

ethos of the people of Myanmar are fundamentally Buddhist.6 Thus, the presence of

pagodas, temples, mosques, spirit houses and Churches proclaim Myanmar as a multi-

religious country. However, the image of the Church is so foreign to other religions.7 Our

challenging problem is to present some fitting images of the Church which are relevant to

our mission among peoples of different religious backgrounds.

4 “Images are language pictures which serve as tools of rhetoric to describe and convey what is

already known.” Barbra B. Zikmund, Discovering the Church (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 37-38.

5 Emmanuel S. de Guzman, “Laity, Theology and Praxis” (Seminar, Quezon City, St. Vincent

School of Theology, Semester 2, SY 2006- 2007): 1-2 as of Power Point presentation and printed paper.

6 Samuel Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar: Issues, Interactions and Perspectives

(Yangon: ATEM, 2005), 74-75.

7 Samuel Ngun Ling, “In the Midst of Golden Stupas: Revitalizing the Christian Presence in

Myanmar,” RAYS MIT Journal of Theology 3 (February 2002): 113-115.

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B. Statement of the Problem

This research is at the outset an attempt to explore the present popular models of

the Church, to search for contextual images for the Church and to propose that metaphors

for a new way of being Church in Burma. More specially, its aim is doing a contextual

ecclesiology in relation to mission by using the local popular icon as the starting point.

In the exploration of research problem, the following questions will be

investigated.

1. What are the contemporary images of the Church in Myanmar amid

multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious and socio-economic-political

scenarios?

2. What are images of the Church in Bible, Magisterial statements, FABC,

CBCM and Asian theologies and how are these images interdependent?

3. What are the appropriate images for the Church in Myanmar and how are

these contextual images relevant to the mission of the local Church?

The problem of the research is all about the proposed image for the Church as the

Bodhi tree which is drawn from the praxis, stories, lived religious experiences, and daily

life of the Burmese. Such metaphor, which exists side by side in Burmese society and in

the Burmese personality, will be able to, to some extent, eliminate the alien face of the

Church while it will help our mission of dialogue with other faiths improve.

C. Significance of the Study

The foreign face of the Church is a big problem in Burma not because Christianity

is introduced from the outside but because, in Felix Wilfred’s words, the local Church

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stays aloof from the mainstream of life of the people, their history, struggles and dreams

and they have failed to identify themselves with the people, even though in terms of

charity many praiseworthy services have been rendered.8 Indeed, the Church appears so

alien to the people of other faiths due to its failure to be in solidarity with them.

This study hopes to contribute humbly and yet significantly to the following. To

the science of theology, major in Missiology, this study aims at enriching students in their

theological reflection about the missiological dimension of dialogue in a plural society.

To the Universal Church and the other Christian Churches, this study intends to be a

modest contribution in searching for image of the Church relevant to people of different

beliefs in the multicultural, multiracial and multi-religious context.

To the local Church in Myanmar, this study is an attempt to inspire further this

commitment together with other Christian Churches and other faiths. Our contribution is

to picture the Church imaginatively whose image is strongly connected to the local socio-

cultural and religious symbol. By doing that in a radical yet contextual way, this study

would improve, to some extent, doing the mission of the local Church.

To the researcher, through this study he will be enhanced and enable to be a living

promoter of “missio inter gentes” in collaboration with Christians of different theological

persuasions and people of different faiths. Being a student of theology, this study

significantly equips the researcher with various theological skills, biblical knowledge,

8 Felix Wilfred, “The FABC Orientations, Challenges and Impact” in For All the Peoples of Asia

1, Gaudencio Rosales and C.G. Arevalo, eds. (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 1992), xxiv.

5

religious attitudes, and academic qualifications particularly in the field of the mission of

the Church. It also prepares him for his near future mission.

D. Scope and Limitation of the Study

The over-all of this research is about exploring the images of the Church and

proposing an appropriate image of the Church. Explicitly, this study plans to search for

some predominant biblical, magisterial and theological images of the Church, and selects

the common significant icons for the Church in Myanmar. It, then, aims to adopt the

Bodhi tree as image for a new way of being local Church in Myanmar.

This study does not attempt to provide all the existing images of the Church. But

it tries to discover some predominant images of the Church, propose the Bodhi tree as the

image for the local Church together with models of the Church and of mission.

E. Review of Literature and Related Studies

In writing this thesis, the researcher consulted the following resources.

Festschrift Committee, ed., Our Theological Journey: Writings in Honor of Dr. Anna

May Say Pa. Yangon: Myanmar Institute of Theology, 2006.

The seventeen essays in this book by Protestant theologians cover the

contemporary situation of the Christian churches. Their concerns regarding the Christian

mission, relationship with other religions like Buddhism and nat worship are presented.

The issue of internal Church problems and the external ones are highlighted. The concern

of some essays are, “Nat Worship: A Theological Locus in Myanmar”, “A Brief Survey

of Mission in Myanmar from a Missiological Perspective” and the like. Ecumenically and

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interreligiously, this book gives some lights on Christian and non-Christian relation. This

book was consulted in Chapters II, III and IV of this research.

Evers, Georg. The Churches in Asia. Delhi: ISPCK, 2005.

Evers’ study includes the genesis and growth of the Burmese Church. This book

presents the historical account of the Catholic and Protestant travails in pursuing their

mission on Burmese soil under the successive rulers and amidst the majority Buddhists. It

unravels how much or how little the “little flock” has rooted itself in the context and life

of the people. Ever diagnoses the specific issues, such as the problem of Church-State

relations, ecumenical problems, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, the Christians’ struggles for

indigenous and Christian identity. To highlight the crucial challenges that lie ahead and to

identify pastoral and missiological courses of action in the Myanmar context, this book

was consulted in Chapters II and IV.

Thoppil, James. Towards an Asian Ecclesiology: The Understanding of the Church in

the Documents of the FABC (1970-2000). Shillong: Oriens Publications , 2005.

The author summarizes the emerging contextual ecclesiology of the FABC. While

exploring the understanding of the Church in the FABC statements, this book strikes a

balanced note between the ecclesiologies developed by theologians and the ecclesiology

of Vatican II. Then, it also interprets the mission of the Church in Asia followed by the

emerging Asian ecclesiological trends. Finally, a new way of being Church in Asia as

well as a new mode of carrying out its mission in Asia is presented. This book was

consulted in the development of the Chapters III and IV of our research.

7

Ngun Ling, Samuel. Communicating Christ in Myanmar: Issues, Interactions and

Perspectives. Yangon: ATEM, 2005.

This book deals with contextualization. Its whole concern is to give a guiding

traffic light for the emerging Christian-Buddhist dialogue, representing a unique break

with the past Christian missionaries’ ways of communicating Christ. It discusses both the

country’s religious, cultural, social, economic, political scenarios and their impact on

Christian-Buddhist relationship. Here different faces of Christ, some images of the

church and diverse mission models to be found in Myanmar are included. Therefore, this

book was used in the discussion of Chapters II, III and IV of this thesis.

Driver, John. Images of the Church in Mission. Ontario: Herald Press, 1997.

Driver, at first, presents the images of the Church in Christendom with the people

in mission vis-à-vis the Church and mission. Next, he outlines the biblical images of the

Church in mission like pilgrimage images, new-order images, peoplehood images and

images of transformation. Images of the Church are explored from the biblical exegetical

point of view in relation to the mission of the early Christians. Finally, he talks about the

Church in mission of God as a community of transformation with a new image as a sign

of universal salvation. In fact, Driver studies twelve images for understanding of a

Church. In this thesis especially Chapters III and IV, this book was consulted to

investigate the changing images of the Church in mission.

Wostyn, Lode. Doing Ecclesiology: Church and Mission Today. Quezon City:

Claretian Publications, 1990.

8

Wostyn makes use of a See-Judge-Act approach in doing ecclesiology: Church

and mission today. In the See part, the author presents a thorough analysis of the Church

from different points of views and secular sciences. In the Discern part, he critically

draws up a framework in which the historical Jesus and the growth of the Church

including Vatican I and II’s models of the Church. In the final Act part, he emphasizes

pastoral and missionary praxis. This study consulted this book in mapping out the biblical

and theological developments of the Church metaphors, the present images of the Church

in support of the proposed model of the Church in Chapter III.

Dulles, Avery. Models of the Church. 2nd ed. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1988.

Dulles outlines some of the historical and theological "images" of Church that had

developed in the past two thousand years of its history. In developing some evaluation of

prominent "models" in ecclesiology, he identifies six models of Church (as institution,

mystical communion, sacrament, herald, servant, and community of disciples) and

critiques each. The models are evaluated on their basis in Scripture, their link to Catholic

traditional teaching and their resonance with the modern world. The biblical perspective

to missions is added to each model. Dulles’ critical assessment of the Church in all its

aspects was of great help in writing Chapters III and VI of this research.

Minear, S. Paul. Images of the Church in the New Testament. Philadelphia:

Westminster, 1960.

Minear's classic work identifies and explicates the ninety-six images for the

Church found in the NT, attempting to uncover the true nature of the Church through the

extensive gallery of images. The author considers images as being able to communicate

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more than language alone. The minor images are investigated through to the people of

God and the body of Christ. The final part assesses the interrelation of the images

analyzed and the strategic inferences to be drawn from their interweaving. Some of these

images helped us explore the Church images in Chapter III of this thesis.

F. Conceptual Framework

The schematic presentation of the conceptual framework on page 10 shows the

main dimensions of the research to be discussed. “Tree” signifies the common religious

symbol in the Myanmar context. It is a fig tree. In different religions, it has various

names- “Bodhi,” “Bo,” “Banyan,” “Sacred Fig,” and many. For the Hindu, it symbolizes

“immortality.” For the Buddhist, it stands for “wisdom.” For the Christian, it is the cross

of “salvation” in Christ. For nat worshipper, it represents “the household” of spirits.

The image of the Church is “the Bodhi tree” in Myanmar. Tree is a symbol for the

growth and fruitfulness of Christianity. The roots of the tree are essential for its existence

and survival but it grows up and bears fruits by being interconnected with outside the

world. “The Bodhi and the Cross dialogue” refers to the interrelations of Christianity to

other faiths. In this sense, mission is dialogue. The missionary is like “a treasure hunter,”

crossing the boundaries in search of “the seeds of the Word” in other cultures. “A

spirituality of dialogue” is compatible with missio inter gentes method.

Image of the missionary Church as the Bo tree is reignocentric. In the Burmese

context, the Bodhi tree is the symbol of “one big network of relationships.” Any

theological trend under the Bodhi tree suggests to be eco-theological- eco-christology,

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eco-ecclesiology, eco-eschatology, eco-soteriology, eco-anthropology, eco-culture, and

eco-missiology, to mention a few.

Things are seen clearer trough images. Image contains idea. Image dictates

praxis. The image of the missionary Church will not only eliminate the foreign mask of

the Christianity but also prepare the Missio Dei at home in Myanmar.

Schematic Presentation of Conceptual Framework

G. Definition of Terms

Bodhi: “The Bodhi tree” or “the Bo tree” (ficus religiosa) under which Gautama

Buddha got “the Enlightenment” is sometimes identified as “Banyan” or “Banian” (ficus

benghalensis). Its short form ‘Bo’ means 'supreme knowledge' or 'awakening' in the old

11

Indian languages.9 The tree is sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. It has various names.

10

It is called Bodhi Nyaung Bin or Nyaung Bin in Burmese. It is the most sacred tree for the

Theravada Buddhists, nat worshippers and many sects of animists in Myanmar.11

Church comes from the Greek kyriake, ‘belonging to the Lord’. The Hebrew

word qahal (assembly, gathering) is sometimes translated ecclesia and synagogue in

Greek, ecclesia in Latin,12

and Church in English. The Bible offers no a single definition

of the Church or provides no doctrinal basis for understanding it.13

In the NT, ekklesia

signifies a gathering group of believers and this translated as “Church.” The term

‘Church’ (ekklesia) appears about more than one hundred times in the NT.

Image is a mental picture in which something is like or looks like and a word or

phrase that describes something imaginatively.14

Image perceives a reality. It may serve

as tools of rhetoric. It advances our self-understanding. Each image manifests its validity

9 Sal J. Foderaro, ed. Lexicon Universal Encyclopedia (New York: Lexicon Publications, 1993),

s.v. “Banyan” by Hugh M. Raup, 72.

10 Keith Crim, ed. The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions (New York: HarperSanFrancisco,

1989), s.v. “Bodhi” by P. L. Basu, 110-111. Various scholars present the bodhi tree, ficus religiosa, as the

banyan tree, ficus benghalensis, under which the Buddha/s got enlightenment. Therefore, in this research

these various names will be used synonymously.

11 John Zar Ring Thang (a.k.a. Maung John), “Church as a Banyan Tree in the Context of Burma”

A paper submitted during the seminar of Laity: Theology and Praxis on March 16, 2007 at St. Vincent

School of Theology, Quezon City, Philippines. This paper is the very original work of the researcher.

12 Edward Schillebeeckx, Church: The Human Story of God, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM,

1990), 146; O’Donnell, Ecclesia, 92.

13 John Driver, Images of the Church in Mission (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1997), 9.

14 Sally Wehmeier et al, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 6

th ed. (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2000), 646.

12

and exerts its power only within communal imagination. The image is the meaning.15

Images can inflame the imagination and provide us identities.16

Mission etymologically (Latin missio) means “a sending forth with a special

message to bring or with a special task to perform.”17

The Pre-Vatican II notions of the

purposes of mission are threefold: first, the conversion of pagans, and the extension of the

Church; secondly, the transplantation of the church; and thirdly, mission is the growth of

the Mystical Body of Christ; the internal dynamism of mission is the Spirit.18

Vatican II’s

aim of mission is the evangelization of the non-Christians and plantatio ecclesiae

according to God’s will (GS 7). For the FABC, it is the triple dialogue.

Myanmar only refers to “the Burmese ethnic group” and Burma refers to “all the

Burmese ethnic groups.”19

On June 18, 1989 the present junta (SPDC) promoted the

name “Myanmar” instead of “Burma” as a conventional name for their state. The change

was recognized by, the ASEAN, the UN, and by countries such as France and Japan, but

not by the US and the UK. The EU uses Myanmar/Burma. For Burmese minorities,

Myanmar is an illegitimate name created by an illegitimate military government.

However, the two words mean the same thing and one is derived from the other. Due to a

15

Paul S. Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960),

17, 22-24.

16 Donald E. Messer, Contemporary Images of Christian Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press,

1989), 25.

17 Edger G. Javier, “Theology of Mission” (Lecture, Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia, Quezon

City, Semester 2, SY 2006-2007): 1.

18 Ibid, 7.

19 Gustaaf Houtman, Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the

National League for Democracy (Tokyo: ILCAA, 1999), 377.

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number of other reasons, the researcher used “Burma” and “Myanmar” interchangeably

and inclusively in this research while not excluding either the former or the latter.

H. Methodology

This study makes use of the historical method of research which goes through

books, Church documents, handbooks, journals, periodicals, lectures and unpublished

materials from the libraries of Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA) and St.

Vincent School of Theology (SVST) and Maryhill School of Theology (MST).

I. Organization of the Study

The structure of this thesis is based on an allegory of the Bodhi Tree: its seed from

the Christ is the praxis of the Christ, the tree itself is the reality of the Church and the

process of the seed becoming the tree is the mission of God. More specifically, the tree

allegory produces the division of this research into five unequal yet interrelated sections

corresponding to the seed, the roots, the trunk and the branches and the fruits.

Chapter I is like the seed which gives birth to the tree by taking roots because

after the table of content, it introduces the motivation, problem and significance of the

study, and presents its scope and limitation from the selected survey of related literature

presented with historical research method and documentary analysis method.

Chapter II, like the roots which drink from the water veins beneath the earth,

discusses briefly the Burmese context in terms of the present socio-cultural-political-

economic realities, and the genesis and contemporary situation of the local Church.

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Chapter III, like the trunk of the tree which connects the roots and supports the

branches, sketches the images of the Church from the Bible, Church teaching, Asian

Episcopal texts, and it also highlights various theological reflections of the Church with

different images and models.

Chapter IV, like the branches contends with the contextual inspirational and

insightful interpretations of the various texts since it proposes a paradigm for contextual

models of the Church by using the popular image relevant to the people of different

religious persuasions.

Chapter V, among the evergreen heart-shaped leaves, bear fruits by which the tree

is known, in the sense it recaps the research and recommends for further study and

implementations followed by the selected bibliography of the research and the

bibliographical sketch of the researcher.

This thesis presented the background of the study, statement of the problem,

significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study, review of literature and

related studies, conceptual framework, definition of terms, methodology, and

organization of the thesis. The next chapter discussed images of the Church in the

Burmese context.

CHAPTER II

IMAGES OF THE CHURCH IN THE BURMESE CONTEXT

Introduction

Myanmar is a multi-religious country. It is home to primal religious beliefs and

major world religions such as nat worship, animism, Theravada Buddhism, Hinduism,

Islam and Christianity. Chinese temples are built in major cities. A Jewish synagogue and

a Silk temple are found in Yangon.20

However, Christianity is still so foreign.21

“Yes to Christ and no to the Church” mindset exists. So, our challenging problem

is to identify images of the Church and to present a fitting image which is relevant for the

mission. This chapter explores images of the Church in our context of ethnic diversity,

cultural multiplicity, religious plurality and socioeconomic-political upheavals.

A. Mapping the Genesis of the Catholic Church in Myanmar

1. The Spread of Catholicism among the Ethnic Minorities

The hidden presence of Christianity was found as early as 1278 in Pagan, an

ancient Burmese kingdom.22

Catholic missionaries- Portuguese, French and Italian- first

20

Wilhelm Klein et al, Insight Guides, Burma/Myanmar (Singapore: APA Publications, 2003),

141,273.

21 Ngun Ling, “In the Midst of Golden Stupas,”113-115.

22 The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, The Official Catholic Directory of Myanmar

2006 (Yangon: CBCM, 2006) 7. (When followed by the year 2005, 2006, 2007…it refers to the year of

publications. For example, CBCM 2006).

16

entered into Burma long before the Protestants, in 1554,23

but organized missionary

activity began only in 1722 through the Banabite missionaries. Missionaries could not

convert the lowland Buddhists and they shifted their mission to the hilly indigenous

people.24

Soon after, Catholicism took its strong root among the ethnic minorities.

Geographically, the location of the ethnic Christians comprises rugged hills, steep

gorges and high mountains, which have made them isolated socio-culturally,

economically and even politically from the rest of the lowland. Demographically, the

country consists of about one hundred and thirty five national races with eight major

national ethnic groups. The religious affiliation of the fifty two million people in 2002 is

Buddhist 89.3%, Christian 5.6%, Muslim 3.8%, Hindu 0.5%, and animist 0.2%.25

Multiethnic reality is one significant identity. The country encounters with “the

most perplexing ethnic problems.”26

Yet, the Church survived for years. During the

nineteenth century three Anglo-Burmese wars were waged (1824-26, 1852-54, and 1885-

86).27

Christian mission got special privileges during the British regime. During the

Pacific War (1942-1945), the Catholics lost their personnel and properties. The British

23

Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, Vol. II: 1500-1900 (Maryknoll, New

York: Orbis Books, 2005), 330-331.

24 Georg Evers, The Churches in Asia (Delhi: ISPCK, 2005), 404-405.

25 Union of Myanmar, Myanmar: Facts and Figures 2002 (Yangon: Ministry of Information,

2002), 4-5, quoted in Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 11; Thomas C. Fox, Pentecost in

Asia: A New Way of Being Church (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2003), 217, writes that in 2003,

Buddhists are 89.1%, Christians 4.9%, Muslims 3.8%, and others 2.2% out of 44.5 million people.

26 Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 53-54, 59.

27 Scott W. Sunquist et al, eds., A Dictionary of Asian Christianity (Grand Rapids, Michigan:

Eerdmans, 2001), s.v. “Myanmar-Christian Development Work” by Marip Ja Naw, 575.

17

reentered and resumed British colonial rule in August 1945 and Burma got independence

from the British rule in 1948.28

The Church still got some privileges until U Nu, the

Prime Minister, attempted to make Buddhism the state religion in 1961.29

Christianity in Myanmar was and still is viewed, by the postcolonial regime,

merely as a religion of ethnic minority groups that embody Western political and

religious-cultural ideals. Christianity is a threat spiritually and politically to the regime

because being a Christian is identified with being a Western.30

Foreignness of

Christianity is most problematic in the mission.

2. The Church amidst Diverse Cultures after the Missionary Era

“The Burman people” were formed into a nation by the union of Mongoloid

tribes.31

Burmese civilization with its architecture and other art forms is largely an

outgrowth of Indian influences. But the Burmese shunned such Indian institutions as the

caste system. The numerous temples have led Burma to become widely known as “the

Land of Golden Pagodas.”32

Historically, Burmese culture was mainly composed of

native, (Chinese) Mongolian and Indian elements.

28

Evers, The Churches in Asia, 105.

29 San No Thuan, “Overcoming Oppression of Ethnic Minority Christians,” CTC Bulletin 20, no. 2

(December 2004): 115.

30 Ngun Ling, “In the Midst of Golden Stupas,”113-115.

31 Arthur P. Phayre, History of Burma including Burma Proper, Pegu, Taungu, Tenasserim, and

Arakan (London: Trübner & Company, 1883; Reprint Bangkok: Orchid Press, 1998), 1-2. This book, the

first formal history of Burma by a Westerner, records that Mongoloid tribes formed “Burma” but the

earliest monarchs were Indians.

32 Norma H. Dickey, ed., Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia 5 (New York: Funk and

Wagnalls, 1983), s.v. “Burma,” by J.M.S, 50-51.

18

The Church grew up rapidly among the animistic minority tribes under the British

colony (1886-1848). However, the government closed or confiscated all Catholic schools,

hospitals and social institutions in 1965.33

All the foreign missionaries were expelled

from the country in 1966,34

leaving only seventy seven native Catholic priests to care for

sixteen thousand Catholics. The country then became a closed society for years.

The Church was cut off by this long isolation from important events in the

universal church, such as the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the FABC (until

1982).35

Despite of it, the local Church is “gradually gaining momentum in its work of

evangelization and its activities are more on the pastoral and social basis without getting

involved much in secular education systems.”36

Today, the Church just feels at home in the hierarchical culture of Burma. Thus,

David Morland observes that the Catholic Church in Burma is very hierarchical and

clerical. The renewal and change both of structure and attitudes wrought by Vatican II

have only partially touched the local Church. Bishops and priests are too weak and

vulnerable as individuals for effective witness.37

33


34 Louise Pirouet, Christianity Worldwide AD 1800 Onwards 4 (Quezon City: New Day

Publishers, 1990), 84.

35 Evers, Churches in Asia, 410.

36 CBCM 2004: 15; CBCM 2006: 15; CBCM 2007:16.

37 David Morland, “Suu Kyi’s Call to Catholics,” The Tablets 3 (October 1998): 1276-1278.

19

3. Churches among Pagodas, Temples, Mosques and Spirit Houses

Myanmar is home to cosmic and metacosmic religions. But Christianity was and

still is an alien religion to Myanmar people, Pau Khan En writes, due to three significant

factors: (a) identification of Christian mission with colonialism by Burmese people; (b)

negative attitude of missionaries towards the religion and culture of the people; and (c)

conversion en masse of tribal groups to Christianity.38

Besides these, there are more

significant factors for the appearance of the foreign images of the local Church.

Christianity is also considered a foreign religion because of (1) the alien baptismal

names and the Western religious culture of the faithful; (2) baroque style of buildings like

religious convents and seminaries; (3) foreign languages in liturgy, and the ghetto

mentality and the foreign aid of the Church; and (4) insufficient inculturation.

Due to fifty years of ethnic conflict which has caused protracted political, social

and humanitarian crises, the Church is in danger of “burmanization,” in which minority

cultures, histories, religions, and political aspirations have to be eliminated for a

“national” identity.39

Burmanization is nationalization which the tribal Christians are

afraid of. The problem of Burma is not essentially “nationalism” but “tribalism.”

The military’s slogan of “one nation (Myanmar), one language (Burmese) and one

religion (Buddhism)” is against the Christian axioms of “one Lord (Christ), one baptism

(Sacrament), one faith (Christianity),” “no salvation outside the Church,” and “I can do

38

Simon Pau Khan En, “The Quest for Authentic Myanmar Contextual Theology,” RAYS MIT

Journey of Theology 2 (2001): 40.

39 “ “They Came and Destroyed Our Village Again" The Plight of Internally Displaced Persons in

Karen State,” Human Rights Watch 17, no. 4(C) (June 2005): 16-17.

20

everything in Christ’s name.” Axioms of both parties are signs of obstacles for dialogue,

reconciliation and healing, “critical collaboration” and peaceful co-existence.

The statement of the 1st National Pastoral Assembly shows the urgent needs of the

local Church for fruitful evangelization to renew the missionary spirit, strong

commitment, participation, shared-responsibility, new strategy to sow the seeds of faith,

effective efforts at inculturation, dialogue and many more.40

It calls for “self-renewal.”

B. Analyzing the Foreign Faces of the Church

1. The Cultural Faces of the Jesus-Community

In Burma, religious identity is always identified with national identity. Buddhism

is strongly linked with national identity for Bama, Shan, and Rakhine tribes. Christianity

is the national identify of the majority ethnic tribes. Ngun Ling says that the main

problem of Christianity for the Burman Buddhists is not necessarily the Christ of

Christianity but the Western image of Christianity. Christianity brought with it to

Myanmar the alien and different images of culture, civilization, and socio-political

structures.41

For Ngun Ling, the challenge is basically christological.

Colonization made Christianity a culturally alien and socio-politically undesirable

element for the Burmese Buddhist nationalists.42

Indeed, the junta wants to homogenize

40

CBCM, 50th Jubilee of the Establishment of the Local Church & 1

st National Pastoral

Assembly: Report of Study Days for Bishops, Priests, Religious & Laity. Yangon, June 1-12, 2005, s.v.

“History of the Catholic Church in Myanmar” by Augustine Ko, 5. Henceforth, reference shall be “1st

Pastoral Assembly”.

41 Ngun Ling Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 33.

42 G.E. Harvey, British Rule in Burma, 1824-1942 (London: Faber & Faber, 1946), 25-26, quoted

in Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 14.

21

other cultures while using Buddhism as the foundation of and the cement of the society

for their political interests.

While Buddhists associate the culture of Christians with foreign way of life the

Christians themselves feel that Buddhist culture is anti-Christian. Christians are

considered as deserters and traitors of the Burmese culture, local religion and ideology.

Cacayan also notices that a number of Church project interventions in Burma show little

sensitivity to the cultures of the people.43

Hierarchy just fits for the Burmese culture.

2. The Political Portrait of the Christian Minority

The Burmese kings had tolerated the religions of minorities but the post-colonial

regime did not. While Christians are found in significant numbers among some of the hill

tribe groups in rebellion against the central government, Christians in the main centers

enjoy considerable freedom, and valued if limited contracts with outside world.44

The Church carries its foreign images as colonizer and conqueror. Philippe de

Britto, a Portuguese mercenary conquered Syriam (Thanhlyn) and ruled supreme.45

During his thirteen year reign, natives were converted, and worse Buddhist monuments

and relics were destroyed. In 1613, de Britto was killed.46

Since then, in the mind of the

rulers the Church was associated with colonization.

43

Bert Cacayan, “Burma: Rich Country, Poor People- Impressions and Recommendations,” East

Asian Pastoral Review 38, no. 4 (2001): 314.

44 Louise Pirouet, Christianity, Ibid.

45 CBCM 2006: 7; see also Bigandet, An Outline of the History of the Catholic Burmese Mission,

6-7.

46 Klein et al, Insight Guides, Burma/Myanmar, 41.

22

The present regime with anti-colonial sentiments attempts to Buddhistize all

citizens. Churches, crosses, buildings and cemeteries are confiscated and destroyed and

sometimes replaced by the Buddhist pagodas. There is no freedom of press. Military

power remains unchallenged. Georg Evers says that Burmese Catholics adopt the policy:

“To suffer in silence for the best of the Church”47

under “the culture of fear.”48

Buddhism permeates Burmese society and culture. Social life is regulated by a

Buddhist (lunar) calendar of activities, and art, architecture, and most literature have been

inspired by Buddhism. The nationalists looked on the Christians as Western in outlook

and pro-British in political sympathy. The junta becomes suspicious of the Christians to

be conducting rebellious gatherings against them.

Ngun Ling decries that the nationalistic Buddhists cannot overlook the

imperialistic image of missionary Christianity and they think of Christianity as an

imported Western religion being associated with the colonial schemes and movements of

the past.49

Historically, Christians suffer due to the missionaries’ mistakes and their

slowness to adopt the local culture, and their failure to dialogue with the country.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy had not opposed the moves to make Buddhism

Burma’s national religion in 1961 unlike the leaders of Protestant Churches and of the

47


48 Cacayan, “Burma: Rich Country, Poor People,” 311.

49 Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 14.

23

Burma Christian Council.50

The hierarchy did not also involve in the 1988 student-led

revolution51

and the September 2007 uprising.52

The noninvolvement of the hierarchy

does not seem to lessen the foreign image of the Church life in Myanmar.

If silence is the best policy for the Church in Myanmar because of fear, the

Church leaders of today are challenged to be voice for the voiceless when it comes to the

issues of social justice, protection of human dignity, human rights promotion, democratic

equality, environmental care and many. Some ethnic Christians claim to be freedom

fighters who are branded by the regime as rebellious groups.

3. Animist and Buddhist Images of the Church

The Burmese Christians have to see “the image of the Church in the light of the

other religions”53

especially with the eye-glasses of Bama Buddhists and nat worshipper.

Nat worship and Buddhism serve as the very basic of folk culture and civilizations of

majority Buddhists. For minority especially the Christians primal belief serves as the

spiritual and cultural ground from which the basic ideas of tribal life principles,

worldviews, concepts and customs have been developed.54

50

John C. England et al, eds., Asian Christian Theologies: A Research Guide to Authors,

Movements, Sources 2 (Delhi: ISPCK, 2003), s.v. “Contextual Theology in Burma/Myanmar” by John C.

England et al, 50.

51 Morland, “Suu Kyi’s call to Catholics,”1276.

52 CBCM, “Statement Regarding the Stand of the Catholic Church in the Face of the Present

Situation that the Country is Facing,” CBCM Statement (26 September 2007): no. 3.

53 James H. Kroeger and Peter C. Phan, The Future of the Asian Churches: The Asian Synod &

Ecclesia in Asia (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2002), 17. [Original Italics].


24

The Bama Buddhists and Burman nat worshippers perceive the Church irrelevant

and very often have the anti-Christian sentiments because Christianity does not tolerate

them. Buddhism exists side by side nat worship but indifferent to other faiths.

Christianity is considered as a good neighbor but notably as an antagonistic

outsider. Christian Churches have done many remarkable developmental activities,

charitable works and wonderful services for the country. However, the Church will most

probably be kept distant from the Buddhists, the animists and reality of the country due to

its weakness to implement triple dialogue with the culture (inculturation), with the poor

(liberation), and religions (interreligious dialogue).

There is a set of complex images of the local Church. There are some models of

the Church. We will tackle three of the most popular images of the Roman Catholic

Church in Myanmar.

The first model presents the Church as “a big Ship”55

in which the pope is the

captain who is helped by various seamen for the safety of the people. Amidst the heavy

storms, weaves, great danger and various hardships the pontiff is leading the faithful on

ship to the set destiny. It is “a pilgrimage to heaven”. The outsiders are the enemies of the

church. Satan together with his followers is battling the faithful. “Mama Mary” embraces

and comforts the injured pope. Finally, the church overcomes the outside enemies.

55

This image of the Church as a big ship (oabFm}uD;) is popularized by Charles Maung Bo,

SDB, Archdiocese of Yangon. Being a Salesian in Burma, Bo used to mention this theme frequently on the

feast days of St. Don Bosco and Mary Help of Christians. For instance, in his many speeches and homilies

on Feast of Don Bosco, Jan 31 and Feast of Our Lady of Mary Help of Christian, May 24 in Lashio

Diocese, Pathein Diocese, Mandalay Archdiocese and Yangon Archdiocese particularly recent decade.

25

Another concept of the Church in Burma is presented as “a train.”56

Train for the

Burma is one of the main means of transportation. This undeveloped country has to trust

such transportation for many purposes- travel, economics, pilgrimage and many more.

Most people, particularly the middle class, would take train to go to Yangon from

Mandalay and other cities. Travel by train is often more economical and comfortable than

travel by automobile. Thus, for some Catholics, the Church is like the train.

The third popular image of the Church is “a big bus” which carries the passengers

to the target. It facilitates the need of the people. It transports the goods from one town to

another place. The bus can reach to the places where the train cannot. For the hilly people

this model of the Church is more significant than the locomotive model of the Church

and that of the ship.

Still there are some more contemporary images of the Burmese Church. The

following images of the Church are excerpts from some Burmese Catholic academics in

the Philippines. Theologically, the Church is like “a little flock, people of God, body of

Christ, and the Temple.” Geometrically, the Church is like “a triangle, and sometimes a

square.” Humanly speaking, the Church is like “an old man, a caring mother, a good

teacher, an understanding leader and parents.” It is “a field, a tree, a garden, and a public

park.” Sociologically, the Church is “a home, a family,” a boarding house, a bridge, a

ladder, and the rock.”57

Thus, people have variety of self images as Church.

56

There have been some hymns, poems, religious articles in which the Church is symbolized as a

train (7xm;).

57 Personal interviews and conversations with Martha Aye Tin, Paul Ta San, Benedict Than Lwin,

Stella War War Khaine, Lucas Suan Za Lian, Dominic Jo Du and others, Quezon City: Institute for

Consecrated Life in Asia; Radio Varitas Asia; S.F.X. Convent, August- December 2007.

26

The Church is, an interviewee says, like “a herald” which speaks of the truth.

Another interviewee says: “the Church is like an old man who cannot adjust himself with

the modern development. But I want to see the Church like the boy Jesus who grows and

becomes strong, filled with wisdom in front of God and people” (Luke 2:40). One

religious Sister says: “the Church is like the military regime. Negative aspects of the

Burmese culture are also seen in the Church.58

In general, many of the interviewees’

comments on the Church have been critical of the present situation of the local Church.

C. Religious Encounters and Mission Challenges

1. Mission and Religious Pluralism

In the mind of the nationalistic Bama Buddhists, “the imperialistic image of

missionary Christianity” and “an imported Western religion” are associated with the

colonial schemes and movements of the past.59

The Bama Buddhist ecclesiology of the

church is “a one-way ecclesiology” branded with the alien images. A big number of

politics-minded Buddhists perceive Christ as a foreigner, Church as a college of

colonizers and mission as the weapon of the Western conquerors.

On the other hand, a good number of well-educated non-Christians tolerate

religious pluralism though they acknowledge that Christianity was largely introduced to

the Burmese soil thru the merchants, missionaries and militaries and Buddhism is not the

58

Ibid.

59 Nugn Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 14.

27

native religion either. They accept Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, and native

religions as equally good as well as defective.60

Pau Khan En observes:

The gospel and Nat worship have not yet encountered each other

because Nat Worship was regarded as anti-Christian by the

Christians, and to uproot this primal religion therefore had become

the sine qua non of planting the churches in the country. As Nat

worship is the substance of the culture, and the culture is the form

and expression of Nat Worship among the Primal Society, Nat

Worship and the culture are two inseparable factors in Myanmar.61

Nat worship and Buddhism serve as the very basic of folk culture and

civilizations of majority Buddhists. For minority especially the Christians primal belief

serves as the spiritual and cultural ground from which the basic ideas of tribal life

principles, worldviews, concepts and customs have been developed.62

The Bama

Buddhists and Burman nat worshippers often have anti-Christian sentiments because

Christianity does not tolerate Buddhism and animism.

The predominantly Western-oriented Church life especially in theology, liturgy,

ecclesiology and missiology came not only through missionaries’ teachings but also

60

Al-Haj U Aye Lwin, “Interfaith Dialogue: An Islamic Perspective,” Engagement: Judson

Research Center Bulletin 2 (August 2004): 23-33; Thet Lwin, “Interfaith Dialogue: A Hindu Perspective,”

Engagement: Judson Research Center Bulletin 2 (August 2004): 34-37; Daw Khin Nweh Han Kyi,

“Interfaith Dialogue: A Buddhist Perspective,” Engagement: Judson Research Center Bulletin 2 (August

2004): 38-51.

61 Pau Khan En, “Nat Worship: A Theological Locus in Myanmar,” in Our Theological Journey,

30.


28

through their colonial rulers, administrators, and civil educators. So the Church took its

shape in the image of those who established it and administered its people.63

For many native theologians and Christians, “a Burmese theology which is

incarnational and indigenous, confessing, transformative and people-centered”64

appears

the greatest challenge. Many Christian leaders now become aware of the Western-

oriented theological trends unfit for the Burmese context to address religious pluralism,

cultural diversity, oppression, civil wars, injustice, and poverty.

Religious pluralism, and also interreligious dialogue, is a re-awakening challenge

for the mission of the local Church. The Symposium on Interfaith Dialogue held in

Yangon in 2004 shows that nat worshippers, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians

have a positive view on other religions.65

However, among the Catholics as it is said

“there is no shared mission in the Church.” Interreligious contacts and ecumenical

collaboration are at infancy stage in Myanmar.66

“Shared mission” among the Catholics

is a challenge.

Cacayan lists some challenging “realities facing the Catholic Church in Burma.”

Catholic minority Church is identified with a foreign and rebellious group. Catholics are

discriminated in various fields. Ecumenically, Catholic-Protestant relationship is often in

63

Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 15; Ngun Ling, “Communicating Christ Cross-

Culturally: A Dialogue Approach to Mission and Theology in 21st Century Myanmar” in Our Theological

Journey, 36.

64 England et al, “Contextual Theology in Burma/Myanmar,” 53.

65 Aye Lwin, “Interfaith Dialogue: An Islamic Perspective,” 23-33; Thet Lwin, “Interfaith

Dialogue: A Hindu Perspective,” 34-37; Khin Nweh Han Kyi, “Interfaith Dialogue: A Buddhist

Perspective,” 38-51.

66 Evers, The Churches in Asia, 413-414.

29

a “fighting mood.” The patriarchal and hierarchical Church structures exclude laity,

women and the religious in decision making.67

2. Specific Mission Challenges of the Church

Ngun Ling highlights, at least, five major challenges of the present Myanmar

context such as: (1) challenge of ethnicity, religion and contextual theology; (2) challenge

of religious co-existence: revitalizing the Christian presence; (3) challenge of violence,

poverty and peacemaking; (4) challenge of globalization and doing theology; and (5)

challenge of theological education.68

Mission challenge of the Christian Churches

according to Ngun Ling is mainly contextual theological problem especially the

Buddhist-Christian dialogue.

But for Pau Khan En, another Baptist theologian:

The fundamental challenge of Christian mission for the churches in

Myanmar today is how to inculturate the Christian gospel to

remove this alienation of Christianity in the country. In other

words, the two centuries with little success, and the challenging

mission of the Christians in Myanmar today is to Burmanise

Christianity so that the gospel may be seen as authentic and

relevant for the people.69

God is no longer depicted in one

particular religion alone. Christ is discovered in all religions. The

current theological challenge, then, is not to Christianize the

people, but rather to Myanmarize the gospel.70

67

Cacayan, “Burma: Rich Country, Poor People,” 312-313.

68 Ngun Ling, Communicating Christ in Myanmar, 53-129.

69 Pau Khan En, “Nat Worship,” 19.

70 Fabella Virginia and R. S. Sugirtharajah, eds., Dictionary of Third World Theologies

(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000), s.v. “Myanmar Theology” by Simon Pau Khan En, 151.

30

Pau Khan En uses the word: “inculturate the Christian gospel” or “Burmanise

Christianity” to describe the contemporary challenging mission of the Christians. He uses

another word: “Myanmarize the gospel” to highlights the current theological challenge.

He believes that inculturation will remove the foreignness of Christianity.

Mark Tin Win, a Catholic theologian observes inculturation as one big

missiological problem in Myanmar. He remarks:

Because of what the country had gone through under the Christian

colonizers and because of inadequate inculturation, or almost no

inculturation, some misunderstandings and misconceptions grew

up. And naturally, as the result, some were under the impression

that the Christians are strangers in Myanmar. The people,

especially in the upper Burma, put the foreigners and the religion

(Christianity) together and call the Christian as Kala and their

religion Kala Barthar. Inculturation, therefore, is that movement

which aims at making Christianity permanently be felt at home in

Myanmar by making it a people's religion and a way of life which

can cancel all the misunderstandings or hostility and gain more

appreciation and acceptance.71

Tin Win is very critical of the kala (Western) images of Christianity in Myanmar.

For him, “the importance of inculturation is for the inter-religious dialogue.”72

He seems

to suggest that incluturation and dialogue will eliminate the Western faces of the Church.

1st National Pastoral Assembly of CBCM, for the first time, clearly underscores

some noteworthy internal and external challenges of the local Church. Some significant

mission challenges to be mentioned are interreligious dialogue, globalization,

71

Mark Tin Win, “Inculturation today in the Myanmar Context,” (Lecture, CRCM, Yangon, 21-31

July 2006): 3. [Italics in original].

72 Ibid., 4. [Original italics].

31

incluturation, education, social justice, healthcare, option for the poor, prophetic voice,

reconciliation,73

promotion of social development, migration, and so on.

Conclusion

We have analyzed, examined and argued that different images of the Church and

various images for the Church are found, formed and emerged from the Church-State

relations, Church’s involvement in the socio-economic and political scenarios, the mutual

attitudes between the Christians and non-believers, the encounter of the Church to the

local cultures and from our experiences as Christians as well as disciples.

We explored contemporary images of the Church not just for the sake of

exploring our self-identity and nature but also for the benefit of our relation toward

outside world. In the next chapter, we will trace back the biblical, magisterial, and

theological images of the Church in relation to mission.

73

1st Pastoral Assembly s.v. “History of the Catholic Church in Myanmar” by A. Ko, 4-5; Ibid.,

s.v. “The Challenges of the Church in Myanmar” by Eikhlein, 9- 13; “Eucharistic Spirituality: A Renewed

Eucharistic People towards A New Way of Being Church in Myanmar” by J. Soe Tint, 20; and Ibid., s.v.

“First National Assembly and Jubilee of the Local Church Myanmar, 2005” by C. Bertille, 29.

CHAPTER III

IMAGES OF THE CHURCH IN BIBLICAL, TRADITIONAL, MAGISTERIAL

AND EPISCOPAL STATEMENTS

Introduction

Metaphors are excellent tools for pedagogy. To use the old saying, metaphors

“paint a thousand words.” Hence, we understand why metaphors are important. And in

Asia, metaphors speak well to the people. In theology, metaphors are also used.

According to McFague:

Images “feed” concepts; concepts “discipline” images. Images

without concepts are blind ; concepts without images are sterile

there is no suggestion of hierarchy among metaphors, models, and

concepts ; concepts are not higher, better, or more necessary than

images, or vice versa. The task of conceptual thought is to

generalize to criticize images, to raise questions of their meaning

and truth in explicit ways.74

In correlating images of the Church and the images of mission, Senior has

this to say:

Images of church and images of mission are closely linked and

have profound mutual influence. The foundations of this

correlation can be found in the Scriptures. Three domain images of

church in the NT are correlated with images of mission in a variety

of biblical traditions: the church as a community of disciples sent

74

Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 26; George Lakoff

and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) quoted by Messer,

Contemporary Images of Christian Ministry, 21.

33

into the world: as a community of visible witness: and as a

community of healing and reconciliation.75

Mission and Church are interlinked and interdependent in essence. Their

appearances have similarities. Images of mission, as it is believed, cannot be properly

understood without a thorough examination of images of the Church. Paradigm shifts in

mission models and Church models will be briefly expounded in this chapter. In other

words, the correlation of images of Church and images mission will be explored.

A. Biblical and Traditional Images of the Church

1. The Church in OT Typology and NT Imagery

The Bible gives us the plural images of the Church. Le Guillou writes that “the

word of God helps us to understand the Church through a multiplicity of concepts and

images.”76

Indeed, images explore the realities of the Church. Such realities, in return,

explain, reflect, and portray “what the Church is” through metaphors, images, and

models. Paul S. Minear lists some ninety-six images of the Church in the NT.77

These

ninety six images of the Church have connection with images of mission.

75

Donald Senior, “Correlating Images of Church and Images of Mission in the New Testament,”

Missiology: An International Review 23, no. 1 (January 1995): 3. [Original italics]. Senior notes, “the term

used here is “image”, understood as something short of a full-blown, systematic ecclesiology or missiology.

Image evokes those fundamental lead ideas, symbols, and metaphors that capture the driving force of one’s

understanding and experience.” Ibid., 3-4.

76 Karl Rahner, ed., Encyclopedia of Theology: A Concise Sacramentum Mundi (Wellwood: Burns

and Oates, 1993), s.v. “Church: History of Ecclesiology,” by Marie-Joseph le Guillou, 210.

77 Some of Minear’s images seem to reflect the “big Church” concept: “The People of God,” “The

New Creation,” “The Body of Christ.” However, the minor images of the Church are also presented: “A

Letter from Christ,” “The Boat,” “Unleavened Bread,” “One Loaf,” “The Table of the Lord,” “Branches of

the Vine,” “Vineyard,” “The Fig Tree,” “The Olive Tree,” “God’s Planting,” as well as others. Minear,

Images of the Church in the New Testament, 28-65.

34

John Driver writes that the Bible relies on images and narrative to disclose the

meaning of the Church. Biblical symbolic language of images introduces richness and

variety.78

T. H. Sanks claims that “there are many images and symbols that refer to the

community in the NT. Some images are the familiar ones, e.g., Body of Christ, People of

God, Temple of the Spirit, the New Creation, and the Community of Saints.”79

Indeed, there is no articulated ecclesiology in the Bible though it offers “various

images for the Church.”80

The most important “images” of the NT Church are: “People of

God, Body of Christ, and Temple of the Holy Spirit”81

though the earliest communities

were preoccupied with “with christology, not with ecclesiology.”82

Brown explains that “the beginnings of Christianity and the diversities in the

missionary movements brought the local Church into being.”83

Brown remarks that there

were many varied models of Church already in the first decades of the Christian era. His

investigations find no evidence of any consistent or uniform ecclesiology, but rather the

different NT Churches with distinct and different emphases.84

78

Wilbert R. Shenk, foreword to Images of the Church in Mission, by John Driver (Scottdale,

Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1997), 9.

79 T. H. Sanks, Salt, Leaven and Light: The Community Called Church (New York: Crossroad,

1992), 44.

80 Gerald O’Collins and Edward G. Farrugia, A Concise Dictionary of Theology, rev. and exp. ed.

(Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2001), 71.

81 Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, rev. ed. (New York: Harper-Collins, 1994), 597-602, 604.

82 Sanks, Salt, Leaven and Light, 52.

83 R. E. Brown, Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 129-134.

84 Brown, The Churches the Apostles left Behind, 146.

35

Senior likewise asserts that “mission is at the heart of the NT but there is no

uniform notion of mission in the Bible. Mission is exercised in function of a people.”85

Senior argues that “the biblical images or models of Church, mission and dominant

theology/christology are interconnected because… these three images are not mutually

exclusive.”86

Brown and Senior’s writings suggest that mission is understood through the

Church. The Church, in return, is perceived through mission.

Christianity is primarily a way of life. The Church continues to be missionary

today.87

Biblically speaking, images of the Church and images of mission are correlated.

“We do not so much see images as see through images”88

and we see the missionary

Church through images. These images of the missionary Church are neither institutional

nor dogmatic. Rather, they are anthropological, communitarian, and movement-centered

or evangelical images.

2. Images of the Church in the Apostolic Writings

Patristic writings provide us models, images and figures of the Church. “For the

Fathers,” Guillou remarks, “the whole of Scripture spoke of Christ and the Church: they

saw it through the imagery of the Bible and the typological interpretation of the Old

85

Senior, “Correlating Images of Church and Images of Mission,” 3-5.

86 Ibid., 5-7.

87 Knox, Theology for Teacher, 184.

88 Stephen Bevans, “Seeing Mission Through Images,” Missiology: An International Review 19,

no. 1 (January 1991): 45. [ Original italics].

36

Testament.”89

In Ecclesia, O’Donnell includes several of the common patristic images of

the Church.90

The images of the Church, for Ambrose, are “the moon, the sea, mystical vine,

mystical flock, boat, people of God, the reign of Christ, temple, body and spouse of

Christ.”91

In Augustine’s mind, the Church is “Mother, a virgin, nest, queen, love, new

Eve, mother hen, widow, dove, God’s house, the moon, a ship, and the ark of Noah.”92

Bernard’s image of church is “Spouse.”93

The Church, for Ephrem, is “the bride and

mother, a spouse, people, the ark, the Body, Eucharist, vineyard, temple, rock, way,

voyage, a re-creation and paradise, the house of God, a tower, eschatological kingdom.”94

The Church, for the Shepherd of Hermas, is “an elderly woman” who becomes “a

young and beautiful woman.” The Church is “a spouse, God’s house, God’s vine, God’s

people, eschatological kingdom, and a tower built on the rock.” 95

For Hilary of Poitiers,

“it is God’s tent, the ark, a ship, the calm, light, mother, Jerusalem, and God’s house.”96

For Origen, they are “bride, spouse, city of God, people, believers, and Jerusalem.”97

89

Le Guillou, “Church: History of Ecclesiology,” 206.

90 O’Donnell, Ecclesia, 5, 33, 51, 157, 194, 197, 338.

91 Ibid., 5.

92 Ibid., 33.

93 Ibid., 51.

94 Ibid., 157.

95 Ibid., 194.

96 Ibid., 197.

97 Ibid.,338.

37

Images of the Church reflect the self-understanding of the Christian community.

Sinks remarks that this self-understanding was frequently influenced by world events: the

fall of Jerusalem, expulsion from the synagogues, Constantine’s conversion, and the fall

of Rome.98

Some images of the church are flexible, contextual and culture-bound.

The image of the Church in the first three centuries was determined by the

opposition between a hostile State and a docile Church.99

In this era, the Church was seen

as “the local communities, or regional Churches, or missionary Churches”100

and to some

extent “a spiritual movement with minimal hierarchical, liturgical and canonical

structures.”101

In the following centuries, however, the image was determined by the harmony

between an established church and the Christian empire.102

Henceforth, she became the

hierarchical church.103

Mission now became “internal and rural.”104

The missional image

of the Church has shifted to the “institutional model”105

of the Church.

98

Sanks, Salt, Leaven and Light, 60, 61, 63-64.

99 Küng, The Church, 6-7.

100 Joseph Komonchak, Mary Collins and Dermot A. Lane, eds., The New Dictionary of Theology

(Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1987), s.v. “Church” by Edmund Hill, 190-191.

101 Edgar G. Javier, “General Mission History” (Lecture, Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia,

Quezon City, 19 February - 4 March 2008): 21.

102 Küng, The Church, 6-7.

103 Hill, “Church”, 194.

104 Javier, “General Mission History,” 21.

105 Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for

Today (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2005), 37,130,165. This work will henceforth be abbreviated

“Bevans-Schroeder.”

38

B. Images of the Church in the Magisterial Statements

1. Pre-Vatican II Models of the Church

“The metaphor of the Church,” until Vatican I era, was “a plank of salvation for a

shipwrecked humanity.”106

The Church was compared to “the boat of Peter” which

carried the faithful to the farther of heaven, provided they remained on board.107

And it is

“the eikon (image) of the Holy Trinity, the spotless virgin and bride of the spotless lamb”

and “a perfect society.”108

The Church is a prefect society in the prominent sociological image, i.e., self-

sufficient and independent; unequal, i.e., organized hierarchically, and supernatural, by

reason of its efficient and final cause.109

Being identified with the Kingdom, it is superior

to any other societies. Thus, Wostyn explains:

The three key words to characterize the pre-Vatican II ecclesiology

are legalism, clericalism, and triumphalism. The church is seen as

a perfect society, supernatural institution, entrusted to the

hierarchy, in possession of the gifts of salvation. The

understanding of mission follows this church vision. Mission is

planting of this perfect institution in territory where she was not

yet present. This task is accomplished by specialists, the

missionaries. Pagans have to enter the institution in order to obtain

salvation for their souls.110

106

Eugene Hillman, Many Paths: A Catholic Approach to Religious Pluralism (Maryknoll, New

York: Orbis Books, 1989), 43.

107 Avery Dulles, Models of the Church, 2

nd ed. (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988), 41.

108 Wostyn, Church: Pilgrim Community of Disciples, viii, 12. See also Driver, Images of the

Church in Mission, 14.

109 Le Guillou, “Church: History of Ecclesiology,” 215.

110 Lode L. Wostyn, Doing Ecclesiology: Church and Mission Today (Quezon City: Claretian

Publications, 1990), 122.

39

David Bosch states that this understanding of mission and the Church has its roots

in Cyprian’s famous dictum, extra ecclesiam nullas salus (“there is no salvation outside

the [Catholic] church”).111

In this era, mission means saving souls and expanding of the

church. Thus, the Church is imaged as “sphere of salvation on earth.”

112

The Fathers of Vatican I saw the danger of a metaphorical expression- too vague

and imprecise- in the idea of the Body of Christ.113

However, the Pauline image of the

Mystical Body of Christ was popularized to soften the hierarchical imagery,

institutionalized by the Council of Trent.114

2. The Ecclesiology of Vatican II

The Vatican II’s focus was ecclesiology because it was the Council on the

aggiornamento or renewal of the Church.115

Its two pillars are Lumen Gentium and

Gaudium et Spes.116

LG treats of the inner nature of the Church. GS treats the Church in

relation to the modern world. Ad Gentes states that “the whole Church is missionary”

(AG 2). LG and GS without AG seem incomplete to inquire the images of the missionary

111

Bosch, Transforming Mission, 218.

112 Bruno Forte, The Church: Icon of the Trinity- An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Makati: St. Paul


113 Le Guillou, “Church: History of Ecclesiology,” 212-213.

114 Patrick J. Brennan, Re-imaging, 7.

115 Sanks, Salt, Leaven and Light, 122.

116 Forte, The Church: Icon of the Trinity, 24.

40

Church. Thus, “the new ecclesiology worked out by Vatican II in AG opens new horizons

for missiology today. Mission is central to the Church, since Christ is central to it.”117

The Council, which reaffirms the nature and image of the Church as “missionary

Church” (AG 2), “restored the biblical imagery through which the mystery of the Church

was first revealed: body, spouse, temple, city, vineyard, house, flock; all theses words

express collective realities whose gradual realization is part of a great design.”118

Vatican

II has abundant images to explain the mystery of the missionary Church.

Lumen Gentium, chap. 2, proposed an image of the Church as the People of God.

It is a strongly community-oriented image. The notion of community is basic to any

understanding of the Church.119

One single image of greatest importance in the revelation

of the mystery is the Church as the body of Christ (LG 7).120

As with the Body of Christ

image, the People of God image is community-oriented, focusing on the interrelationship

and mutual helpfulness of the members.121

Vatican shows that the Church has a

multifaceted reality, mystery and nature.

Vatican II, in trying to come to grips with the mystery of the Church in this

century, referred to the various images drawn from pastoral life, agriculture, building

117

René Latourelle and Rino Fisichella, eds., Dictionary of Fundamental Theology (New York:

Crossroad, 1995), s.v. “Mission” by Gianfranco Coffele, 714.

118 Le Guillou, “Church: History of Ecclesiology,” 210.

119 Knox, Theology for Teachers, 171.

120 Pedro Rodriguez, “Theological Method for Ecclesiology” in The Gift of the Church: A

Textbook on Ecclesiology in Honor of Patrick Granfield, O.S.B., Peter C. Phan, ed. (Collegeville,

Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 141-143.

121 Knox, Theology for Teachers, 171.

41

construction, and even from family and married life…in the wirings of the biblical

authors’, listing the sheepfold, the flock, the tract of land, the vine, the building, the

temple, the bride (LG 6).122

Driver remarks that “the images which the Church uses for

its self-understanding will largely determine what the Church will actually become.”123

“The Trinitarian origin of the Church has been revealed in various names, images,

metaphors, figures.”124

The Church’s self-understanding of her nature, her master Jesus

and her role in the mission have been intertwined with each other and illumine each

other. Regardless of abundance of images, the Church is firmly portrayed as a pilgrim in

mission toward the Kingdom (LG 7, 8, 41; DV 7).

C. Images of the Church in the Asian Episcopal Texts

1. The FABC Imagery of Asian Ecclesiology

The FABC and its documents, being rooted in and drawing inspiration from the

Vatican II, attempt to live the vision of Vatican II and other Church documents

contextually. The idea of the Church as a universal sacrament of salvation, as the new

people of God, a communion, Church’s collegiality, and the like played an important role

in the development of the FABC’s theological vision.125

122

Charles Hill, Mystery of Life: A Theology of Church (Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1990), 67.

123 Driver, Images of the Church in Mission, 16.

124 Rodriguez, “Theological Method for Ecclesiology,” 141-143.

125 James Thoppil, Towards an Asian Ecclesiology: The Understanding of the Church in the

Documents of the FABC (1970-2000) (Shillong, India: Oriens Publications, 2005), 84-85.

42

The Asian Churches defined the central and most urgent mission duty incumbent

upon them: “the primary focus of the task of evangelization is the building up of a truly

local Church.”126

One prominent quality of the changing faces in Asia is its moment of

reawakening, characterized by “a new consciousness” and “a renewed self-image”.127

The FABC images of the Church are Kingdom-centered or reignocentric. In Asia,

the Church shifts its focus from building up the local Church to building up the Reign.

The Reign of God is the very reason for the being of the Church. “The Church exists in

and for the Kingdom.”128

The challenge is to make the Kingdom a reality.129

The very

existence of the Church in Asia is oriented towards God’s Kingdom.130

The Church has

attempted to be the image of the coming of the Reign in Asia.

126

FABC, Evangelization in Modern-Day Asia: The First Plenary Assembly of the Federation of

Asian Bishops’ Conferences (Hong Kong: FABC Secretariat, 1974), nos. 9-10. Henceforth, “FABC-1”.

127 See Edwin E. Mercado, “Emerging Images of the Asian Church,” Philippiniana Sacra 26, no.

76 (January – April 1991): 77-94. Reprinted as “Emerging Images of the Asian Church,” Theology Digest

39, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 143-146. We will quote Mercado’s work both form Philippiniana Sacra and

Theology Digest because the writer presents the same theme somehow differently.

128 Forth Bishops’ Institute for Interreligious Affairs on the Theology of Dialogue in For All the

Peoples of Asia 1, Gaudencio Rosales and Catalino G. Arevalo, eds. (Quezon City: Claretian Publications,

1997), 125. Henceforth, reference shall be “FAPA-1.”

129 FABC V 1.7, in FAPA 1: 230.

130 Jeffery G.L. Chang, “Ordained Ministry in the Mission and Ministry of the Church in Asia in

the Light of the Documents of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, 1970-2005” ( Doctoral

dissertation, Taipei: Fu Jen Catholic University, 2007): 79.

43

“The FABC’s reignocentric approach to the task of Christian mission”131

gives

reignocentric Church images. Yun-Ka Tan delves into the FABC official papers to reveal

a uniquely Asian ecclesiology.

This new way of being church is rooted in six predominant

propositions: (1) the Asian church is called to be a “communion of

communities” that is (2) shaped by, and responds to the immense

diversity and pluralism of Asia, (3) under guided by a commitment

and service to life, (4) inspired by an overarching vision of

harmony, (5) oriented a threefold dialogue with Asian cultures,

religions and the poor, and (6) seeking to build the Kingdom of

God in Asia.132

Mercado highlights the various images of the Asian Church as contained in the

FABC documents, reflecting its pastoral practices and concerns: Church as evangelizer,

disciple, sacrament, and community.133

He explains: “In the face of poverty, oppression

and pain, the Asian Church is called to evangelization, discipleship, servanthood and

community. In its quest to be an agent of true liberation it becomes a sign and instrument

of God’s salvific presence in the world.”134

The Spirit urges the Asian bishops to renew

their self-understanding and to project a new image.135

131

Jonathan Yun-Ka Tan, “A New Way of Being Church in Asia: The Federation of Asian

Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) at the Service of Life in Pluralistic Asia,” Missiology: International Review

23, no. 1 (January 2005): 87.

132 Ibid., 73. [Original italics].

133 Mercado, “Emerging Images of the Asian Church,” 77-94. Reprinted as “Emerging Images of

the Asian Church,” Theology Digest 39, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 143-146. Henceforth, references shall be as

“Mercado-Theology Digest” and “Mercado- Philippiniana Sacra.”

134 Mercado-Theology Digest, 143. [Original italics].

135 Mercado- Philippiniana Sacra, 81 and footnote 18.

44

George Evers remarks that becoming truly local Churches is the challenge to

develop from so-called "Bonsai-churches," replicas of Western Church models, to truly

Asian local Churches. Asian Churches are challenged to shed their image of being

"foreign implants" and to become communities which feel at home, and which are

accepted by the other communities.136

Becoming local Churches is a mission challenge.

Today, “too many Asian Catholics see other religions not only as bearers of truth,

but as alternate pathways to salvation or spiritual insights.”137

“The (Vatican II) Council

did not directly discuss,” Dulles notices, “the presence of the Church in the non-Christian

world.”138

Therefore, it is the duty of Catholics in Myanmar to discuss the presence of the

Church in the Burmese Buddhist context.

2. The CBCM Images of the Church

The local Church in Myanmar has adopted images of the Church from the (pre-)

Vatican II, and the succeeding papal and curial documents. Most significant images can

be seen from the Burmese bishops’ meetings with John Paul II. The pontiff states:

Catholics in Burma are like the leaven and the salt of the Gospel.

The Church remains a mystery. She is described as the Body of

Christ, the family of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. She is the

community. She is the pilgrim People of God entrusted with the

Good News of salvation. She is a servant and teacher, a mother,

136

See George Evers, “Challenges to the Churches in Asia Today,” East Asian Pastoral Review

43, no. 2 (2006): 152-172.

137 David Gibson, “The Vatican’s Asian Vexation,” Newsweek (3 December 2007): 40.

138 Avery Dulles, The Dimensions of the Church (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1967),

12.

45

virgin and bride. She experiences the mystery of Christ’s Cross

and the mystery of Christ’s risen life.139

The Burmese Catholics might surely reflect images of the Church from “the

ecclesiology of John Paul II” which, Dulles observes, “may perhaps be characterized in

terms of five familiar models:” the Church as (1) institution; (2) mystical communion; (3)

sacrament; (4) herald; and (5) servant.140

The institutional images of Church are strongly

emphasized until the first pastoral assembly of the local Church held in Yangon in 2005.

The local Church recently moves toward the communitarian ecclesiology of the

FABC while maintaining the institutional model of Vatican II ecclesiology. Eikhlein

suggests the awakening young Church in Myanmar to move toward (1) a participatory

Church; (2) a Church of dialogue and solidarity; (3) an inculturated and contextualized

church; (4) an accompanying and empowering Church; (5) a Church of indigenous

people; and (6) a renewing Church.141

The local Church adopts the “ecclesiology of communion” recognizing its

“diverse ethnic groups, cultures and languages.” Its vision of communion goes: “Our

Communion as People of God and fully inculturated in the local soil of Myanmar, we are

139

John Paul II, “Meetings with Burmese Delegation During the Visit at Bangladesh: A

Community that Expresses the Mystery of Christ’s Cross” (24 November 1986), 6, quoted in Manuel G.

Gabriel, John Paul II’s Mission Theology in Asia (Agenda for the Third Millennium) (Mandaluyung City,

Philippines: Academic Publishing Corporation, 1999), 107-109,134,241

140 Avery Dulles, “The Ecclesiology of John Paul II” in The Gift of the Church: A Textbook on

Ecclesiology in Honor of Patrick Granfield, O.S.B., Peter C. Phan, ed. (Collegeville, Minnesota: The

Liturgical Press, 2000), 93-102.

141 Eikhlein, “Reflection on Challenges of the Catholic Church in Myanmar,” 273-280; see also

his “The Challenges of the Church in Myanmar,” 9-13.

46

sent to be at the service of God’s Kingdom together with all people of goodwill.”142

The dream of the Burmese Church to “Journey to a New Pentecost” is envisioning

the church as “Communion of People of God” through reconciliation and renewal of

faith. It is reviewing Christian life as church, reflecting on Gospel, and responding

anew.143

Bertille says: “our Church has to become more prophetic, participative,

dialoging, and communitarian to witness effectively to the challenges facing us.”144

The assembly is aware of the need to project some relevant images of the Church

in order to face her internal and external challenges. The participants - laity, religious and

hierarchy visualize the local Church as “the little flock of Jesus,” an alien Church,

minority but salt and light, a reconciling Church, perfect Church, justice Church, the seed

in the bush, priest centered Church, and so forth.145

Lay participants appear in favor of

the community aspects of the Church.

The multiplicity of images can be classified into two models of the Church-

institutional (the hierarchy) and communitarian (the basic ecclesial communities). The

pastoral assembly does not give emphasis on ecumenical ecclesiology. Rather, it tends

142

CBCM 2006: 16, reprinted from “Our Way Forward: Church as Communion through

Reconciliation: Message to the People of God in Myanmar from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of

Myanmar,” Yangon (27 November 2005).

143 1

st National Pastoral Assembly, s.v. “Overview of the 3 Days Programme,” by Anthony

Rogers, 3.

144 1

st National Pastoral Assembly, s.v. “1

st National Pastoral Assembly and Jubilee of the Local

Church Myanmar, 2005,“ by Charles Bertille, 29. [Original italics].

145 See Ko, “History of the Catholic Church in Myanmar,” 4-8; Eikhlein, “The Challenges of the

Church in Myanmar,” 9-13.

47

toward interreligious ecclesiology with inclusivist approach. It does give some images for

the missionary Church toward especially the Buddhists and the other non-Christians.

D. Trends in Contemporary Missiology in relation to Images of the Church

1. J.A.B. Jongeneel and J.M. van Engelen

The contemporary currents in missiology are as follows: (1) Missio Dei theology;

(2) salvation-historical missiologies; (3) ecclesiocentric missiologies; (4) missiologies in

the context of secularization: presence, humanization, and other concepts; (5)

missiologies in the context of non-Christian religions: dialogue; and (6) missiologies in

the context of oppression and violence: from development to liberation.146

In the discussion of these missiologies, in general the official Roman Catholic

theory of mission and that of the evangelical movement are in essence missiologies “from

above” while those of the ecumenical movement and of liberation theology are contextual

missiologies- i.e., missiologies “from below.”147

In missiology from above, the model of

the Church is institutional. In missiology from below, the model of the Church is

communitarian- for example, dialogical, prophetic, and participatory.

2. David J. Bosch

The emerging “ecumenical paradigms or models in mission are (1) mission as the

Church-with-others; (2) mission as Mission Dei; (3) mission as mediating salvation; (4)

146

J.A.B. Jongeneel and J.M. van Engelen, “Contemporary Currents in Missiology,” in

Missiology: An Ecumenical Introduction - Texts and Contexts of Global Christianity, A. Camps, L. A.

Hoedemaker, M. R. Spindler, and F. J. Verstraelen, eds. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans,

1995), 438-457.

147 Ibid. 447.

48

mission as the quest for justice; (5) mission as evangelism; (6) mission as

contextualization; (7) mission as liberation; (8) mission as inculturation; (9) mission as

common witness ; (10) mission as ministry by the whole People of God; (11) mission as

witness to people of other living faiths; (12) mission as theology; and (13) mission as

action in hope.”148

Bosch’s masterful synthesis of missiology will be normative in some way for

many years to come. His history and theology of mission is detailed, ecumenically open,

and theologically rich.149

Indeed, these emerging ecumenical paradigms in mission

highlight the ecumenical images of the Christian Churches.

3. Stephen B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder

Christian mission must preserve, defend and proclaim the constants of the

Church’s tradition; at the same time it must respond creatively and boldly to the contexts

in which it finds itself. The Church becomes missionary by attending to each context in

which it finds itself. It must be faithful to six constants- christology, ecclesiology,

eschatology, salvation, anthropology, and culture.

Mission is prophetic dialogue. The Church in mission must speak clearly for the

world’s excluded, against human and ecological violence, and on behalf of God’s reign

of justice and peace. It must also proclaim the name, the vision and lordship of Jesus

Christ. Mission today is composed of six elements: witness and proclamation; liturgy;

148

Bosch, Transforming Mission, 368-510.

149 Stephen B. Bevans and Roger Schroeder, “Missiology after Bosch: Reverencing a Classic by

Moving Beyond,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29, no. 2 (April 2005): 70, cited by Javier,

“Mission and Anthropology,” 5-6.

49

prayer and contemplation; justice, peace and the integrity of creation; interreligious

dialogue; inculturation; and reconciliation. Mission must be lived out in a bold humility:

bold in prophetic witness and speech, humble in attentive dialogue.150

Mission is

prophetic dialogue and images of the Church are also prophetic images because the

Church and mission are one in essence.

4. Edgar G. Javier

Religions have become ideological tools for oppression and violence. Therefore,

mission is dialogue, and that dialogue is our mission especially for the Asians. Dialogue

becomes the integral part of the evangelizing mission of the church.151

The Church is

missionary for three reasons. It continues Christ’s mission, it is the instrument of the

Holy Spirit, and it receives the mission command from Christ.152

There is “a threefold contribution of Asia to mission”: (1) new mission theologies

[presence, accompaniment, dialogue]; (2) theology of religion [exclusivism, inclusivism

and pluralism]; and (3) contextual theologies [Asian theologies of liberation].153

Other

religious traditions have “good news” for us. And we come to know that “God’s dream

for humanity and creation” is “one earth – one people”, that is- “one people, one

150

Bevans-Schroeder, 1-4.

151 Edgar G. Javier, Dialogue: Our Mission Today (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2006), vi-

vii.

152 Ibid., 156-157.

153 Edgar G. Javier, “General Mission History” (Lecture, Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia,

Quezon City, 21 February 2008): 8.

50

humanity.”154

Dialogue is an emerging Asian mission paradigm. And God’s dream for

the whole cosmos is actualized through dialogue.

5. Felix Wilfred

The wide spectrum of contemporary ecclesiologies is classified into four:

reformist, liberal, liberational and inculturational. But these four orientations are

“inadequate for Asia” because they let the theological precede the anthropological and

the cultural. An Asian approach is “towards an anthropologically and culturally founded

ecclesiology” in which “we need to perceive, understand and re-appropriate the essence

of the church itself in terms of Asian cultures, ways of life, interhuman relationships and

communitarian existence.”

Many of followers of Jesus in Asia are people of other faiths and do not belong

within boundaries of the institutional Church. Therefore, the Churches in Asia should not

simply sink their roots in Asia, but rather have Asian cultures as their roots in as much as

these roots are God’s own grace and gift to them.155

In this reflection, the mission of the

Church appears to be “intra gentes” rather than “ad gentes.”

6. Aloysius Pieris

The Western academic Magisterium which developed this theology in terms of

three categories: exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism do not make sense in Asia as

154

Edgar G. Javier, “God’s Dream for Humanity and Creation: One Earth- One People,” Religious

Life Asia 10, no. 1 (January- March 2008): 6,12,14,19.

155 Felix Wilfred, Sunset in the East? Asian Challenges and Christian Involvement (Madras:

University of Madras, 1991), 231-241. [Original italics].

51

inter-religious dialogue is having its own way in Asia and reveals its own theology of

religions. The conversion of Asia to Christianity is not an urgent missionary task.

Likewise, the physical expansion of the Church is not the practical aim of mission.

Christianity in Asia has to dialogue with the metacosmic religions (i.e., Hinduism,

Buddhism, Taoism, Islam) and the cosmic religions (i.e., tribal and clannic religions, and,

the popular forms of metacosmic religions). The Basic Human Communities (BHCs) is

seen as the meeting point.156

7. Lode L. Wostyn

The Church’s mission has to be seen in the context of the world ecumene of

suffering humanity.157

A Church-centered vision has to be moved to a world-centered

ecumenical vision in which the Reign is the central concern. The task of announcing the

good news, of creating communities, of inculturation, of dialogue with other religions is

certainly part of a vision of mission. 158

“A missiology that focuses on Jesus’ ministry to the Reign of God implies a

rethinking of christology and ecclesiology.”159

Specifically, “this (a postmodern age)

understanding of mission presupposes a radical rethinking of our traditional christology

156

Aloysius Pieris, “Inter-Religious Dialogue and Theology of Religions: An Asian Paradigm,”

East Asian Pastoral Review 29, no.4 (1992): 365-376.

157 Wostyn, Church: Pilgrim Community of Disciples, 53.

158 Ibid., 54.

159 Lode L. Wostyn, “” Missio Dei”: There is Mission because God Loves the World,” Religious

Life Asia 9, no.1 (January-March 2007): 40.

52

and ecclesiology.”160

Wostyn’s writing shows that the Church in Asia has to go back to

Jesus of Nazareth in doing missiology from below.

8. Donal Dorr

There are three contrasting ‘models’ of mission. First, in ‘the crusader model’ or

‘the commando model’ of mission, the Church was to be ‘planted’ in the pagan land’.161

Second, in alternative model, the Spirit is seen at work outside the Church and

missionaries are seen as explorers and patient diplomats, peacemakers.162

There are some different images of mission within the crusade model of mission

and the alternative model of mission. The ‘sending out image’ of mission is “so closely

linked to a purely institutional and hierarchical model of Church that it does not fit in

easily with an understanding of the Church as a communion, as the People of God, or as a

prophetic servant of the world.”163

This ‘sending out’ image of mission is criticized by the ‘gathering in’ image of

mission for ‘the Greek name “ekklesia” means gathering or assembly.’164

However, the

above two images have to be supplemented, without conflict, by the ‘solidarity image’ by

160

Wostyn, “” Missio Dei,” 48.

161 Donal Dorr, Mission in Today’s World (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2000),186-187.

162 Ibid., 187-188.

163 Ibid., 189.

164 Ibid., 190.

53

picturing Jesus in the midst of his people. “Since solidarity was at the heart of the mission

of Jesus it must also be central to the mission of the Church.” 165

9. Avery Dulles

The five models of the Church are: Church as institution, mystical communion,

sacrament, herald, servant and community of disciples.166

In the institutional model, the

powers and functions of the Church are teaching, sanctifying and governing. This model

gives sense of Christian identity and mission. 167

The communion type of ecclesiology

fails to give Christians a very clear sense of their identity or mission. And motivation for

Christian mission is left obscure.168

The sacramental model of the Church has a tendency

to foster the virtues and values generally admired by Christians. 169

The understanding of

mission in sacramental model is not clear.

The herald model perceives mission as proclamation170

and it gives a clear sense

of identity and missionary thrust of the Church - especially the local Church.171

The

servant ecclesiology gives a new sense of mission - that is, humble service.172

In

165

Ibid., 191-192.

166 Avery Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974; Dublin: Gill and

Macmillan, 1988), 18-32. The Church as “Community of Disciples” is added in the second edition of his

work in 1988. This research consults his latter work.

167 Ibid., 37, 191-193.

168 Ibid., 60.

169 Ibid., 192-193. [Original italics].

170 Ibid., 76.

171 Ibid., 84.

172 Ibid., 98.

54

discipleship model, mission to spread the faith belongs to the whole community.173

Each

model of the Church has the pros and the cons in relation to mission.

10. Arnulf Camps

There are five different models of the local Church in third world theology.

Elements of the five models fluctuate according to the concrete mission situation of local

Churches.174

These models may be paraphrased as follows:

The house Church model enables the Church to fulfill its mission within a

particular situation. The Church is equated with a family community (i.e., base

communities, independent Churches, and household communities).

The institutional model of Church is regarded as a prefect society with differed

from all other societies. Structures of doctrine, sacraments, and ecclesiastical leadership

were said to be drawn from divine revelation.

The incarnated and suffering Church tries to incarnate the good news by

following Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnated and suffering Lord. This local Church

endeavors to promote the inculturation and contextualization.

A sacramental and eschatological community model images the Church as a

foretaste of the coming of the Reign, inaugurated eschatology, or a Church on pilgrimage.

It makes dialogue and inculturation possible.

173

Ibid., 221.

174 Karl Muller et al, eds., Dictionary of Mission (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Book, 1997), s.v.

“Local Church” by Arnulf Camps, 289-291.

55

A prophetic and liberating movement image imitates Moses, the prophets of

old, and Jesus of Nazareth as prophets and liberators of the voiceless people. The Church

has also been and still is interpreted to be prophetic and liberative. It is dynamic.

Conclusion

This chapter explores images of the missionary Church. In the words of

Hebblethwaite, we confirm that this profusion of images has a common theme: they may

stress different aspects of redemption, but they are all images of unity.175

We do not

attempt to downgrade the “Roman” and “Catholic” aspects of the Church.

We want to considerably emphasize the “Burmese” and the “Christian” aspects of

the Church in mission together with Christians of all theological persuasions and amidst

people of other faiths. ‘A crisis of images’ claims that we have passed rapidly from one

image or figure or model to another in a way that has only unsettled the faithful.176

This research presumes that such crisis of image maybe lessened only if the

mission of the local Church is relevant to the Myanmar context. We have explored the

images of the Church in the bible, Church teaching and some theological reflections. In

the next chapter, we will select, propose, narrate and present the most fitting image of the

Church in relation to the mission of the local Church in Myanmar.

175

Peter Hebblethwaite, Theology of the Church (Cork: The Mercier Press, 1969), 30.

176 Charles Hill, Mystery of Life: A Theology of Church (Melbourne: Collins Dove, 1990)

introduction, no page number.

CHAPTER IV

THE BODHI TREE: IMAGE OF THE MISSIONARY CHURCH IN THE

MYANMAR CONTEXT

Introduction

Images of Church and images of mission are closely linked and have mutual

influence.177

The actual image of the Church is never perfect, as lovely, as holy or as

brilliant as that formative divine idea would wish it to be (ES 10). As one imagines

church, so one does, lives, behaves as Church. The dominant image dictates the praxis.178

This chapter proposes “the Bodhi Tree” as one relevant image of the missionary

Church in Myanmar, attempting to see the image of the Church in the lights of other

religions since “the Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these

religions” (NA 2). This contextualized image of the Church in mission is believed to

lessen the foreignness of Christianity.

177

Senior, “Correlating Images of Church and Images of Mission,” 3-4. [Original italics].

178 Patrick J. Brennan, Re-Imaging the Parish (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 11.

57

A. The Bodhi and the Cross

1. Hindu Tree of Immortality

“Sacred trees” are found in the history of every religion.179

In Indian tradition,

“the cosmic tree” is connected with the bodhi.180

Hindu deities and the nats were

worshiped in Burma before the arrival of Buddhism.181

And “tree-worship” was found in

the earliest Burmese civilization of the Pagan Dynasty.182

This data suggests that the pre-

Burmese civilization’s practice of tree-worship and the Hindu rite of tree-veneration

mingle with the worship of native tree nats and also the Bodhi veneration in Burmese

Buddhism.

Banyan is known as Bodhi Tree and 'Bodhi'. Its short form 'Bo' means 'supreme

knowledge' or 'awakening' in the old Indian languages. It is also called ficus religiosa that

was already known as the Bodhi tree even before Gautama Buddha.183

The Bodhi tree is

an evergreen fig. It may attain a height of one hundred feet. Its roots often get embedded

in the ground and become minor trunks. It branches indefinitely and has thick prop roots

179

Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion: A Study of the Element of the Sacred in the

History of Religious Phenomena trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: The World Publishing Company,

1958), 264.

180 Ibid., 273-274. [Original italic].

181 See Roger Bischoff, Buddhism in Myanmar: A Short History (Kandy: Buddhist Publication

Society, 1995), 13-14.

182 James George Scott, Burma: A Handbook of Practical Information, 3

rd ed. (London: Daniel

O’Connor, 1906; Bangkok: Orchid Press, 1999), 399-400,402.

183 Raup, “Banyan,” 72.

58

that support the extended branches. Its fruits are a purplish black and are a favorite food

of birds. Its leaves are broad, oval and glossy.184

It is a sacred tree to both Hindus and Buddhists. Some of its common names are

Bodhi tree, Bo tree, tree of enlightenment, Peepal, Beepul tree, Pipal, Pipalla, Sacred tree,

Ashwattha, Ashvattha, Sacred Fig, Buddha tree185

and finally Bodhi Nyaung Bin or

Nyaung Bin in Burmese. The Bhagavad Gita interprets the inverted tree as a symbol of

the unfolding of all being out of primal ground. The roots represent the principle of all

manifestation; the branches, the concrete and detailed actualization of this principle.186

The Bodhi tree is “the image of the Trimurti.”187

Vishnu is believed to be the bark,

Brahma, the roots, and Shiva, the branches. The huge tree has some connection with

creation story and the genesis of human being.188

Thus, banyan tree is a socio-cultural

religious symbol. Its bark, roots, leaves, fruits, seeds, and the like are used for medical

purposes and branches for various artistic decorations.

184

Basu, “Bodhi,” 111.

185 Ibid., 110-111.

186 Deborah Farrell and Carole Presser, eds., The Herder Dictionary of Symbols: Symbols from Art,

Archaeology, Mythology, Literature, and Religion, trans. Boris Matthews (Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron


187 J. C. Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, trans. Jack Sage, 2

nd ed. (London and Henley: Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1971), 348.

188 In Hindu mythology, the banyan tree is also a 'wish fulfilling tree'. It represents eternal life

because of its seemingly ever-expanding branches. It symbolizes the true meaning of life. The Great

Banyan which covers several hectares in the Botanic Garden of Calcutta is more than a century old and is

reckoned to be the largest tree in the world. Norma H. Dickey, ed., Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia

3 (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, MCMLXXI), 267; see also Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion,

273-274, 276-280.

59

2. Buddhist Tree of Enlightenment

Bo Tree is sacred to the Burmese Buddhists and animists because it is the symbol

of the abode of the Buddha, the angels (or nats), and animistic spirits and ancestors. For

the Bama Buddhists, banyan leaf or branch from Sri Lanka and Bodhagaya in India is

greatly valued. Banyan is associated with wisdom, enlightenment and liberation. The

heart-shaped leaf is revered and used as a charm. Everything made of banyan is sacred.

In Burma, there are religious beliefs in the powers of trees and the rituals

associated with them.189

Banyans are popular homes for the animistic spirits, the nats.

People venerate the Buddha and the guardian spirits in the banyan tree. Buddhism is for

this life and the next, but the nats are only here for this life. On Kahson labyi (full moon)

day the Bodhi tree is ceremonially bathed and a nat ritual (natpwe) is also performed.

People meditate and pray under/near the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha

meditated and gained the enlightenment.190

Many Christian pilgrims from five continents

meditated with the exiled Dalai Lama and the Buddhists under the Bodhi tree in

Bodhgaya in north-east India where the Buddha attained enlightenment.191

The Bo tree

like the lotus has been a symbol of spiritual liberation, of the Sun, of creation and rebirth

and enlightenment. Meditating in a lotus position under the banyan tree is the most

charming, insightful, meaningful, and inspiring.

189

A. R. Radcliff-Brown, The Andaman Islanders, 3rd

ed. (Glencoe, 1948) quoted in Mircea

Eliade, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion 15 (New York: Macmillan, 1987), s.v. “Trees” by Pamela R.

Frese and S. J. M. Gray, 33.

190 Pategama Gnanarama, Aspects of Early Buddhist – Sociological Thought (Singapore: Ti-Sarana

Buddhist Association, 1998), 163-164.

191 Laurence Freeman, “Under the Bodhi Tree,” The Tablet (13 January 1999): 109-110.

60

In the Buddhist mission history, Emperor Asoka of India sent a branch of the

Sacred Bodhi Tree to Sri Lanka as an object of veneration and worship.192

That Bodhi

branch took root in Sri Lanka, as did “the new religion.”193

Burma received the Buddhist

traditions from Sri Lanka especially in the eleventh century of the Christian era.194

Oral

tradition speaks of four visits of the Buddha to Burma.195

In memory of the Buddha, the

Bo tree taken from India and Sri Lanka are transplanted and venerated in Burma today.

3. Nats’ Residence Tree

A tree is not just a tree. Especially, for the animists, nat worshippers and the

Bama Buddhists, a tree may symbolize something more than just a tree. The Bama

Burmese consider the Bodhi tree not only as the enlightening tree of the Buddha but also

the residence of the nats. The place around that tree is considered sacred because it is

guarded by various good spirits and the spirits of ancestors. At the foot of this tree, the

Buddha and the nats are offered lights, foods, water and other eatery.

Scott shows the abundant traces of fetichism, tree-worship, worship of crop

spirits, worship of nats, serpent worship, demonolatry rite and other forms of primitive

worship in Burma.196

Regarding the practice of veneration of the Bodhi tree, he observes:

192

H. R. Perera, Buddhism in Sri Lanka: A Short History (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society,

1988), 14-15; Kanai Lal Hazra, History of Theravada Buddhism in South-East Asia (Delhi: Munshiram

Monaharlal Publishers, 1982), 50.

193 Basu, “Bodhi,” 111.

194 Perera, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, 31-32; Hazra, History of Theravada Buddhism, 83-130.

195 Bischoff, Buddhism in Myanmar: A Short History, 20.

196 Scott, Burma: A Handbook of Practical Information, 367-418.

61

The adoration of trees, streams, mountains is all fetichistic. The

Burmans and the Shans worship chiefly the spirit of the house and

the spirits of village; and their tree-worship is rendered more

respectable by the legend that the Buddha Gautama died under the

Bo-tree. The Wa are particularly fond of rearing the Ficus

religiosa, not because they believe anything about the Buddha

Gautama, but because they believe in the tame country that the

village nat lives in it, and in the wild country. Everywhere in the

hills, dark coppices, or prominent trees, have shrines in them, were

Chingpaw, Shans, La’hu, Akha, all the hill tribes, worship and

make offerings. This may be called tree-worship, but it is none the

less demonolatry. 197

Until today, people respect big banyan trees. This is their meeting place where

with great reverential fear they exchange ideas and lived experiences, take shelter,

meditate, worship, pray, offer flowers and fruits to the various spirits including their

ancestors and perform religious rituals.

Everybody has equal access to that place regardless of their social status. That

place becomes next to their house. They feel at home. People enjoy life near/under the

tree depending on the locations and local cultures, events, issues and feasts. Urinal

activity near the tree is strongly forbidden. The tree-worship, one of the primal religious

practices of the earliest residents of the land of Burma, continues in a new form.

4. Christian Fig Tree of Knowledge and Salvation

The Bodhi tree of Hinduism is not only the natural ancestor to the Buddhist tree

of enlightenment, but it is, as it appears in this research, also the ancestor of the Biblical

tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. For Christians, the tree-imagery has enormous

197

Ibid., 417.[Original italics].

62

significance, especially the tree, upon which was the death of the incarnated God and the

life of human.

The Bible mentions at least thirty-one species of trees.198

The Bible starts with the

tree of life (Gen 2: 9; 3: 22) and the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:9, 17; 3:3, 5). The tree of

life reappears in the Apocalypse (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19).199

The tree of life in Genesis

reflects the belief of Ancient Near Easter mythology which sometimes thought of life to

be possessed through eating.200

The tree is “a cosmic symbol” and the cross symbolizes “the cosmic tree.”201

The

image of a person sitting under the shade of a fig tree is a proverbial portrait of enjoying

prosperity and peace (1 Kgs 4:25; Mic 4:4). In Jesus’ teaching the tree and its fruit serve

as a metaphor for actions as revealing the character of an individual (Matt 3:10; 7:17-19;

12:33). Paul uses the practice of grafting as a metaphor for salvation of the Gentiles (Rom

11:17, 24). 202

Typologically, Jesus who is nailed to a tree (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Gal 3:13; 1

Pet 2:24) is frequently presented as the antithesis of Adam who has fallen due to the test

of tree (Gen 2-3). The tree of knowledge (Gen 2: 9, 17) becomes the tree of salvation

198

Carroll Stuhlmueller, ed., The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology

(Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996), s.v. “Tree” by Leslie J. Hoppe, 1014.

199 The New American Bible presents the background of the tree somehow thorough and different

from the New Revised Standard Version does.

200 Hoppe, “Tree”, 1014.

201 Maurice Dilasser, The Symbols of the Church, trans. Mary Cabrini Kurkin and others

(Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 13-14.

202 Ibid.

63

(Gal 3: 13) in Jesus Christ. The tree-metaphor is not only the image of the filial

relationship between Christ and the Father but also the image of the intimate relationship

between Christ and his followers (John 15:1-9; see also Matt 21: 33-46).

In Christian iconography the cross is often depicted as “the Tree of Life” which is

the prototype of all miraculous plants that bring the dead to life, heal the sick, restore

youth, and so on.203

It symbolizes victory over death. The cross on which Jesus died was

probably “a tau cross”, an ancient symbol of divine election, mentioned in Ezekiel 9:4;

Vulgate: “signa thau.”204

Dualistically, the cross as tree is a symbol of life and death.

5. The Bodhi and the Cross in Dialogue

Dialogue between the Bodhi and the Cross means a dialogue between Hinduism,

Buddhism, nat worship and animism, and Christianity. In Myanmar, dialogue between

them is imperative in their common search for meaning and values, liberation and

happiness in life. In fact, there are more similarities rather than differences among them.

For the early Aryans of Indus valley the banyan tree, which now represents the

Buddha Gotama, seemed to be regarded as the abode of a deity or deities.205

Similarly,

the Bama Buddhists and nat-worshippers nationwide believe that that banyan tree is

inhabited by the nats, for instance, a Yokkasoe (guardian spirit of the tree king).206

The

203

Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 292.

204 Hans Biedermann, Dictionary of Symbolism, trans. James Hulbert (New York: Facts on File,

1992), 82-83.

205 Gnanarama, Aspects of Early Buddhist – Sociological Thought, 163.

206 See G.P. Malalasekera, ed., Encyclopedia of Buddhism 3 (Colombo: Government of Ceylon

Press, 1971), s.v. “Popular Religion” by S.K.N, 537-538.

64

Bodhi tree has been carved to represent Siddhārtha Gautama plus the previous

Buddhas.207

This tree is special in the Buddhist art symbols for religious edification.

A symbolic relationship between the Bodhi and the cross shows that the Bo tree

of illumination for the Indian Buddha208

and the Cross of Jewish Jesus are decisive

turning points in their life and message. The cross was raised on a hill near Jerusalem

amidst a scene of brutal violence (Mk 15:20-23), whilst the Bodhi nestled serene, lost in

the luscious verdure of the forest in the Gaya village in India. Both become trees of

life.209

Both are signs of liberation and victory through self-emptiness called kenosis.

According to C. S. Song, the lotus to the Buddhists and the cross to Christians are

two powerful symbols of a crucial human quest for life deliverance.210

The lotus is also a

powerful symbol for Christians.211

The lotus and the cross often symbolize the Christian-

Buddhist dialogue.212

As a person under the Bo tree depicts the lotus position, the Bodhi

207

Gnanarama, Aspects of Early Buddhist – Sociological Thought, 163.

208 Piyadassi Thera, The Buddha’s Ancient Path (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1996), 15,

quoted in Leopold Ratnasekera, “The Bodhi and the Cross: Icons of the Two Spirit-Odysseys,” SEDOS

Bulletin 36, nos. 11-12 (November - December 2004): 290 and endnote 1.

209 Ratnasekera, “The Bodhi and the Cross,” 290.

210 Chong-Seng Song, Third-Eye Theology: Theology in Formation in Asian Setting, rev. ed.

(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Book, 1990), 120-121.

211 The lotus, an Indian symbol has been used to convey the message of the soul emerging from

the darkness of sin into the light of Christ- from death into life through the resurrected Christ. P. Solomon

Raj, “Images and Religious Imaginations,” in Communication in Theological Education: New Directions,

Michael Traber, ed. (Delhi: ISPCK, 2005), 137.

212 See, for example, G. W. Houston, ed., The Cross and the Lotus: Christianity and Buddhism in

Dialogue (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985).

65

tree includes the symbol of the lotus.213

In fact, the Bodhi tree is a more powerful symbol

which points out human’s quest for liberation. The lotus and the Bodhi are the national

flower and tree of India.

In Burma, the idea of “not befriending unbelievers,” (2 Cor 6:14-16) as hell

bound people214

still remains among many Christians because Christianity was and is

regarded by many as “the only true and only saving religion.”215

Most Burmese live dual

religious life: Theravada Buddhism and animistic nat worship. There have been some

attempts for Buddhist-Christian dialogue. But “the gospel and nat worship have not yet

encountered each other.”216

There is no effective “the Bodhi-the Cross dialogue.”

The Asian bishops prefer to present Jesus to the Asians as “the Enlightened One

or the Buddha”217

rather than as the Son of God, and Christ the King. The background of

the bishops’ proposal is the story of Siddhartha Gautama’s enlightenment under the Bo

tree. Their intention is for interreligious dialogue.218

Thus, the Bodhi tree has

christological and soteriological applications from an Asian Christian perspective.

213

The lotus blossoms out of the dirty mud under the water. It symbolizes the spiritual rebirth. The

lotus can be one appropriate image of the church to stand for the resurrected or (re)incarnated church which

gives a liberating spiritual rebirth. This paper does not exclude the meaning of the lotus flower as the lotus

has connection with the Bo tree. For example, the Buddha meditates under the Bo tree in a lotus position.

214 Ngun Ling, “Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally,” 38-39.

215 Oscar Ante, “Proclaiming Christ in Asia,” Mission Outlook 39, no.4 (January 2007): 21.

216 Pau Khan En, “Nat Worship,” 30.

217 Peter C. Phan, Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue

(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2004), 130, 132.

218 Ibid., 131.

66

“Telling the story of Jesus in Asia”219

is a new mission-paradigm of the First

Asian Mission Congress held in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 2006. “Asian ways of mission

through witness in the midst of life realities” means “narrative missiology.”220

In the

same vain, “Telling the story of Jesus, the Enlightened One under the Bodhi tree”

becomes a contextual paradigm for the mission of the local Church in Myanmar today.

To put “the Cross in dialogue with the Bodhi” is the mission methodology.

B. Christianity, Church and Mission in the Bodhi Tree Allegory

1. Bodhi Tree: Image of the Church in Myanmar

Wostyn remarks that until quite recently Catholics visualized Catholicism as the

trunk of a tree that was fully rooted in the soil of its origin. The other churches were seen

as branches which received only part of the nourishment from the roots. They were the

many dying or already dead branches.221

Catholicism here is identified with the trunk of

tree. However, such view has changed.

Wostyn continues that today’s Catholics see a sturdy trunk that branched out at a

very early stage of its growth. Catholicism is the largest branch and it remained faithful to

the original Christian tradition. The other Christian Churches are also branches of the

219

Mario Saturnino Dias, ed., Telling the Story of Jesus in Asia: A Celebration of Faith and Life

(Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporations, 2007), 79-355.

220 James H. Kroeger, “Asian Mission Congress Reflections: An Asian Tapestry-Created by the

Spirit,” Vidyajyoti: Journal of Theological Reflection 71 (2007): 120-121.

221 Lode L. Wostyn, ed. I Believe: A Workbook for Theology 1 (Quezon City: Claretian


67

Christian tree and many of them are fully alive. They bear a valuable amount of fruits.222

Christianity is a tree with many branches from an ecumenical perspective.

The Church when it is imaged as the Bo tree has an interreligious view. The

Bodhi tree is an appropriate image of the Burmese local Church amidst religious

plurality. This tree is the Hindu symbol of life. It stands for wisdom in Buddhism. It is the

residence of the nats. It is also the residence of ancestors in animistic worship. The

Biblical tree of knowledge and salvation seems to be a fig tree like the Bodhi.

The inclusive image of the church as the banyan tree may serve as a tool to

(re)connect the church with the “plural society”223

of Burma for peaceful co-existence

and pro-existence. This image calls for not merely ecumenical dialogue but interfaith one

also so that people of diverse religious persuasion will bear fruits for humanity.

The Vatican II’s declaration on the relation of the Church to non-Christian

religions is positive and the Church is willing to accept what is good in other religions

(NA 1-5). Thus, it is appropriate to propose image of the missionary Church as the Bodhi

tree because of its significant religious edification. The Church which is imaged as Bo

tree will give life, knowledge, enlightenment, salvation. The Bodhi is a Burmese symbol

for a new way of being Church.

222

Ibid.

223 “Plural society” is defined as “fragmented into different racial, religious or linguistic groups.”

Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Bryan S. Turner, The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology, 4th

ed.

(London: Penguin Books, 2000), 262.

68

2. Christian Life as the Bodhi Tree

To imagine or image the Christian life as the Bo tree means to live out life as one

imagines or images oneself. Patrick J. Brennan says that imagination, and the firing of

dominant images, always dictates behavior or action.224

As one visualizes Church, so s/he

lives as Church because image dictates praxis.

Diarmuid O'Murchu argues that Christian life has to be shifted from rootedness in

Christian identity alone to interconnectedness with other faiths, cultures, traditions and

ways of life. Quoting Thomas Aquinas, O’Murchu says that “if we don’t understand

creation correctly, we can’t hope to understand God correctly” and “we can understand

both God and human life with the metaphor of a tree.”225

He gives the assessment of the

botanical research on how the tree grows:

As for the tree, the main point is that only 2% comes the roots, so

98% comes from outside the tree - since the tree is an open system.

The medium of interaction between the tree and the environment is

what science calls photosynthesis, the means through which

energy from the Sun enters all living things. To make that more

accessible you can break it down to approximations of 50%

sunlight; 20% water; 10% air; 10% other biochemical interactions

- all adding up to 90% approx - these are rough figures because

strictly speaking they should add up to 98%.226

O’Murchu seems to suggest that Christian identity is essential for the existence

and survival of Christianity like the roots of a tree function. And interconnectedness with

224

Brennan, Re-Imaging the Parish, 7-8.

225 Diarmuid O’Murchu, “Religious as Ecological Prophets of Our Times (Lecture, Quezon City,

Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia, 21-24 January 2008).

226 Ibid; also the same Text received from Diarmuid O’Murchu sent by email on 28 March 2008.

69

other faiths, cultures, traditions and ways of life are essential for the health and growth of

Christianity. O’Murchu’s theological vision is cosmological.227

Paredes similarly explains that theology should become eco/theology. Mission

needs a new theological vision, an eco-theological vision.228

Eco-ecclesiology is like the

ecclesiology of the vine and branches (John 15), not the ecclesiology of a building or the

sacred spaces or a social structure around Peter.229

Mission in eco-theology needs to be understood not as mission “ad gentes”, but as

shared mission “inter gentes”, or better, as “servers of our own gifts in the network of the

human species, of their religious traditions and of the earth.”230

In Paredes’ theological

vision, everything is perceived pluriversal or interconnecting without a single center.

As Christianity has traveled to many nations, it grows up by adopting, adapting,

absorbing, socializing, inculturating, and evangelizing the local cultures. “The Jesus

movement” in the first eras was not aloof from the elements of Judaism. Again, in the

227

For the works of Diarmuid O'Murchu, see, among others Religion in Exile (New York:

Crossroad, 1998);Quantum Theology, revised and updated edition (New York: Crossroad, 2004); Our

World in Transition (Lewis: East Sussex: The Book Guild, 1994 ; New York: Crossroad 2000); Reclaiming

Spirituality (New York: Crossroad, 1997 ; Quezon City: Claretian Publications 2007); Poverty, Celibacy &

Obedience (New York: Crossroad, 2002); Asian edition: Vows For Non-Violence (Quezon City: Claretian

Publications, 2002); Evolutionary Faith: Rediscovering God in our Great Story (Maryknoll, New York:

Orbis Books, 2002; Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2003); The Transformation of Desire (London:

Darton, Longman & Todd, Jan 2007; Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, March 2007); “Globalization:

Confronting the Reign of Earthly Greed with the Liberating Power of the Kingdom of God,” Religious Life

Asia 10, no. 1 (January -March 2008): 51.

228 José Cristo Rey García Paredes, “Eco-Theology: Only Wholeness Is Sacred. Towards A New

Theological Vision,” Religious Life Asia 10, no. 1 (January -March 2008): 54-64.

229 Ibid.,68.

230 Ibid.

70

forth century Christianity began to be reshaped according to Roman flavor. Christ gave

no blueprint for the church and therefore, the church is always flexible.231

The Church is the ecosystem. It is ecology of relation. Everything in the Church is

interrelated. And everything in the Church is ecological. From an Asian perspective,

Divarka says:

The Church is indeed like a large tree. It is not transplanted from

one soil to another; rather it grows anew in each soil from a seed

sown. The seed, that evangelization sows, is the Word. The seed

falls on the good ground and dies to bear fruit. We have the seed

which in dying does not lose its life and identity; rather it manifests

a new power, it draws elements from the native soil, and grows

into a tree that has an appearance all its own but is in perfect

continuity with the seed from which it springs. It may not look

exactly like other trees that have grown elsewhere from the same

seed, but it has the same life and bears the same fruit.232

In an institutional image, the Church can be like the Bo tree: the roots are the

clergy; the trunk symbolizes the religious life and the branches indicate the laity. The

fruits and the leaves are the productivity of the cooperation of the clergy, the religious

and the laity.

Nevertheless, in the community image, the Church is a pilgrim community of

disciples who dialogues with peoples of other faiths. The branches, the trunk and the

roots are interacting with one another in harmony. The tree grows up together with other

trees. Hierarchy is not the focus but the ministry which is due to one’s own charism

within the scope of a community’s vision-mission.

231

See Wostyn, Doing Ecclesiology, 25-35; see also Lode L. Wostyn, ed., Discipleship in

Community: A Workbook for Theology 3 (Quezon City: Claretian Publications, 2003), 3-28.

232 Parmananda R. Divarka, “Reflection on the Problem of Inculturation,” FABC Papers 7 (1978):

5.

71

3. Models of the Church and of Mission

a. Church as Basic Interfaith Community

The missionary task of a Christian Church is like a tree with many branches that

is multidimensional.233

In this Bodhi tree ecclesiology, the mission of the Church

functions various forms and models of the Church also are multiple. Thus, the applicable

models to Bodhi image of the Church are manifold depending on the mission emphasis.

Many of followers of Jesus in Asia do not belong to the institutional Church but

other faiths.234

They follow Christ as the Enlightened One who shows them the way, the

truth and the light (John 14:6). People at Bodhi tree can be named as the Basic Interfaith

Community or the Basic Interreligious Community (BIC). People of different faiths

gather for dialogue for becoming “religious interreligiously.”

This Basic Interreligious Community shares similarity with the Basic Ecclesial

Community (BEC) of Latin American ecclesiology235

and the Basic Human Communities

(BHC) of Pieris’.236

The BEC and BHC are a paradigm for a new way of being Church.

233

Kareng Zau Nan, “Mission as Multidimensional,” RAYS MIT Journey of Theology 7 (January

2006): 123.

234 See Wilfred, Sunset in the East?, 231-241.

235 Leonardo Boff, Church: Charism and Power- Liberation Theology and the Institutional

Church trans. John W. Diercksmeier (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 125-130.

236 Pieris, Fire and Water, 161; Phan comments on the harmony, mutuality of BEC and BHC. In

addition to Basic Christian Communities, there must be Basic Human Communities in which Christian

theology is incubated and grows. In other words, Christian mission must be both inculturation (including

interreligious dialogue) and liberation, which are simply two sides of the same coin. Phan, Christianity with

an Asian Face, 94-95.

72

Indeed, “to say Church is to say mission.”237

“Mission in Asia cannot today be considered

apart from a relationship with other religions.”238

Mission has to consider plurality of

cultures, religions and the disadvantaged. In this model, “the image of the missionary”, to

borrow Bevans’ phrase, can be best pictured as “a treasure hunter”239

who come “to

search for what is already hidden in” others’ cultures, traditions and religions. Missio

inter gentes is a mission paradigm for the Basic Interfaith Communities.

The inculturated image of the Church as the Bodhi tree is hoped not only to be a

symbol for religious pro-existence and it hopes to make the forms of the Church appear

home in the way her preaching/proclamation (keryma), teaching (didache), fellowship or

communion (koinonia), ministry (diakonia), and worship (leiturgia) will make sense to

the local residents. This image of the Church provides the biblical, theological, political,

social and anthropological contexts.

b. Church as Community of Disciples in Co-Pilgrimage

The first model of the Church is “the community of disciples in co-pilgrimage.”

The Church is “like a pilgrim in a foreign land” (LG 8). It is to dialogue with people of

other faiths (interreligious dialogue). The pilgrim Church moves towards a new heaven

and a new earth (LG 48). She is a pilgrim, God’s people in exodus towards the promised

237

United States Catholic Conference, Pastoral Statement on World Mission To the Ends of the

Earth (10 December 1986), no. 16, quoted in Bevans-Schroeder, 7.

238 Oswald Gracias, “Mission in Asia Today- Relations with Other Religions Existing in Asia,”

Vidyajyoti: Journal of Theological Reflection 71 (2007): 86.

239 Stephen Bevans, “Seeing Mission through Images,” Missiology: An International Review 19,

no.1 (January 1991): 45, 48.

73

land.240

Christians are a pilgrim people who dialogue with the modern world and the non-

Christians. “Indeed, Asians have a common journey. Dialogue is an element in the

common pilgrimage of all peoples towards the Kingdom.”241

The Church contributes to mankind's pilgrimage of conversion to God's plan

through her witness and through such activities as dialogue, human promotion,

commitment to justice and peace, education and the care of the sick, and aid to the poor

and to children (RM 20). The mission of the Church, like that of Jesus, is God's work or,

the work of the Spirit (RM 24). This pilgrim model with its image of mission seems best

for the Burmese context because the Bama Buddhists are pilgrim people by nature.

Interreligious dialogue constitutes part of the ministry of the Church which

accompanies all humanity in pilgrim to the Kingdom.242

This image of pilgrimage to the

Kingdom of God depicts the divine design of salvation which encompasses all peoples

regardless of the bounds of religions.243

They not only co-exist but also pro-exist. In this

pilgrim model of church, mission paradigm is shifted from ‘Missio ad Gentes’ to ‘Missio

inter Gentes’.244

Indeed, people of various religions are in pilgrim to the Absolute.

240

Forte, The Church: Icon of the Trinity, 109.

241 Javier, Dialogue, 160.

242 FABC III Statement 15, in FAPA 1, no. 60.

243 Chang, “Ordained Ministry in the Mission and Ministry of the Church in Asia,” 79.

244 See Jonathan Yun-ka Tan, “From ‘Missio ad Gentes’ to ‘Missio inter Gentes’: Shaping A New

Paradigm for Doing Christian Mission in Asia,” Vidyajyoti: Journal of Theological Reflection 68 (2004):

670-686 (Part I); 69 (2005): 27-41 (Part II).

74

c. Church as Sacrament of Universal Salvation

The second model of the Church is “sacrament.” Many twentieth-century

theologians have appealed to the concept of the church as sacrament.245

Vatican II, in

Lumen Gentium and Ad Gentes, says that the church is as a universal sacrament of

salvation (LG 1, 48; AG 1). In this model, the “seeds of the Word” (AG 11, 15) and the

Holy Spirit (LG 8, 17, 48) in other religions are acknowledged.

On the notion of the Church as sacrament, Henri de Lubac writes:

If the Church is the sacrament of God, the church is for us the

sacrament of Christ; she represents him, in the full and ancient

meaning of the term, she really makes him present. She does not

only carries on his work, but she is his very continuation, in a

sense far more than that in which it can be said that any human

institution is its founder’s continuation.246

The Church as a universal sacrament of salvation (LG 1, 48; AG 1) has to

acknowledge the presence and activity of the Spirit in every time and place- that is, in

other religions and cultures (RM 28-29). The NT vision of the Church sees the Spirit at

work through many mediations.247

Dulles says, “in the sacramental ecclesiologies, the

Church is understood as the visible manifestation of the grace of Christ in human

community.”248

245

Dulles, Models of the Church, 63.

246 Henri de Lubac, Catholicism (London: Burns and Oates, 1950), 29, quoted in Dulles, Models of

the Church, 63.

247 Lode L. Wostyn, Church: Pilgrim of Community of Disciples-Readings in Ecclesiology

(Quezon City, Claretian Publications, 1995), 56; Driver, Images of the Church in Mission, 222.

248 Dulles, Models of the Church, 89.

75

The image of the Church as sacrament from a missiological perspective suggests

contextualizing and evangelizing the good elements in other religions, thoughts,

traditions and cultures. That is mission as inculturation. The Church is not only sacrament

but also “sign and instrument of salvation” (RM 9). “If the Church is to be a sacramental

sign for Asia, it must be an intelligible sign to the Asian people.”249

The Church has to be

a sacrament of integral salvation for all.

d. Church as Humble Servant

Thirdly, the model of the Church is “servant.” The main characteristics of this

servant ecclesiology in Gaudium et Spes are fourfold. Firstly, the Church is a humble

servant (GS 3). Secondly, it is a community of dialogue (GS 22, 40). Thirdly, it is

dynamic (GS 44). Finally, it is eschatological and realizes the kingdom as the center.250

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others. The Church must share

in the secular problems of the ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and

serving.251

The mission of servant Church is “not primarily to gain new recruits” but “to

help all men”, whatever they are and “to discern the signs of the times and to offer

guidance and prophetic criticism.”252

This model puts the kingdom as its center (EN 8) and exhorts to serve all peoples

especially the poor for their liberation. According to the Asian bishops and theologians

249

Thoppil, Towards an Asian Ecclesiology, 298.

250 Wostyn, Doing Ecclesiology: Church and Mission Today, 48-49.

251 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1967),

203-204, quoted in Dulles, Models of the Church, 94-95.

252 Dulles, Models of the Church, 97.

76

mission today takes the form of dialogue which focuses on the Reign and on the Church

as its symbol and servant.

Each model acknowledges that the Savior wills that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4)

(LG 16; NA 1). In the Bodhi tree allegory images of the Church are communitarian,

dialogical, prophetic and inclusive. Models of the mission point out the building up of the

Reign of God by being the Church as pilgrim community of disciples in dialogue with

people of other faiths, humble servant of “the Ultimate Reality”, sacrament of universal

salvation and basic interfaith community.

C. Mission Spirituality and Methodology

1. Mission Spirituality under the Bodhi Tree

Mission spirituality under the Bodhi tree has to be “a spirituality of dialogue.”253

This spirituality is challenged at the outset to be pro-religions and their adherents

because, in Javier’s words, “religions and their adherents should not only exist, nor co-

exist, but are challenged today to pro-exist.”254

In the Burmese context of cultural and

religious plurality, mission cannot happen without a spirituality of dialogue.

Augustine Ko decries that the seeds sowed by the missionaries are better than

what the local Church is doing today255

He highlights the value of “spirit”: “Buddhism

became more rooted in the ground, because they emphasized more the spirit and are not

253

Javier, Dialogue, 159.

254 Javier, “Interreligious Dialogue,” 233.

255 Ko, “History of the Catholic Church in Myanmar,” 4.

77

based on rules and regulation. The plant has to find its roots and expressions in the local

earth.”256

For Ko, the Church’s rootedness in local earth is essential above all.

Inculturated mission spirituality is imperative for the growth of the Christianity.

About a five hundred-year old Christianity (1500s-2008) in Myanmar has its roots which

are strong enough to sustain the existence of the Christian tree. It can be argued that for

the growth and fruitfulness of the mission of the Church “a spirituality of rootedness” has

to be shifted to “a spirituality of interdependence.” To be precise, a ‘missio ad gentes’

spirituality has to move towards a ‘missio inter gentes’ spirituality.

“A spirituality of mission” calls for openness and responsiveness to the message

and mystery of Jesus and to the reality of Asia. It begins with loving Asia, carrying her in

our heart, cherishing her features, nursing her wounds, and believing in her future.257

A

spirituality of mission has to be a kind of “a spirituality of ecclesiology.”258

This

spirituality calls for “a spirituality of involvement” which does “seek to understand God’s

presence with people who struggle for liberation in Myanmar.”259

“Christology is the key to ecclesiology”260

and missiology. “Christ is the basic for

Christianity spirituality”261

especially for the missionaries. Therefore, mission spirituality

256

Ibid., 6.

257 See Samuel Rayan, “A Spirituality of Mission in an Asian Context,” SEDOS Bulletin 29, nos.

6-7 (June- July 1997): 194-206.

258 Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality (New York:

Doubleday, 1999), 114-140.

259 San No Thuan, “Overcoming Oppression of Ethnic Minority Christians,” 119.

260 Thoppil, Towards an Asian Ecclesiology, 172.

261 Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, 73.

78

has to be based on “the liberating spirituality of Jesus Christ.”262

Any spirituality in

relation to mission should focus not on the institutional doctrines but on the gospel values

or the praxis of Jesus of Nazareth. A spirituality of mission is “Reign-Focus” spirituality.

Spirituality under the Bodhi tree is soteriological because the sacred tree has to do

with the concept of moksha for the Hindu,263

nirvana for the Buddhist, tukkha

(wellbeing) for the nat worship264

and new life for the Christian. Mission spirituality

under the Bo tree is “the Bodhi tree spirituality.” “Reign-focus” mission spirituality is so

prophetic that it is concerned with the common cause which affects people of all faiths. In

essence, “the Bodhi tree spirituality” is the same with “Reign-focus” mission spirituality.

This is the spirituality the people of Myanmar need today.

262

For a thorough discussion on the topic in question, see Pedro Casaldaliga and Jose Maria Vigil,

Liberating Spirituality, trans. Paul Burns and Francis McDonagh (Quezon City: Claretian Publications,

1996), 61-207.

263 For the understanding of salvation in primal religions and world major religions, see Javier,

Dialogue, 43-69, 83, 87, 88.

264 For a thorough explanation of the Bama Buddhist understanding of “nirvana” or “salvation” see

Maha Thera U Thittila, “The Fundamental Principles of Theravada Buddhism,” in Kenneth W. Morgan,

ed., The Path of the Buddha (New York: Ronald, 1956), 112, cited by Paul Clasper, Eastern Paths and the

Christian Way (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1980), 41-42; see also Henry Saing Kung, “Buddha as

a Libertarian Educator,” Engagement: Judson Research Center Bulletin 6 (June 2006): 125 and footnotes

10-12.

79

2. Mission Approaches: The Cross Encounters the Bodhi 265

The implementation of the liturgical, catechetical, pastoral and theological

changes of Vatican II was thus hampered by the political situation and by the oppressive

measures of the regime in Myanmar.266

Thus, the word “mission” is problematic,

dangerous, even violent. Relevant mission methods have to be selected contextually to

get rid of the foreignness of the Church and to build up of the Reign of God.

Authentic mission in Myanmar begins from and to the margins. The starting point

has to be from the margins because the realities of the society are reflected in the lives of

the marginalized. Missionaries in Burma never won the ruling elite class like Matteo

Ricci in China and Roberto de Nobili in India did. Thus, appropriate mission methods are

crucial for the growth and fruitfulness of the Christian tree, and for the faithfulness of the

Church to the Judeo-Christian praxis.

The first plenary assembly of FABC (Taipei, 1974) developed an “Asian

Paradigm” for missionary evangelization. The operative approach is the distinctive mode

of dialogue, triple dialogue: with the Asians, Asian cultures and religions. There are four

types of dialogue within this triple-dialogue pattern: dialogue of life, dialogue of action,

dialogue of spiritual experience, and dialogue of theological exchange.

265

This subtitle is different from the name of the seminar entitled “Doing Theology under the Bo

Tree” by the Protestants in Myanmar Institute of Theology, Yangon. The seminar is mainly oriented

towards interreligious dialogue (a.k.a. Christian-Buddhist encounters, dialogue, history, and relations)

while our sub-title is concerned with the ecclesiological and missiological issues. See Samuel Ngun Ling,

“Doing Theology under the Bo Tree: Communicating the Christian Gospel in the Bama Buddhist Context,”

in Called to be a Community: Myanmar’s in Search of New Pedagogies of Encounter ed. by Samuel Ngun

Ling (Yangon: ATEM, 2001), 172-174, quoted in San No Thuan, “Overcoming Oppression of Ethnic

Minorities,” 117.

266 Evers, The Churches in Asia, 409.

80

In the Philippines, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) uses

the three Ds methodology. This process involves dialoguing with the realities from

within, discerning the movement of God’s Spirit, and translating the Spirit’s impulse into

deeds.267

The first step is dialoguing with the realities of present context: religious,

cultural, political, and economic realities, and the local Church history. Secondly, it is

discerning these realities in the light of Christian faith: theology, christology,

pneumatology, ecclesiology and the like. Thirdly, it is translating into deeds:

inculturation, interreligious dialogue, and service of human promotion and so on.268

Latin-American theologians speak of the hermeneutical spiral which consists of

the following components or stages: see, judge/discern and act. The first stage is the

reflection and analysis of experiences (socioanalytic mediation). The second is the

hermeneutic mediation. Experiences are reflected in the light of Christian faith. The third

stage is practical mediation. It is oriented to pastoral planning. 269

The Bishops’ Institute for Social Action VII (Thailand, 1986) speaks of the

pastoral spiral methodology or “pastoral cycle.” The stages include the following: (1)

267

CBCP, Acts and Decrees of the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (Manila: Catholic

Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, 1992). [Italics mine].

268 Oscar Ante, “Mission in Asia Today” (Lecture, Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia, Quezon

City, 26 November- 16 December 2008): 5.

269 See Clodovis Boff, “Methodology of the Theology of Liberation,” trans. Robert R. Barr in

Systematic Theology—Perspectives from Liberation Theology, Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuria, eds.

(Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1996), 1-21.

81

exposure-immersion; (2) social analysis; (3) contemplative dimension; and (4) pastoral

planning.270

For doing relevant mission, “new forms of lay apostolate” have been developed in

some dioceses of the local Church within the past two decades, for example, “Zetaman-

Movement”.271

This movement comprises young people of Catholics, non-Catholic

Christians, Buddhists, and nat worshippers who dedicate their qualifications for human

growth and development.272

Their mission agenda includes relief services, education and

animation, health and sanitation, infrastructure, socio-economy, and vocational training.

In our mission approaches, it is most appropriate to proclaim “Christ of the Asian

Peoples” or to begin with doing “a Burmese inculturated christology”273

under the Bodhi

tree because “christology is the key to ecclesiology and missiology.” Trends in

christology, ecclesiology and missiology are interrelated. Thoppil highlights this

interconnectedness:

One cannot understand the mission of the Church without knowing

its nature and one cannot grasp its nature without looking at its

mission. The Church realizes itself only by being missionary. The

mission of the Church is to proclaim Jesus Christ as Savior and to

make available to the world the salvation accomplished in Christ.

270

BISA VII - Seventh FABC Bishops’ Institute for Social Action (Thailand, 1986) quoted in

James H. Kroeger, “Asia’s Local Churches Awaken to Mission,” East Asian Pastoral Review 39, no. 4

(2002): 367-377; see also A. Alangaram, Christ of the Asian Peoples: Towards an Asian Contextual

Christology - Based on the Documents of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, rev. ed.

(Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2001), 40-45.

271 Evers, The Churches in Asia, 411. [Original italics].

272 Archdiocese of Taunggyi, Synodal Decrees and Socio-Pastoral Plan 2001-2013 (Taunggyi:

Catholic Church, 2001), 37-50.

273 John Zar Ring Thang (a.k.a. Maung John), “Burmese Faces of Jesus: Towards a Burmese

Contextual Christology” (Synthesis, Quezon City: St. Vincent School of Theology, 2008), 16-36.

82

The mission of the Church is realized through various services and

activities, such as, proclamation, witness, inculturation, action for

liberation, human promotion and harmony, interreligious dialogue,

etc., all forming integral parts of the one mission of the Church.274

Conclusion

Images of the Church, according to Yves Congar, are christocentric because the

NT speaks of the church as a building, a vine, a flock, a bride, a body, always in relation

to Jesus Christ.275

The Vatican II’s images of the church are dualistic: communitarian and

institutional and also christocentric and ecclesiocentric. The FABC’s images of the

Church are reignocentric. In the light of the FABC teaching we propose the kingdom-

centered church-images because the image of being a "foreign import" is one

characteristic of the Catholic Church in Myanmar within multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and

multi-religious context.

In the Myanmar context, any image of the Church needs to be “reignocentric,”

and the Church’s mission is to be at the service of the Reign of God. Christianity is still

an alien religion not primarily because of its failure to take deep roots in the Myanmar

context and not merely because of its slowness to adopt the local culture but because of

its failure to interact with the Burmese religions, traditions, cultures, thoughts and the

Burmese people. In general, the foreignness of Christianity, and also that of image of the

Church, is due to the mission problems. The next chapter will give the summary, findings

and recommendations of the research.

274

Ibid., 294.

275 Yves Congar, Diversity and Communion (Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third Publications, 1985), 11.

CHAPTER V

SUMMARY, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Introduction

This concluding chapter recapitulates the main ideas of each chapter. It includes

the general summary of the research, findings and recommendations. The general

summary briefly presents only the key ideas of each chapter. The findings deal with the

answers to the questions raised in the Statement of Problem. The recommendations are

threefold as there are three questions to be answered in this thesis.

A. Summary

Chapter I considers the foreignness of the Church as one of the challenging

problems of mission in the Myanmar context. It formulates three fundamental questions

in order to present a fitting image of the missionary Church among peoples of different

religious backgrounds.

This introductory part gives an overall view of the entire thesis. It includes the

background of the study, statement of the problem, significance of the study, scope and

limitation of the study, review of related literature and related studies, conceptual

framework, definition of terms, methodology and organization of the study.

Chapter II explores the images of the Church in the Myanmar context. It presents

a spectrum of views on Church and mission. Images are scrutinized from a Christian and

non-Christian perspectives. A picture of Christian Churches among pagodas, temples,

84

mosques and spirit shrines is presented vis-à-vis the historical, socio-cultural, economic,

political, and ecclesial realities of the country.

The historical method of research helps us in the process of discovering the

“locus” of the thesis in which we find out the identity and worldview of the local Church.

The method of interview and conversation provides us the present images of the Church

and the vision of the local Church from the various people of different parts of the local

Church.

Chapter III consults the bible, magisterial statements, papal documents, regional

episcopal texts and theological reflections as they relate to images of the Church, its

identity, nature and mission. The biblical writers used categories to image the Church. So

did the Church Fathers. The Vatican II restored and reused the fitting images of the

Church for the modern world. The FABC and contemporary theologians reflect and

propose the images of the local Church contextually in relation to mission work.

The nature and identity of the Church can be explored through its biblical,

theological, sociological, historical, and other images. Such images or models are a way

to explore realities of the Church that cannot be fully investigated or explored by

objective study or measurement. Images and models are contextual. They somehow

describe and prescribe the Church and mission. As time, situation and context change the

self-identity, self-nature and task of the Church change. As the Church responds to the

particular call, needs and demands of specific times its self-understanding transforms.

Chapter IV visualizes the missionary Church in the form of the Bodhi tree under

which the Christian stands in the lotus position. In many of the Asian religions, the Bo

85

tree is associated with religious experience and soteriological edification. The Judeo-

Christian tradition often pictures the cross of Jesus as a tree of salvation. Thus, dialogue

between the Bodhi and the Cross means a dialogue between Christianity and other

religions.

The Bo tree is envisaged as the model of Christianity and Church life. From a

mission perspective, the Bodhi tree is a symbol to break the religious walls, to build up

dialogue and to promote Basic Interfaith Communities (BIC). The images of the Church

correspond to the images of Jesus and mission. The image of Christianity as the Bodhi

tree has corresponded models of Church and of mission. Such images dictate praxis.

“A spirituality of dialogue” and “a spirituality of network” or “a missio inter

gentes spirituality” under the Bo tree prepare the ground for a peaceful and harmonious

interfaith inter-existence. “A spirituality of involvement” aims at the integral liberation of

all beings from any oppressive force. In the reignocentric mission methods, low

christology is the key to inculturated ecclesiology and relevant missiology which focuses

on the Reign.

B. Findings

Through the process of this study, there are three discoveries as this thesis has

raised three questions in the Statement of Problem.

1. What are the contemporary images of the Church in Myanmar amid

multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious and socio-economic-political

scenarios?

86

Images of the local Church are found in the realities of the country. There are

political Church-images, sociological Church-images, anthropological Church-images,

divine-origin ecclesial images, human community-based images and the like. “Jesus Yes,

Church No” mentality among the Bama Buddhists is due to the mission history.

Christianity is still seen as the religion of invaders. Religion, ethnicity and politics are

intimately linked in Burma. They are also discovered in the experiences, praxis and

vision of the faithful.

Christianity bears the alien mask because of the problem of mission.

Contemporary trends in the mission of the local Church are contextual theology,

inculturation, interreligious dialogue, liberation, religious pluralism, evangelization,

Burmanization of the gospel, social involvement, and many more. When mission

strategies change the images of the Church also change. Thus, “the Bodhi tree” is an

appropriate image of the Church in mission.

2. What are Images of the Church in Bible, Magisterial statements, FABC,

CBCM and Asian theologies and how are these images interdependent?

The Bible contains about one hundred images of the Church. Christian tradition

and teaching as well as regional Episcopal documents give relevant images of the

Church. The mystery of the Church cannot be spoken of in analytic, categorical language

alone. Instead it must be spoken of by way of analogies, models, and images that reflect

and point to the realities of the Church. Images of the Church emerged, changed and

visualized due to the dynamics of the self-understanding, nature and mission of the

faithful as Church. A variety of metaphorical images are used to describe the Church.

87

The Church is spoken in dogmatic categories of mystery, infallibility, holiness,

oneness, apostolicity, catholicity, iron of the Holy Trinity; in cosmological categories of

the Sun, the Moon, the Star, the Light, the lamp, the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem;

in financial categories of the saved, the justified, the holy people who are redeemed

through the blood of Christ; in the sacramental categories of communion, reconciliation;

and in pnematolocial category of the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Again, it is also spoken of in geometrical categories of triangle, square, pyramid;

in physiological categories of the Head, the Body of Christ, People of God, mother,

teacher, leader, shepherd; in political categories of governance, teaching, propagation,

imposition; in botanical categories of field, tree, the vineyard, garden, park, the rock; in

filial categories of God’s children, assembly of God; in familial categories of the spotless

virgin and bride of the spotless lamb; in sociological categories of servant, pilgrim, a

perfect society, home, family, flock, bridge, ladder; and so on.

3. What are the appropriate images for the Church in Myanmar and how

are these contextual images relevant to the mission of the local Church?

Images of Church and images of mission are closely linked and have mutual

influence. Images of the Church are images of mission. To see image of the Church and

to (re)image the Church in the lights of other religions is crucial for mission work. The

Bodhi tree, among many religious symbols, is one fitting image of the Church which is

relevant to the mission of the Church not only for lessening the foreignness of

Christianity and for the growth as well as fruitfulness of Christianity but also for the

integral liberation of the people and creation.

88

Although Christianity is visualized in the form of the Bo tree, Christian mission

must preserve, defend, inculturate and proclaim the Church’s six constants - christology,

ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, anthropology, and culture in the Burmese context.

“The Bodhi and the Cross dialogue” must be able to do “an eco-theology, the theology

done for all citizens of our house.” These six constants in the Burmese context have to be

eco-christology, eco-ecclesiology, eco-eschatology, eco-soteriology, eco-anthropology,

and eco-culture. Any theological trend should be eco-theological. Thus, mission under

the Bodhi tree will become “missio inter gentes,” the “eco-missiology.”

C. Recommendations

There are three recommendations in this study for further study. A

recommendation has also some practical implications in mission.

1. Importance of Further Study on New Approaches to Misisiological Issues:

Myanmar is still “a closed society.” Many things remain unexplored. Missiogolical

studies remains a least developed treatise. As a result, the mission of the local Church

does not effectively respond to the challenges and realities of the society. Mission is often

done “from above” through doling-out or traditional methods. New missiological

approaches, which are to go in and fit for our contemporary times, have to be

experimented. Such research may promote not only “ecumenical ecclesiology” and

“ecumenical missiology” but also “interreligious missiology,” or “eco-missiology.”

2. Further Study on more relevant images of the Church in Mission: There

are many aspects of Church life to be investigated in the local Church of Myanmar. This

89

research may inspire other intellectuals to conduct more comparative studies in the fields

of other disciplines or related themes. Some examples for further study on some relevant

images of the Church are as follows: “Image of the Church as the Community of

Pilgrims”276

, “The Church as a House which promotes Harmony among the Laity, the

Religious and the Hierarchy”277

, “Seeing Mission through the Burmese Religious

Symbols”278

, “Image of the Missionary as Treasure Hunter, Teacher and Prophet in

Myanmar”279

, “A Spectrum of Correlated Views: Christ, Church and Mission in the

Myanmar Context” and the like.

3. Further Research towards A New Vision of Being Missionary Church: The

Bodhi tree as image of the missionary Church in Myanmar suggests a paradigm shift in

theological inter-disciplinarity from independence to interdependence, from

individualistic to interrelatedness and interconnectedness, from tolerance and dialectic to

dialogue, from religious to interreligious, from mono-centric direction to pluri-centric

networking, and from anthropocentric mentality to bio-centric or ecological vision. We

can firmly assert that the Bodhi tree as image of the missionary Church is a new vision of

being Church in Myanmar. Therefore, this new vision of being a missionary Church is

strongly recommended for further exploration.

276

George H. Tavard, The Church, Community of Salvation: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology

(Makati: St. Pauls, 1997), 27-75,185-242.

277 Roger W. Gehring, House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in

Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004), 288-311.

278 Stephen B. Bevans, “Seeing Mission Through Images,” 45-57.

279 Ibid.

90

Conclusion

This chapter has presented the summary, findings and recommendations of the

thesis. This thesis proposed the Bodhi tree as image of the missionary Church in

Myanmar. This image is a universal religious symbol which is significant for people of

different beliefs and therefore, this image of the Church is most appropriate for the

mission of the Church. Thus, we have come now to the conclusion of the study.

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102

G. Other Sources

Ante, Oscar. “Mission in Asia Today.” Lectures, Institute for Consecrated Life in

Asia, Quezon City, Semester 2, SY 2007 – 2008.

De Guzman, Emmanuel. S. “Laity, Theology and Praxis.” Seminar, St. Vincent

School of Theology, Quezon City, Semester 2, 2006 – 2007.

Javier, Edgar G. “Theology of Mission.” Lectures, Institute for Consecrated Life in

Asia, Quezon City, Semester 2, SY 2006 – 2007.

______.“Mission and Anthropology.” Lectures, Institute for Consecrated Life in

Asia, Quezon City, 22 January – 6 February 2008.

______.“General Mission History.” Lectures, Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia,

Quezon City, 19 February – 4 March 2008.

O’Murchu, Diarmuid. “Religious as Ecological Prophets of Our Times.” Lectures,

Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia, Quezon City, 21– 24 January 2008.

Tin Win, Mark. “Inculturation Today in the Myanmar Context.” Seminar, Catholic

Religious Conference of Myanmar, Yangon, July 21 – 31, 2006.

Zar Ring Thang, John. “Church as a Banyan Tree in the Context of Burma.” Paper

delivered during Laity, Theology and Praxis at St. Vincent School of

Theology, Quezon City, 16 March 2007.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Name: Maung John

Alias name: Zar Ring Thang

Date of Birth: 28 August 1977

Place of Birth: Tahan, Kalay Township, Sagaing Division, Myanmar.

Congregation: Missionary of St. Paul (MSP)

Address: St. Paul Center, Myetto P. O., Pathein 10011, Myanmar.

Date of Entrance: 16 April 1996

First Profession: 29 July 1999

Academic Background

2001-2003: Philosophy Studies,

St. Joseph’s Major Seminary, Pyin Oo Lwin, Myanmar.

2004- 2008: Theology Studies

St. Vincent School of Theology, Quezon City.

2005-2008: Master of Arts in Theology of Consecrated Life Major in

Missiology, St. Anthony Mary Claret College, Quezon

City.

Mission Assignments:

1999 – 2001: Assistant in Formation Program for Pre-Postulency

Formation Center, Pathein, Irrawaddy Division, Myanmar.

2003 – 2004: Teaching in Formation House

Formation Center, Pathein, Irrawaddy Division, Myanmar.