A lesser known aspect of the work of Fostering Local Church Leadership is the support it gives to the formation of religious sisters and brothers in the mission territories. This support is particularly given to the local congregations who have no access to ‘back up’ from overseas. This is critical in countries such as Myanmar where the Church can feel very isolated.
Bishop Charles Bo founded the Missionary Sisters of St Paul in 1990. The congregation now has 80 professed sisters and 12 novices.
Their apostolate is with the poor and refugees in remote areas, including along the border with China. Their work involves nursing, teaching, and parish work. They feel their primary calling is to be missionaries with St Paul. Their missionary journeys have already brought them to Birmingham where there is a community of three sisters.
The Novice Mistress, Sr Rufina, is very happy with the young women of various tribes who present themselves for formation. She is impressed by their maturity and enthusiasm to learn.
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Novices in prayer – Sr Rufina, novice mistress with Srs Helen and Christine | Daily schedule for the novices
4.45am: rise
5.15am: Morning Prayer
5.45am: Mass and meditation, breakfast, morning work
9.00am: classes
11.30am: quiet time
12 noon: lunch and rest
2.00pm: class
3.00pm: gardening
4.30pm: private time
5.30pm: adoration
6.30pm: dinner
7.00pm: Meditation points
8.00pm: Night Prayer followed by private study
10.00pm: bed
This is a group of highly committed women with an absolutely essential apostolate. Myanmar continues to be riven by violence of many kinds and all too often the victims are women who are subject to systematic abuse. They must watch whilst their families and communities are torn apart and their livelihoods destroyed.
The Sisters of St Paul and many other local congregations are in the forefront of caring for these victims and their families. It is a remarkable tribute to them and their founders that their work and their numbers have grown so much despite being permitted little contact with the rest of the worldwide Church.
Another example is the Sisters of St Francis Xavier, founded in Pathein in 1958. They were formed to serve the Church in the ‘Spirit of the Beatitudes’. Their novice mistress says, ‘We are prepared to do whatever is necessary to serve the Lord and his people: whatever the cost!’
Sister Innocent from Moulmein is a very good example. For 17 years she was a civil servant working in a technical college. For all those years she desperately wanted to be a sister but stayed at home to care for a sick brother until he died. Now she is simply open and willing to do whatever apostolic work is asked of her.
Other congregations of Sisters are similarly engaged in remarkable apostolates. Some run large homes for children made orphans through war and violence. Others concentrate on educating the poor, seeing that as their way of building bridges and contributing to development of civil society.
They all provide a wonderful testimony to the vitality of a Church which, despite its struggles and being cut off from the rest of the Church, is flourishing and giving hope and courage to a beleaguered people, and an example of faith to us all.
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