When the virus first began to spread throughout the world, in Myanmar “Covid” was an unknown word. Young people of the country strummed their guitar while singing love songs before their lovers’ hostels; they went to college, and played football or chinlone. On weekends, some of them would go trekking, fishing, or cycling.
This freedom would not last long, however. The country would go into lockdown in March of 2020. By May, about half of the world’s population was under some form of lockdown. All outside functions ceased. When humans are caged like animals in a zoo, anxiety, depression, and loneliness set in.
About this time, the Magis youth in Myanmar and India requested me to speak about the traumatic experience of the pandemic to around 50 young people. In turn, several Myanmar Jesuit scholastics in Jakarta, Manila, and Rome were galvanised into organising more online activities. These efforts led to the creation of the Magis Myanmar Online Ministry. Originally, the online talks were focused on faith, hope, and love, with the intention to help the youth overcome the challenges of living in a cloistered society. These activities reconnected them to old friends and linked them to new ones. The online Magis Circle created an opportunity for them to share, listen, and strengthen one another in their life’s journey.
In February 2021, events in Myanmar took a turn for the worse. Citizens from all walks of life protested peacefully against the coup d’état, only to be answered with bullets. By the end of March 2021, hundreds of people, including children, had been arrested or murdered on the streets or in their homes. Doctors and nurses fled the hospitals leaving behind patients and new born babies. Thousands of children and young people with their parents and grandparents were forced to take shelter in forests or caves. Like the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt during the massacre of infants in King Herod’s time, they carried neither food nor clothes with them. Locusts and wild honey served as their daily bread. Mosquitoes and serpents visited them. Some became infected with the virus and unknowingly shared it with others. Every day, they would wake up and sleep to the sound of bullets and bombs that would end up killing some of them. The bloody ground emitted a foul smell.
“Where is God in the suffering, confusion, and uncertainty in Myanmar today?” This was the burning question of every theist. Members of Magis Myanmar held an online dialogue on 6 March 2021 with American Jesuit Fr James Martin SJ to provide comfort and spiritual clarity amid the violence in Myanmar. “Often in difficult times, we focus only on the difficulties and not where God might be. We are so caught up in the day-to-day events, and we miss where God is speaking to us,” Fr Martin said. The Consciousness Examen gives one time to “notice where God is active” during the day, “to be able to look back and see where God has been beneficial” to overcome difficulties and challenges, especially now in Myanmar.
Consequently, young people came out of the forests, caves, or their houses with unstable internet connection to participate in the online activities of Magis Myanmar. Magis collaborated with a group of Myanmar diaspora youth called Roman Catholic Youth (RCY) to organise weekly online activities on topics covering theology, psychology, sociology, and health. Most of these topics were requested by the participants. Seeing their faith and zeal reminded us of the martyrdom of the Jewish mother and her seven sons in 2 Maccabees 7:1-42.
“The online activity gives me sacred space where I am listened to and where I can also express my agony with confidence…. I pour out every burden in my heart. I receive inner peace amidst the war,” said one participant.
“Some topics appealed to me with greater fervour than others. Every week I learn something new to strengthen my spiritual, social, intellectual, and mental health,” shared another.
A diaspora youth testified: “Every night and day, I worry about my family. Covid and the coup in Myanmar add to my misery. Every piece of news about the country scares me. For about a month, I could not go to work. One day, I saw a programme of Magis Myanmar on Facebook. I have since been actively participating in the activities and have found friends who share my psychological trauma. The Magis Circles and the talks are spiritual and mental boosters for me.”
As it is, it is difficult to discern the shape of the future of Myanmar. Schools and colleges are locked up, churches and pagodas are closed, shops and squares are empty, playgrounds, parks and museums are unvisited. Everyone in Myanmar is suffering. In Chin and Kayah states, where majority are Christians, there is massive and obscene destruction of life and homes. People’s heads and hearts have become smaller, and their hands colder.
Still, we have hope in the Lord. Fr Walter Ciszek SJ, who had spent over 23 years in captivity in Siberian labour camps and Soviet prisons, wrote in his book, He Leadeth Me: “The Church would survive perhaps not exactly as we had known it at the mission because the faith would survive among the people of God as it had always survived in times of persecution.”
PV Joseph Buan Sing SJ is a Myanmar scholastic studying at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. This article was first published in The Jesuits in Asia Pacific 2022 magazine.