The recent ordinations of Titus Tin Maung SJ and Joseph Aik Maung SJ were moments of joy and unity for the hard pressed ethnic communities that claim them as their own. They were also cause for celebration for the Society of Jesus as the two new priests are only the second and third Jesuit priests from Myanmar.
Titus Tin Maung SJ was ordained on April 27 at Christ the King Cathedral, Loikaw by Bishop Sotero Phamo who on that same day was celebrating his Silver Jubilee as a bishop. Joseph Aik Maung SJ was ordained on May 4 by Bishop Raymond Sumlut Gam at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Banmaw in the northeast of Myanmar.
Titus Tin Maung, 35, is Kayan, the major ethnic group found in Kayah State, Eastern Myanmar. Many of his people, in order to escape from poverty and a decades-long war, have crossed the nearby Thai border to refugee camps or to seek work in Thailand or Malaysia. Others have joined resistance armies. But these celebrations were days of peace and joy. The village of Titus’ mother, brothers and sisters pulled out all the stops in order to feed a multitude after his first mass nearby. Three of his brothers had each bought a pig a year ago and had carefully fattened them for this occasion!
Aik Maung, 37, is now one of very few Shan priests in Myanmar. His ordination was a joint celebration for the Shan, the majority of whom are Buddhist, and for the Kachin people who form the majority of the Banmaw Diocese. Many camps for displaced people surround Banmaw town, which is close to the China border, yet hundreds of Shan and Kachin people braved 
checkpoints to come to Aik Maung’s ordination and attendant festivities. On the eve of his ordination, hundreds of people participated in a colourful Kachin ritual cultural dance, the Manau dance, which lasted two hours, and on the afternoon of the ordination again for almost three hours. Shan people also prepared a concert, and 400 volunteers prepared meals for almost 5,000 people. Aik’s mother’s Buddhist neighbours lovingly prepared and attended a reception at her house after his first mass. Two days after his ordination, Aik Maung addressed a Catholic youth festival. The diocese had planned for 700 participants, but a head count on the first night revealed that more than 1,400 young men and women had turned up to share their faith.
The ordinations were grace-filled moments for all.
“The eyes of all the people were on each of them. I could feel their joy and their hope. Despite so much fighting and violence in the people’s lives, all were smiling,” said Fr Wilbert Mireh SJ, the Loikaw-native who was ordained the first Jesuit priest from Myanmar only last year. “The three of us have shared much over the long years of preparation, but the greatest consolation now is to see the happiness of the people.”
Fr Mark Raper SJ, superior of the Jesuit Myanmar Mission, said that both the new priests will be assigned for a year of pastoral experience in the country before engaging directly in the works of the Myanmar Mission. Fr Aik Maung will spend his year as a pastor among the displaced people in camps, while Fr Titus goes to Rahkine State, a much troubled, poor and very different part of Myanmar, where he will experience something of the immense diversity of his country.
Jesuits were present in Myanmar even during the 17th century and Jesuits from the Maryland province were tasked to staff a new national seminary in the 1950s and early 1960s. But when the socialist dictatorship closed the country down to foreign contacts, they were forced to leave. Several of the former students of the Maryland Jesuits who had become bishops personally appealed to then Fr General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ. As a result, the Jesuits returned in 1998 and have since established several apostolic endeavours, including a novitiate from which Titus, Aik Maung and Wilbert are among the first to emerge and to complete the long Jesuit formation.
There are 32 Myanmar Jesuits; some now at work as scholastics engaged in apostolic endeavours in various parts of the country, others are abroad studying. All are eager to embrace the challenges that await them as their country begins to open to world trade and democracy.
“Our primary role here is to learn from the deep wisdom and spiritual riches of the people of Myanmar,” explained Fr Mark Raper. “The local Church isolated for many years is eager to breathe new life into its pastoral and practical services. We want to support the Church’s efforts to inject new creativity into Myanmar society so that it may realise its potential to function well in the contemporary world context.”
Main photo: Titus Tin Maung SJ and Joseph Aik Maung SJ after their diaconate ordination last year.
Watch the dance performed by the Kachin people in celebration of Aik Maung’s ordination.