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# 2971
15 December 2011
Bugs Bunny, Cambodia, his entire body composed of weapons parts with
the exception of a prosthetic leg which supports him in his traditional
laid-back posture, has the ability of great art to communicate many
messages simultaneously. Is it an inspiration for childhood recovered
after tragedy? An absurd conjunction of the levity of global symbols
against the reality of armed conflict? A confirmation that the weapons
are silenced and peace now presides?
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From killing to cultivation, computers....
YANGON
-- In a powerfully worded message to those of
his flock and those not, Archbishop Charles Bo delivered an
extraordinary homily at the Vigil Mass for the Centenary celebrations
of St Mary's Cathedral, 8 December 2011, Yangon.
Framing his thoughts with Readings from Genesis to Revelations, the
Archbishop hammered away at contemporary human concerns, some of the
'big' threats to peace and human well-being. His words would have
resonated locally as he condemned the 'civil war' between the Kachin
Independence Army and Government forces, thanked his President for
stopping the Myit Sone Dam Project on the Irrawaddy River, and warned
his country to interpret its fledgling democracy with care. They would
have resonated equally with international representatives present, and
others beyond, as he appealed for illegal logging and deforestation to
cease immediately ("Myanmar is a green country, a pleasant nation"),
and for people to heed climate change ("Global warming is global
warning").
What impressed one, reading through the English version of his homily,
and no doubt it was even more carefully woven together in Burmese, was
the manner in which he had fashioned his dream of a New Jerusalem by
recasting some of the most striking images of Scripture. "They shall
beat their swords into plowshares" became killing instruments turned
into cultivation, or computers; the crystal waters from Revelations 22
became the beautiful Irrawaddy. And then the reminder that the New
Jerusalem is where God lives, and is about the recovery of God's
creation, the re-ordering of chaos (tsunamis that see boats on land and
cars at sea!).
Beginning with the homely image of a small boy crying because he has
dismantled his toy car and cannot put it back together again,
Archbishop Bo set the scene for the battle between destruction and
restoration, where "if the restorer, however, is the creator, then
restoration is easily done". This gave him opportunity to see the
Immaculate, assumed into heaven, as the image of restored
humanity. The four 'enmities' introduced by human sinfulness
(between ourselves, ourselves and the animal world, ourselves and
creation, ourselves and God) are met by the four 'restorations' of the
omnipotent, good and ever-creating God: peace, the earth giving life,
protection against evil, the primacy of Christ.
All in all a moving Advent message that would not have been lost on any
of its hearers. |
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