THAILAND BALM AND CALM
Denis Blackledge SJ has moved from Stonyhurst to Corpus Christi Church in Boscombe - via Thailand. Here's what happened on his trip.
The key phrase I learned during my time in Thailand was 'Mai pen rai' - I'll explain the phrase later. I was privileged to have some sabbatical time, and I was staying for 10 weeks as a guest of our Jesuit community in Seven Fountains Spirituality Centre in Chiang Mai. This beautiful city in northern Thailand is surrounded by wooded mountains, which reach up to some 5,000 feet, and which host the most sacred shrine of Buddhists in the area on a mountainside aptly names Doi Su Thep - the mountain of beautiful angels. I received wonderful hospitality not just from my Jesuit brethren, but from local people who are regular worshippers at the Centre.
Seven Fountains is an oasis in the midst of a bustling city. Just a couple of hundred yards from the main university campus, it's eight acres of quasi-jungle garden, providing balm and calm for retreatants who come from all over Thailand, as well as from Singapore and Malaysia, and occasionally from the Philippines or further afield. Flame trees and frangipani, bamboo, and a wonderful woodland garden, complete with a bubbling fountain and summer houses, provide a serene sacred space, filled with a variety of exotic birds, squirrels and butterflies and geckos. You might spot a greater racket-tailed drongo here, or red-throated bulbuls, or the greater coucal, and mynah birds are everywhere.
With its 40 individual rooms in four separate units spread throughout the garden, the lifestyle is simple. There's a well-stocked library, standard Thai food, a daily laundry service, and four chapels to choose from, with daily Mass in Thai and English for retreatants. The largest chapel, newly built, with space for two hundred people, also provides a Sunday Mass for the English-speakers - mainly British and American - who live and work in the area. And all this costs just $13US per day!.
The Seven Fountains Chapel Sunday worshippers also provide a Scholarship Sponsorship programme for children and young people from the local hill tribes in Northern Thailand. The only criterion to qualify for a scholarship is extreme poverty. Whilst education is free in Thailand, many of the children live in mountainside villages where there is no school, and have to go to boarding centres during the week, or need money for uniforms or books and stationery. (In Thailand, even university students have a uniform, and very smart they look, too!) So the annual cost might be anything from $60 - $200US, depending on individual circumstances.
Typical examples of children helped by the scheme are as follows. A six-year old boy whose parents have died of AIDS, and being looked after by grandmother, might need school uniform and supplies. A 12-year old boy, one of six children, whose father is in jail, has to board in a hostel. A girl of 16 from a farming family is the first to attend high school, but her family cannot afford to pay her expenses. Or an 18-year old graduate from high school and who wants to go into nursing and needs help to pay for her board.
Whilst I was there I was privileged to witness the annual service of thanksgiving from some of these children. About 80 of them came down with their parents and helpers from their Karen villages on the mountainsides a couple of hours drive away. The service was literally touching, as it consisted of the children washing the hands of their benefactors with lustral water they had brought from their villages.
So, who are the Jesuits who staff this amazing Seven Fountains Centre? When I was there, there were five of them, a rich international community, a quarter of the Jesuits in the whole of Thailand.
Fr Beda Yassao SJ is the youthful Superior and he hails from Indonesia.
Fr Vinai Boonlue SJ is a Karen hill tribe Jesuit, whose family live a couple of hours' drive from Chiang Mai. You will know of him from his article in the last edition of Jesuits and Friends. He is deeply grateful for the overwhelming response readers made to his appeal.
Fr Miguel Garsizabal SJ is a Spaniard from Galicia who seems to be in perpetual motion. He is Director of the Centre.
Fr David Townsend SJ, a British Jesuit, who refers to Thailand as 'my country', has been at the Centre for the past seven years, having spent the previous seven years in the Far East with the Jesuit Refugee Service.
The fifth member of the Jesuit community, Fr Iker Villanueva, a Basque, was providing a wonderful example of courage in suffering during my stay. Having spent a lifetime in Thailand, he was suffering from terminal cancer, and it was into his very bones. He was still directing retreatants, and friends from near and far - as far away as Europe - were coming to see him, as they knew the end was near. I almost entitled this article 'What a wonderful world', as that was an email Fr Iker showed me when I went to see him at the end of my own retreat towards the end of my stay. One of his many friends had sent him a singing email with lovely photos to go with the words of SatchmoÕs song. I must have been one of the last people to go to confession to him, and I'll never forget the penance he gave me - to pray for the people I'd hurt without even knowing it.
I said my goodbyes to Fr Iker on the day I left at the end of July, as he lay very ill on his bed, and he died a few days later. With live-in nursing help the Jesuit community kept him at home as long as he was comfortable, but he had to spend the last few days of his life in hospital, where he died peacefully in early August. The Jesuit community and his many friends - some 300 of them - celebrated his living and dying at his Requiem.
'Mai pen rai' is a delightful Thai phrase which means something like 'It doesn't matter'. I've said it many times since I came home, not least in the early days of my new mission as parish priest at Corpus Christi in Boscombe! Whatever happens in the Far East, there's a calmness, even in traffic, and much that we can learn in our western world. No shouting and anger, no losing of face, but a dignity and gentleness about - just 'Mai pen rai'.
I also learned much about reverence and respect. Taking off sandals or shoes - and we were usually barefoot - when going into chapel or into someoneÕs home; the 'wai' - the hands-together gesture as you meet and greet another; the warmth of welcome from the people: all these taught me lessons for the future.
I was so impressed by the young native Jesuits in Thailand, not least Fr Vinai, ordained in November 2005, and Fr Pichet Saengthien, ordained in May this year. I met both their parents, absolute delights: Fr PichetÕs when they came up to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, when he went to say his first Mass in the village where Fr Vinai's parents live. And Fr VinaiÕs parents, when he took me to meet them in their Karen home-village and in their rice-field.
I'm deeply grateful to Fr Provincial, for giving me this chance to experience another world. Thailand was just right for me just now. And it taught me how to receive graciously, when I had to have others be my voice - Thai language is not easy, with its 40-odd consonants and vowels and five tones. No doubt others will tell me how I'm living up to ŌMai pen raiÕ.
Seven Fountains is an oasis in the midst of a bustling city. Just a couple of hundred yards from the main university campus, it's eight acres of quasi-jungle garden, providing balm and calm for retreatants who come from all over Thailand, as well as from Singapore and Malaysia, and occasionally from the Philippines or further afield. Flame trees and frangipani, bamboo, and a wonderful woodland garden, complete with a bubbling fountain and summer houses, provide a serene sacred space, filled with a variety of exotic birds, squirrels and butterflies and geckos. You might spot a greater racket-tailed drongo here, or red-throated bulbuls, or the greater coucal, and mynah birds are everywhere.
With its 40 individual rooms in four separate units spread throughout the garden, the lifestyle is simple. There's a well-stocked library, standard Thai food, a daily laundry service, and four chapels to choose from, with daily Mass in Thai and English for retreatants. The largest chapel, newly built, with space for two hundred people, also provides a Sunday Mass for the English-speakers - mainly British and American - who live and work in the area. And all this costs just $13US per day!.
The Seven Fountains Chapel Sunday worshippers also provide a Scholarship Sponsorship programme for children and young people from the local hill tribes in Northern Thailand. The only criterion to qualify for a scholarship is extreme poverty. Whilst education is free in Thailand, many of the children live in mountainside villages where there is no school, and have to go to boarding centres during the week, or need money for uniforms or books and stationery. (In Thailand, even university students have a uniform, and very smart they look, too!) So the annual cost might be anything from $60 - $200US, depending on individual circumstances.
Typical examples of children helped by the scheme are as follows. A six-year old boy whose parents have died of AIDS, and being looked after by grandmother, might need school uniform and supplies. A 12-year old boy, one of six children, whose father is in jail, has to board in a hostel. A girl of 16 from a farming family is the first to attend high school, but her family cannot afford to pay her expenses. Or an 18-year old graduate from high school and who wants to go into nursing and needs help to pay for her board.
Whilst I was there I was privileged to witness the annual service of thanksgiving from some of these children. About 80 of them came down with their parents and helpers from their Karen villages on the mountainsides a couple of hours drive away. The service was literally touching, as it consisted of the children washing the hands of their benefactors with lustral water they had brought from their villages.
So, who are the Jesuits who staff this amazing Seven Fountains Centre? When I was there, there were five of them, a rich international community, a quarter of the Jesuits in the whole of Thailand.
Fr Beda Yassao SJ is the youthful Superior and he hails from Indonesia.
Fr Vinai Boonlue SJ is a Karen hill tribe Jesuit, whose family live a couple of hours' drive from Chiang Mai. You will know of him from his article in the last edition of Jesuits and Friends. He is deeply grateful for the overwhelming response readers made to his appeal.
Fr Miguel Garsizabal SJ is a Spaniard from Galicia who seems to be in perpetual motion. He is Director of the Centre.
Fr David Townsend SJ, a British Jesuit, who refers to Thailand as 'my country', has been at the Centre for the past seven years, having spent the previous seven years in the Far East with the Jesuit Refugee Service.
The fifth member of the Jesuit community, Fr Iker Villanueva, a Basque, was providing a wonderful example of courage in suffering during my stay. Having spent a lifetime in Thailand, he was suffering from terminal cancer, and it was into his very bones. He was still directing retreatants, and friends from near and far - as far away as Europe - were coming to see him, as they knew the end was near. I almost entitled this article 'What a wonderful world', as that was an email Fr Iker showed me when I went to see him at the end of my own retreat towards the end of my stay. One of his many friends had sent him a singing email with lovely photos to go with the words of SatchmoÕs song. I must have been one of the last people to go to confession to him, and I'll never forget the penance he gave me - to pray for the people I'd hurt without even knowing it.
I said my goodbyes to Fr Iker on the day I left at the end of July, as he lay very ill on his bed, and he died a few days later. With live-in nursing help the Jesuit community kept him at home as long as he was comfortable, but he had to spend the last few days of his life in hospital, where he died peacefully in early August. The Jesuit community and his many friends - some 300 of them - celebrated his living and dying at his Requiem.
'Mai pen rai' is a delightful Thai phrase which means something like 'It doesn't matter'. I've said it many times since I came home, not least in the early days of my new mission as parish priest at Corpus Christi in Boscombe! Whatever happens in the Far East, there's a calmness, even in traffic, and much that we can learn in our western world. No shouting and anger, no losing of face, but a dignity and gentleness about - just 'Mai pen rai'.
I also learned much about reverence and respect. Taking off sandals or shoes - and we were usually barefoot - when going into chapel or into someoneÕs home; the 'wai' - the hands-together gesture as you meet and greet another; the warmth of welcome from the people: all these taught me lessons for the future.
I was so impressed by the young native Jesuits in Thailand, not least Fr Vinai, ordained in November 2005, and Fr Pichet Saengthien, ordained in May this year. I met both their parents, absolute delights: Fr PichetÕs when they came up to Chiang Mai from Bangkok, when he went to say his first Mass in the village where Fr Vinai's parents live. And Fr VinaiÕs parents, when he took me to meet them in their Karen home-village and in their rice-field.
I'm deeply grateful to Fr Provincial, for giving me this chance to experience another world. Thailand was just right for me just now. And it taught me how to receive graciously, when I had to have others be my voice - Thai language is not easy, with its 40-odd consonants and vowels and five tones. No doubt others will tell me how I'm living up to ŌMai pen raiÕ.