This year we could not celebrate the feast of our Father Saint Dominic as we would have liked, due to the restrictions caused by the pandemic Covid-19. However, having kept the current policies issued by our bishops for religious celebrations, the Dominican Sisters and Brothers from Yangon, with their respective aspirants, came together on the 8th of August to celebrate this important day for us.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, we jointly held the Evening Prayer, led by Fr Fernando, who gave a short allocution during the celebration. Then, at 5:00 pm, we had a solemn Eucharistic celebration presided over by the superior of the house; Fr Paul Aung Myint Win, OP, who gave us the homily in the Burmese language. He spoke first about St Dominic’s life; then, he encouraged us to imitate his virtues, as the best way to celebrate his feast. At the end of the Eucharist we sang the solemn Salve Regina, pleading our mother Mary to continue protecting us as he did during Dominic’s time, and the ‘O Spem Miram’ to remind St Dominic to accomplish today what he promised at the hour of his death.
Following the Spanish saying ‘después de la Misa, la mesa’, after the celebration of the Eucharist, we shared an abundant dinner, while sharing also in living conversation different experiences of our Dominican lives.
From 7 to 9 in the evening, we enjoyed a “cultural” presentation in which the aspirants of the Dominican Sisters represented the life of St Dominic and our aspirants made a presentation of the social problems affecting the lives of the young people and of many families in Myanmar. Our congratulations to all the young aspirants who did truly brilliant performance. The program was crowned by two songs: one, with the popular tune of “Dominique, nique, nique” and the other, on the life of St Dominic.
The last number of the program, with which the evening gathering ended, was a special one: a number of questions on the life of St Dominic and on the Order of Preachers being asked to the aspirants. Presents were awarded to those who answered correctly to the questions.
We sincerely thank Sister Rosa OP who so well designed and presented the program. Our gratitude also goes to our Deacon, Brother Abraham, the one in charge of the songs for the celebration.
All of us enjoyed this year’s celebration and think that it was worth; even though this year we could not have the presence of the all the Brothers and Sisters working in this Mission of Myanmar, nor was it possible to have with us this time some of the youth, friends and benefactors of our parishes.
By Fr. Fernando Muñoz, OP.
