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Father Vachon, who is well known in the Society's chapels in Canada, sent this letter to some faithful. We are happy to share it with you, as it describes with realism and humour the life of the Society's priest in Asia.

 

Kurana-Negomba, Lent 1999

Dear Friends,

When I left Canada at the end of September, Father Couture gave me the privilege to stay one month in the Philippines, before going to Sri Lanka (where I am now), and to India (eventually 6 months later). (After Easter)

In tropical Asia, the first thing that strikes you, when you get out of the plane, is the heat. It is hot! . . . and humid! . . . You perspire without even moving, and having a ventilator is absolutely vital, an air conditioning is not a luxury, and you don't need hot water to take your shower. Winter is synonym of rain, it does not rain all the time, but when it rains, it falls like drapes! . . . A rain coat is useless in these countries, unless you are in the middle of a super typhoon. Usually, because of the heat, the only thing you need is an umbrella. The ocean stream causing the weather is called "La Ninia" during winter, and "El Ninio" during summer, and it is like that every single year . . .

The second thing that strikes you is the amount of population . . . huge! . . . In Manila only, there are 12 million people on a area smaller than the one of Toronto. You have the impression that nobody is at home and that they are all circulating in the streets.

There is so much air and noise pollution caused by the diesel jeepneys and buses, no wonder why there are no mosquitoes ...

The third thing that strikes you is the food . . . always fried (they don't know what is a green salad) . . . and always hot (how can they support it with this kind of weather?) . . . My only advice, don't make at once all the experiments, don't play superman with the peppers, the balut, or the durian, give yourself time to adapt, stay away from "heating" food and stick to "cooling" food for awhile (we do not realize how big is the step for our bodies), otherwise you end like a pendulum...oscillating between diarrhea and constipation...when only garlic can save you!

The Philippines are the most Catholic country in the world. It has been first evangelized by the Spanish, then it went under English domination, and then it obtained its masonic independence with religious liberty in its constitution (exactly 100 years ago in 1898).

In spite of that, it still remains very Catholic. The great majority practice on Sundays. When they meet the priest, they take his hand and bring it to their forehead as a sign of blessing. You see Catholic pictures and statues everywhere. On boulevards and big intersections, they put advertisements like "Families who pray together stay together" and now "Keep Christ in Christmas." On all vehicles, we can see the name of God, Jesus, Mary, or Joseph, or a rosary on the mirror, or a holy picture on the dash. They are probably still Catholic because of their devotion to Our Lady, specially to "Our Lady of La Navalle" who saved them many times from the invasion of the Protestant Dutch by miraculous victories on the sea through the Rosary.

The people are poor, policeman are at the doors of every important store, but everybody is doing a little something for a living. Families are still having lots of activities together, children are often playing in the street and adults are still having animated conversations among themselves in front of their houses during the evening.

The smallest vehicle there is a little 100cc motorbike with a buggy on the side, the whole set covered with a roof, and believe it or not, it can carry up to 12 persons climbed all over the place, and it is still going! The most popular vehicle is the "jeepney", kind of station wagon jeep used by the Americans in the last war, that they now use for public transportation in the small streets. The most popular car is the Toyota Corolla. Finally, the big buses are taking care of the big streets. Transportation is very cheap, and it is not measured in terms of distance but in terms of time, because it is a continuous rush hour, except in the middle of the night.

Some animals are friendly, the lizards eat the mosquitoes, and the ants keep the house clean. Some are less friendly, the cockroaches eat your food, the spiders make your house dirty, and the king cobras in the banana fields are not very welcoming, but we understand.

Besides the fact that a good cook is the most difficult thing on earth to find . . . and to keep! . . ., the food itself is excellent. The tropics carry many kinds of fruits. The Philippines are the paradise of mangos, pineapples, bananas, papayas and coconuts.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg, you can taste also lanzoes, rambutans, calamansis, parsimmons , guavas, guayabanos, atis, star-apples, chicos, tambis, macupas, seniguiles, sampoloks, and the very energetic but dangerous jackfruits and durians, and more. They say that "durian smells like hell and tastes like heaven" . . . you can try the most smelly cheeses on the market, you are not even there! . . . the smell is so horrible and so strong that you are forbidden to carry this thing on any public transportation! . . . to say that it tastes like heaven, now, is another story, I let you try it for yourself . . . But the hell of hell is still the balut . . . it is not a fruit, it is an egg, cooked in the shell . . . 12 days after being fertilized . . . I don't say more...Hearts that are too sensitive, please abstain.

In Manila, at Our Lady of Victories Church, there are 5 Society priests, plus Bishop Lazo and Father Sand who joined the group (therefore a dynamic community life for the priests), 4 Dominican sisters have also left their modernist convent to start a traditional one with us (thanks to the work of the Dominican Father Marie Dominique from Avrille, France, who is helping us temporarily for one year already), there are about 500 faithful, without counting all those in the missions (and they all go to confession! . . . and many of them to catechism!), there is a large polyphonic choir directed by a woman who is a famous professional singer (when I was there last October, they were practicing the choral movements of Handel's Messiah with the intention of singing them all around at Christmas), there is a youth group, the Apostles of Mary, that is very dynamic mostly in the south of the Philippines (who organize doctrinal session, pilgrimages, and other activities regularly), there is the men's group, the Knights of Our Lady (just starting), and of course the Legion of Mary.

Father Couture is trying to persuade the president to consecrate all the Philippics to Our lady. Many baranquays and provinces have already been consecrated by the respective authorities.

The modernists, which have as their head Cardinal Sin (yes, that's his true name), continue to persecute us with their calumnies (saying that the excommunication is valid and that the schism is real), and we continue to answer back through some good connections with the newspapers and the TV During the last TV report, they presented the modern "mass" and the traditional mass side by side, and interviewed all of our Society priests who made a great impression.

Father Couture declared that the only arguments brought up by the modernists are always those about obedience, that they systematically avoid all questions concerning faith. Bishop Lazo declared that they can excommunicate him as much as they want, he knows that God is not with them.

Lots of people in the Philippines are now in the right disposition to react to this crisis of the Church, and it is time to do something . . . fast! . . . Their economy is improving, and the TV is now in all the homes, even of the poorest, and it is swallowing everybody up with this American way, with this dream of happiness through materialism and through this "love without law", which is the most destructive thing that Satan is using to destroy human kind.

Sri Lanka has been populated by the Arabians (they really look like them, while the Filipino look more like Chinese).

They were evangelized by the Portuguese, then went under Dutch, and English domination...no wonder why the main production for exportation is...tea.

Since its independence, in 1948, the country became a member of the Common Wealth, and Ceylon changed its name back to Sri Lanka, which means Shining Star.

To tell you the truth, when I arrived there, I did not find it shining at all . . . From the airport to the mission, the road was all bumpy, narrow, with the heaviest traffic you can imagine, full of people driving like Italians in Rome, among which the most dangerous racers were the bus drivers! The most terrible unconfort, noise, smoke, and danger was my first contact with this country . . . And the rectory. . . was located right on the side of that road! . . . so my first experience was going to be permanent! . . . Don't worry, I finished to get used to the noise, but my first driving experience ended up with a truck breaking my mirror, and a van bumping me on the side, when both were passing me, on the left please when the conventions were British! . . . Don't worry again, Father Davodeau succeeded to change these impressions when, during the visit of Father Couture, he took us all in the van for a visit inside the country . . What a beautiful land it is . . with its mountains covered with plantations of tea, grooved by torrents, and high enough to escape the heat! . . . During the night that we spent in the highest city there, the temperature went down to 16 Celsius . . . absolutely delightful . . . We could not visit any tea factory, but on the way, we stopped at the elephant orphanage, and went for a ride . . .

Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is the kingdom of Buddhism (70% of the population), then comes Hinduism (15 %), then Christians and Muslims (7% each). The Catholic centre of the country is Negombo (80% of the city), where the mission is established. Everybody has a great respect for the priest, whatever religion he represents. Catholics also, especially children, ask for special blessings, they don't take the hand of the priest, but they join their own hands in front of their face in sign of prayer, and the priest blesses them with his thumb on the forehead. Also they like firecrackers very much at the occasion of the great feasts.

They are poorer than the people in the Philippines, lots of the country's budget goes for the war against the Tamils in the north of the island, tourism is low (probably because the welcoming is made at the airport by the army), but the war does not affect us other than slowing down the economy. The average salary is 3000 rupees/month (equivalent to 75 Canadian dollars), but the quality of goods and services cost the same thing as in other countries. Everybody does a little something for a living. They eat always the same thing . . . rice and curry . . .

Their smallest taxi vehicle is a 3 wheel scooter, the most popular vehicle is the Toyota Hiace van, there are no jeepneys, all public transportation is done by buses, and it is very cheap.

Here at St. Francis Xavier mission, there are now 3 priests (the community life is therefore more open and more dynamic), the prior Father Davodeau (French) is still a spring chicken, Father Egli (Swiss German) is an old missionary from Africa, and myself somewhere between the two . . . There are also 2 Franciscan sisters rescued from modernism, who rescue at their turn with their nursing abilities the poor having health problems. There is also a Catholic school where lay teachers are taking care of the kinder garden children in the morning, and where in the afternoon the sisters are teaching Catechism and English to the children in higher elementary grades (English is essential to qualify for a job, just like Catechism for Heaven . . .) There are 70 faithful who come to mass and catechism on Sundays, only half of them understand English, so we have to learn Singalese and meanwhile use an interpreter, they support us the way they can, but without our trips to Singapore and the help from outside, the mission could not survive (if you want to help, we are registered under the name of "Association of St. Joseph"). We have free entries to the newspapers, we can easily defend our position by writing articles, and correspondence takes a great part of the apostolate, but people are not educated and the fruits take a long time to come . . . Meanwhile, we have an excellent cook (he started from scratch too . . . and from wood fire we trained him to work on propane . . . now he is able to cook the best European cuisine . . . when we have the ingredients. . .), he is certainly a good consolation in this isolation, which often reminds us that our great work for the Church Mystical Body of Our Lord is first a life of prayer, meditation, study, and sacrifice . . . The community has a good spirit, I recommend everybody here to your prayers, I thank you again for the beautiful farewell that you gave me, and even if it is true that we must put all our consolation in the Lord, please remember that a humble and joyful zeal in God's service is (unconscious but definitely) the best encouragement that we can give to each other, and that in this part of the world news from the motherland will make people more happy. Remember the deal, I will pray for you if you pray for me.

A holy and happy Easter
God bless. Father Richard Vachon+