By Sr Tammy Saberon SSC

Sister Tammy, from Molave, Zamboanga del Sur, helped to prepare the way for the return of the Columban Sisters (www.columbansisters.org) to Myanmar. They had been forced to leave in the early 1960s when the country was still known as Burma.

It was St Columban’s Day, 23 November 2001 in a small village

Pig for St Columban's Day

of Myitkyina, Myanmar. I was warmly welcomed in the Village of Edin. The people had very little to live on and yet they gave a simple party for me and some money too. I was touched by their generosity. Looking at the simple meal of rice and beans they had for the party, I thought of buying a piglet from the money they gave me. The amount I received from them was just enough to buy a piglet from the FMM Sisters. I bought the biggest one and asked the student-catechists to raise it for me for the next year’s St Columban’s Day. The students were very willing to feed it. Nobody knew that the money I had used to buy the pig was from the villagers.

St Columban’s Day 2002 came and it was arranged that there would be a celebration with everybody invited. It was known that I had a pig to be butchered. I was a bit disappointed that it had not grown as big as I had expected. People said it would not be enough to feed the whole village but they assured me that everyone would get a share of it and of the two sacks of rice that I had bought that afternoon.

Sr Tammy receiving her gifts gathered in a tribal
basket. Myanmar's traditional way of giving
gifts

St Columban’s Day that year was also the feast of Christ the King and Thanksgiving, a harvest festival. Early in the morning the women were already in the catechists’ kitchen to cook for the feast day. The women put the meat and sauce on the rice and wrapped it in banana leaves. These packed meals would be distributed to the people after Mass. What was beautiful and touching was the community spirit they had shown. There were volunteers who gave tomatoes, onions, garlic, banana leaves and firewood.

The Mass was celebrated by Fr Steven from the pre-major seminary and concelebrated by Fr Yawhan, the director of the catechetical school. After Mass, there were gift offerings for me, for the other congregations and the priests. Then I was asked to say a few words. After a few greetings, I told the people about the secret — that the pig we slaughtered for the feast was bought from the money they gave me the year before and that it was not my pig but ‘our pig’. I was apologetic though that it did not grow as big as I had expected and so it was too small for the whole crowd. Spontaneous laughter from the congregation followed. I went on to say that with the gifts they just gave me, maybe we could buy two piglets for the next year’s celebration. When I counted the money, it was indeed enough to buy two. God willing, we’d have a bigger celebration the following year.

After all the speeches were over, the people got their meals packed in banana leaves. Everybody, children and adults, got at least two packs of the meal. They went home very happy. There were leftovers and so some of them had more to bring home. The celebration was simple but joyful and meaningful.

In 2001 I was the only Columban to celebrate the feast but in 2002 Fr Colm Murphy was with me. He was on a three-month stint teaching English at the pre-major seminary before proceeding to Pakistan where he’s assigned. In 2004 four Columban Sisters, Sr Mary Ita O’Brien and Sr Mary Dillon, both Irish, Sr Susanna Choi, a Korean, and Sr Winnie Apao, a Filipina, joined me to re-establish a community of Columban Sisters in Myitkyina and to celebrate St Columban’s Day with the people.