A week off

Assumption Cathedral features in my Bangkok

Every Sunday, I go to the cathedral to preside at the 10am mass in English.  It has become a focal point of my weekly routine and a source of rewarding pastoral activity.  I enjoy it, recognizing that it nourishes my life in my Bangkok.  This week, it is not to be as I have been given a day off by the Cardinal.  After all, it is his cathedral.

What is the occasion?  This coming Sunday, the Cardinal and bishops of the country have decided to host a mass at the cathedral to celebrate the occasion of Thailand's having a new king.  This highlights for me a number of reflections.  One is the relationship between culture and religion, and here, where culture is such an important feature in the life of Thais, this is ever present and ever powerful. 

There are two key elements to being Thai that are captured in their flag.  First, to be Thai is to be Buddhist.  Second, at the centre of Thai society and life is their king.  When one is Thai but not not Buddhist and belongs to a universal body, the church, there are some real conundrums at play, both at personal and institutional levels.

These can be simply named as:
I am Thai but not Buddhist.  How can this be?
I am Thai but have at the same time a central belonging to a body much bigger than my Thailand and with its pope.  What does this mean for a Thai?

In being a Thai Catholic, there are some powerful undercurrents pulling simultaneously at both individual Catholics and their Church.  Having a week off does not deny these undercurrents.  It only serves to highlight them and make one ever wonder what is really going on and where is it all leading for a Thailand in the 21st century? 

The basic challenge for Church here can be summed up by the two, age old, competing paradigms of Church - the Church triumphant versus the the poor and suffering Church.  I know where I stand.  For Thais, this remains ever a deeply rooted, conflicting conundrum as their structured and hierarchical culture pushes them and keeps them in one corner, while the universal Church of a Pope Francis serves to push them in the other direction. 

Within such a basic tension, one does need a week off.