တႈစံးဘ်ဳးတႈလုႈမံးဆါ ဒီးထုကဖဥနႈ့တႈလ႕ Bishop John Saw Yaw Han အဂီႈ

မိႈပႈဖံဒီပုႈ၀ဲႈတံၚသကိးခဲလ႕ဏသ့ဥဧ႕” မ္သုကဘဥအမုဏထီဘိတက့ႈ” တႈဂ့ႈလ႕ပပဏဖ်ါထီဥအီၚလ႕ အဲကလံးအက်ိဏအံၚ ပကက့ၚကြဲးက်ိဏက့ၚအီၚဆူ ကညီက်ိဏ ဖဲတဎံဏလ႕ၚ၀ဲအကတီႈနဥ့လီၚ’ မ္သုကဘဥဆိဥဂ့ၚထီဘိတက့ႈ’ တႈဘ်ဳး”

Dear Sgaw Karen Readers

Greeting from Sgaw Karen Service. We will traslate the script below once it is uploaded onto the RVA English Website. You may read it in English for the mean time. Thank you and God bless!

Farewell to Bishop John Saw Yaw Han with the Holy Mass

Farewell and thanksgiving mass for Bishop John Saw Yaw Han took place in St Mary Cathedral in Yangon, Myanmar on November 19 2022 Saturday. His Eminence Cardinal Charles Bo, Bishop Noel Saw Naw Aye, Priests of Yangon Archdiocese and about a thousand of the faithful were present on the occasion. The event was live streamed on the social media of CBCM-OSC and Radio Veritas Asia Karen Service. Thousands of the people in the land and outside of the country have followed the event on Social Media.

(Below is the Homily of Bishop John Saw Yaw Han during Farewell mass)

Bishop John Saw Yaw Han began his homily by saying words of divine blessing to His Eminence Cardinal Charles Bo, Bishop Noel Saw Naw Aye, all the priests, religious, catechists, the faithful.

Today, we offer thanksgiving mass. I have been as a priest for 20 years, as a bishop for 7 years. Although not worthy of being in such position, I recall the graces that I have received altogether for 27 years and I thank God. I ask for the divine wisdom and the graces.

Before being a priest, I have ever learnt religious practices since my youth from my parents, teachers, religious sisters who taught me catechism and all of my friends. I thank all of them.

I am grateful to His Grace Archbishop Gabriel Mahn Thohey who ordained me to priesthood, His Eminence Cardinal Charles Bo, who ordained me to be a bishop, Bishop Noel Saw Naw Aye with whom I have been working together, all my brother priests, religious, catechists, all the faithful, all friends of different denominations, all friends from Buddhism, Hinduism, Islamism.

I am grateful to all those who helped and supported me in prayer and in different ways along the way towards priesthood.

I am grateful to all those who accompanied and supported me after being ordained as a bishop.

Looking back to the past, I have seen that I was not alone in this mission journey. It is through the supports of the faithful that I could make this 27 years journey. I fell that Pope Francis’ synodal process (a Church that journeys together) gives light to the journey that I made in the past.

We are making a journey towards the same destination. If the priests, religious and the making different ways, we will be faraway from our goal. As the Church is encouraging to make our journey together, we are to be careful that we may not deviate from our right path. We are to encourage each other, to have consideration for each other, and we are to strive to be more united.

I encounter a question of how do I feel that I have to transfer to another diocese. I was asked by a priest whether I am happy or sad for the transfer. Being happy or sad is a sort of human nature in each person. I grew up in a civil service family I have to move from place to place as my father had to transfer. Transferring from place to place is not new to me. From the primary school to the matric education high school, I have ever been in 9 schools in 9 different places. Every time when I have to depart from relatives and friends, there is sadness which is very natural. The was also worry whether things would go well with me in a new place. When things went well, life seemed to be pleasant. But when there were inconveniences there was worries too.

Being a priest during the time between 1995 and 2000, I am blessed to be in Nyaungdon Parish, Kengtung Parish, Pyin Oo Lwin Major Seminary, Bago Minor Seminary, St John Maung Htaw Lay, St Lazarus Church Insein. The lessons that I acquired is that in every place we are the house owners temporarily. In every place we are just guests. It make me to understand that our eternal home is our heavenly kingdom. I had to make a move during my time of schooling, during the time of priesthood as well as during the time as a bishop. As Jesus said,” Put out into deep water and let down your nets,” I have to make a move to a border region of Kengtung endowed with lovely cultures, beautiful mountains and nature. It is truly a wonderful divine grace.

Some like to ask how do I feet to move to another mission territory. There is no another mission territory in the Catholic Church. There is only one single mission territory for God. We are priests or religious not only for a single group of people in a single place. As the Lord says,“ Go out to all nations,” there is no limitation for going to other places and peoples. We all understand that missionaries are for all the people of all places. Through our love, humility and services, every place is our home and all are our relatives to whom we meet. As we have heard from the Gospel “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your will,” I feel that this should be the word for all of us to ponder over. As the angel said to Mother Mary not to be afraid, I am confident that the necessary grace is with me to where I am sent. What the angel said to Mother Mary is also meant to me I feel. What sort of the situation may be, I make up my mind that I will serve with enthusiasm till the end. I ask for your prayer so that I may serve with love and humility.

Lastly, I would like to ask for your forgiveness. Due to my words, thoughts, my imperfection along the journey of 27 years in priesthood there can be hurts to anyone. There could be irritation and annoyance to the people due to my weakness and imperfection in the mission. I would like to ask for your forgiveness for all my imperfections if any. I would like to request your prayers so that I may realize my abilities and disabilities  in my future mission.

Let us forgive each other and ask for the forgiveness of God the Father according to the prayer we pray in Our Father. (Homily of Bishop John Saw Yaw Han).

(Below is the speech of His Eminence Cardinal Charles Bo)

The is a mixture of happiness and sadness on this day. It is our happiness that the Archdiocese of Yangon could offer a bishop to another diocese. Giving, offering is a sign of maturity and we are happy on it. We are to know that a priest is ordained bishop for the Universal Church. Bishop John Saw Yaw Han had ever been as Donum Fidei in Kengtung for about 3 years and he is already familiar to the priests and the people in the diocese.

It is our sadness to offer our beloved and precious bishop to another diocese. Young priests are to be ready to become bishops in the place of Bishops John Saw Yaw Han in Yangon Archdiocese. Some dioceses are still in need of bishops and some bishops in some dioceses are sickly and we are in need of more bishops in future.

(Farewell speech of bishop John Saw Yaw Han)

I will go not alone to a new place but with the accompaniment of people’s prayers. I believe that the people in Kengtung diocese are waiting for me. Temporarily I will be house owner there and I am always welcoming the visits of the people of Yangon Archdiocese. I do not know how long I will be there but let us meet in our eternal home one day.