Rangamatia Sacred Heart Parish: Glorious Centenary Celebrations

Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Rangamatia

The Bell Rings!

The simple belltower standing upright the sky close to the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rangamatia comes alive three times a day – morning, noon and evening. The ringing of the bell sends soundwaves across villages dotting vast, lush green paddy fields bisected and washed afoot by a serpentine canal that connects the massive, legendary Belai Beel (marshland). The sound of the bell is a proud declaration of the centuries-old faith, joys and anguish, struggles and triumphs of a simple, resilient and extraordinary Christian community.

The parish has more than 3,700 Catholics from diverse backgrounds and professions, from farmers and day laborers to government and private jobholders, from permanent residents in six villages to non-residents living in cities and towns. Every family has remarkable stories of challenges and achievements, from the impoverished agrarian life to modernities, from illiteracy to academic excellence and from plunging to pitfalls to rising like phoenix bird.

Every story is blended with the strong faith in God inherited from their ancestors and love for family. From birth to death the life of local Catholics evolves around the simple but historic parish Church that marked glorious centenary in 2023. This wonderful saga of faith, hope and love is a testimony to the advent, growth and progress of Catholicism in Bangladesh in the past centuries.

Bangladesh Church 'needs more support'

 

Father Andrew Small, OMI with a child in Sylhet of Bangladesh

The Catholic Church in Bangladesh needs more prayers and support from the Universal Church to carry out its missionary activities, according to Father Andrew Small, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. 

Fr Small, a confrere from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation, was speaking yesterday at the end of a week-long tour of the country. Fr Small’s tour included visiting parishes and tea estate villages in the newly erected Sylhet diocese in northeastern Bangladesh. 

He also made a courtesy call on most of the local bishops at the Apostolic Nunciature in Dhaka, visited the country’s only Holy Spirit National Major Seminary and saw a remote mission center in Shimulia in Gazipur district. 

Appointed last year Fr Small praised the local Church saying it is making a significant difference in the lives of the poor and powerless in spite of the limited resources and influence at its disposal. 

“I was surprised to see the extreme poverty here, it was not known to me,” he said. “The world and the Church need to know this story,” he observed, adding: “People have lot of love and respect and joy with the little support they have from us, but they need to have more of our prayers and support.” 

He said the world needs to learn more from the Church in Bangladesh about how it has found a very good way to coexist in a Muslim majority country. 

Oblate Bishop Bejoy D’Cruze of Sylhet said Fr Andrew’s visit has brought renewed hope for the local Church. 

“The Church has lot to do for the poor and needy but lacks resources. Poor Catholics have strong faith amid numerous challenges they face every day and they do need more support from us,” he said.

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Original Article:

Church 'needs more support'