ECCLESIA IN ASIA Mongolia, Christmas with the Virgin found in a landfill

The story is told to us from Ulaanbaatar by Card. Giorgio Marengo -elected by Pope Francis in the last consistory. In the steppe, the cardinal guides a Church founded just 30 years ago, which today has 1,400 faithful. “The coal scandal has exasperated people at an already difficult time. This Christmas, my wish for my people in Mongolia is that we can discover that this Child has been born to take ever deeper roots, among us too” .

Ulaanbaatar () – “We begin our Christmas on December 8. All together. Consecrating Mongolia to the Virgin, before the image of the Immaculate Conception that was found among the garbage.” The speaker is the youngest cardinal of the current Catholic Church. But not only because of his 48 years. Giorgio Marengo, an Italian Consolata missionary, is the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar and is the face of a Church that was born barely 30 years ago. He is the Church of Mongolia, a small flock that brings together 1,400 faithful scattered in the different communities of this immense country. And a few weeks ago, they all met in the capital to unite in a gesture that lights up this Christmas.

“The statue of the Immaculate Conception was found in a dump in northern Mongolia ten years ago,” says Father Marengo from Ulaanbaatar, where the temperature reaches 20 degrees below zero. “It was discovered by a non-Christian woman, mother of 11 children, who had some contact with the nuns of Mother Teresa. While going through the garbage that a truck had dumped – as the poor do in all latitudes – he came across a strange cloth wrapper. When he opened it, he found himself before this beautiful wooden statue of the Immaculate Conception, 62 cm high, very fine. Not knowing what it was, the woman took it home and said: this beautiful lady wanted to come to me… Until the nuns, when They went to visit her, saw the image and asked her where it came from.’

For some years the statue remained in the parish office. “I found out about all this last year,” continues Card. Marengo, “and at that moment I thought: The Virgin wants to tell us something. I went to the place, I met the lady. Later, on March 25 – on the Feast of the Annunciation – we officially moved the statue to Ulaanbaatar with the idea of ​​enthroning it in the cathedral, so that it would be better known and venerated by all.”

This led to the celebration of December 8, which was also accompanied by another significant gesture. “We invited all our faithful, 1,400 Catholics, to send us a piece of cloth that had a special meaning for them – continues the Apostolic Prefect -, accompanied by a phrase, a prayer. With them, we formed a cloak and offered it to Our Lady, presenting our prayers. It was a precious moment, very emotional”. This gesture comes in an important year for the small Church of Mongolia, which was born in 1992. “Today we will have Christmas masses in the different communities”, explains Father Marengo, “but on Saint Stephen’s Day we will have a moment of meeting and celebration with all the missionaries and lay collaborators, to conclude the 30th anniversary”. There will also be a small nativity scene with some of our young people’.

This Christmas coincides with a delicate moment for Mongolia: in recent weeks the country has been rocked by protests against corruption, related to the sale of coal. This theft is on everyone’s lips here,” says the cardinal, “the government itself has admitted it. The resentment is accentuated by the fact that the country is not in a calm situation from an economic point of view, people feel cheated. The government has announced rules for greater transparency in state companies, which are used for parallel trade in coal, for the benefit of a few. But the crisis has been strong.” As for the war between Russia and Ukraine, for us, the main effect has been the influx of Russians fleeing their land, especially from neighboring Buryatia. “But for many, Mongolia is not it is more than a place of transit, which allows them to reach other countries”, affirms the cardinal.

What do you want for your faithful this Christmas? “Together with them, express the enormous gratitude that we feel for everything that has happened in these thirty years of our Church: it is a small seed that in a relatively short time has already borne fruit. Gratitude, also, for the dedication of Mons. Wenceslao Padilla (the previous apostolic prefect, of Filipino origin, who died in 2018, ed.) and for that of many other missionaries, but also a spirit of commitment to put down ever deeper roots, to discover more and more of this child who was born for us. It reminds us of the realism of the incarnation: the manger is the place where the baby Jesus was placed to be our food in the Eucharist. It is the Lord, who remains here among us”.

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