surat ke-2 bulan Maret 2005

2) 5th Sunday of Lent, March 13, 2005

Monday, March 07, 2005. In the afternoon I had a group discussion in the class of Theology of Mission at the house of Melissa, a LSTC (Lutheran School) student. It’s a quite good discussion in which I could express my idea into words spontaneously. After arrived home, I called up Ms. Digna, the supervisor of CPE at Alexian Brothers Hospital to make sure that my letter arrives. Yes, she has received my letter and check for the CPE tuition.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005. In the morning I went to Norbertin House to have theological reflection and this time, Bill, the Norbertin deacon shared his reflection. In the afternoon I met my formator with the result that I can make final profession next year probably in March 2006 together with other Xaverian students. I accept this suggestion gratefully, flexibly and openly. So that this one year ahead is my personal preparation into definitive answer of this lifelong process vocation towards missionary-religious-priesthood. I printed out my letters to be sent to some Xaverian confreres and my family in Indonesia.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005. In the morning I borrowed 9 books at CTU library and in the afternoon I cooked for my community: Lasagna and Garlic Bread. In the evening because I had malaise on my body then I used my traditional healing (‘kerokan’ = rubbing my body and neck with a coin and oil).

Thursday, March 10, 2005. The whole day it’s snowing rather heavily. In the evening we had a community meeting about evaluation of vow of chastity.

Friday, March 11, 2005. I just remained in my room doing my journal/paper of the spirituality of a new millennium. In the evening after having supper Ignas gave me a ride to my ministry site, a retreat house, David Darst Center on 2834 South Normal Ave. There was already one group from a college in Michigan having retreat since Monday. At night, one volunteer, an old lady named Pat from Michigan, came to the retreat house.

Saturday, March 12, 2005. In the morning at 9.30, there was one sophomore high school students from San Miguel came to the retreat house then we visited a nursing home called H.O.M.E (House Opportunity Maintenance for Elderly) at Northside of Chicago, close by Loyola University. There were 10 students, and all of them Hispanic descendants. We were doing service hour, washing windows of the resident’s rooms. There were a lot of elderly people from Russia, Guatemala, and some other countries. In the afternoon together with the elderly people we played Bingo. We returned to the retreat house and prayed the closing prayer. At 4 p.m. there was another group coming from Austin, Texas. They were from Edward Catholic University, 7 college students and one coordinator. They flew from Texas since morning and rent a van car at O’Hare airport. All of them are girls and the coordinator named Margy, graduated of M.Div Loyola University Chicago, knew Alexis, a former Xaverian student in the Peacebuilders group at CTU. We had supper in the evening cooked by a new cook named Carolina. We started first session led by Sister Paula then she gave me chance to lead a rope game then I led them to prepare night prayer with Bible about the rich and the poor. I think it is the first time I spoke in front of the retreatans about the topic that matched to Sister Paula’s introduction though not too much talk.

Sunday, March 13, 2005. In the morning we went to Saint Basil Visitation Church on 51st and Garfield to attend a Mass at 9 o’clock with Afro-American liturgy then we had hospitality with the parishioners at the basement. At 11 a.m. we continued to go to SU CASA, the Catholic Worker House at 51st Street. This time, a Mercy sister, named Pat, the sister of Brother Denis Murphy, guided us to know about the history of this house. There was also one lady, a survivor of military torture from El Salvador who came to the USA in 1993. This house is used for immigrants of Latin American countries. At noon we helped out at the soup kitchen close to the SU CASA and gathered having lunch with homeless people, mostly Afro-Americans. While Pat guided the retreatans to have a tour of Chicago land, Sister Paula and I went back to the retreat house and I left the retreat house at 4 p.m. I gave some letters to Liza-Edi in order to be sent to some of my families and some Xaverian houses in Indonesia since they will depart to Indonesia this coming Thursday. I returned to Hyde Park and wrote this journal.

In my course of spirituality in a new millennium I wrote my journal as follows:

07 February 2005
Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)
One of the four great Post-impressionists (along with Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Paul Cézanne), Vincent van Gogh is generally considered the greatest Dutch painter after Rembrandt. His reputation is based largely on the works of the last three years of his short ten-year painting career, and he had a powerful influence on expressionism in modern art. He produced more than 800 oil paintings and 700 drawings, but he sold only one during his lifetime. His striking colors, coarse brushwork, and contoured forms display the anguish of the mental illness that drove him to suicide.
The life of Van Gogh was not smoothly flowing in a well carrier, instead he had a lot of disappointment to others such as rejected in love and had a conflict with his colleagues that drew him to solitary. 'What am I in the eyes of most people – a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person – somebody who has no position in society and never will have, in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then – even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.' (Letter to Theo, July 21, 1882).
He tried to see his possibility become a minister of the Church but he failed and continued to pursue what his life to be. His mobility from one city to others is evident that he was searching his very meaning of life but never finished to find it. He had a good and mutual relationship to his brother, Theo, to whom he sent letters during 18-years counted 650 letters. Theo died just six months after Vincent, probably of a broken heart. The last thing Vincent done was to write to his brother, Theo and lay on his bed bleeding to death, with his letter in his hand. Vincent shot himself and took him two days in a solitary place to die.
Reading on Van Gogh’s life draws me to my own experience in searching the meaning of my life. When I was young, I also tried to see possibilities to become and to be something in my future until I found my vocation to be a religious in a missionary order of the Xaverians. Like Vincent who was enduring trials and errors in his life that cost him a solitary and deep depression and suicidal, I see myself as a person often times having fluctuation of feeling to others in relationship that is not always easy. How could I handle my downs’ life so far? I believe it is not because of me but God who loves and saves me through others so that I do not fall into danger risk of ending my life. In the spirituality of a new millennium, it is a proper example to learn of Vincent how we as individual persons relate to others without being fall into deep depression. First of all, probably we should have a deep self-knowledge of ourselves then we invite and surrender on God’s grace and love in a creative ways. Vincent gave us extraordinary example that with his dark life he could fill his life with artistic expression in producing tremendous paintings. In his painting the Sower, I read his passionate action to finish his work: “I am stopping at the ‘Sower,’ which I am working on, and which is not coming off as I should wish. Being ill, however, I have thought a lot about continuing this work and when I do it, I do it calmly, as you will soon see when I send the five or six finished canvases.” The very question to me is: how do I express my feeling in such a way that I develop myself with God’s grace for others and myself in the art of faith-hope-love? "Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum." (Vincent van Gogh, 21 July 1882).

14 February 2005
Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897)
Reading and reflecting on the life of Therese, I see the importance and influence of family in one’s life. Indeed, her desire to join the Carmelite monastery was influenced very much on the examples of her older sisters, namely Marie, Pauline, Celine who entered this religious life. Her idealistic life was shaped and developed by her patience, perseverance, devotion and strong relationship to Jesus. No wonder then she was named after ‘Child of Jesus.’ In her monastic life, she was struggling with her sickness and relationship to other nuns that eventually she could transform it into a virtue of LOVE. She found her life mission is to LOVE others unconditionally like Jesus did. I wonder if she did not enter a religious life, did she become an extraordinary saint? I think that the monastic life had a high factor of her sainthood in the eyes of the Catholic Church but personally, I think she would have been a saint in her life even though she would never become a nun since a holiness is not determined by one’s status or way of life. Her vocation choice plus her personality in searching God in a special way evoked a legalized sainthood in our Church. My own family also have influenced me a lot in what I am now and have shaped me in such a way in my personality I carry out in my religious life living together with my confreres from many different part of the world. It is a challenge and at the same time as a wonderful grace that I ever have in my life.
In the Carmelite life, Therese had ups and downs experience, both desolation and consolation in her spiritual and ordinary daily life. In her suffering she could unite it with Jesus’ cross. Her intimate relationship to God, she documented in her journal and letters. She could write her life memory starting her very young age in her beloved family since she had been living in the monastery. It seems that she had both positive and negative (traumatic) experience such as the death of her mother when she was four years old of age. In the suffering and joy, she put her feeling, affection, mind, idea into words of her writings. The number and content of her writing are evident as a fruit of her passionate, reflective and fervent effort in her young age. I am very touched with her writing regarding her suffering experience as she wrote: “I suffer, the more Isuffer the more I love; the more I love the more Iwant to suffer. I suffer, I love, I no longer suffer…abandonment the only confess.” It gives me courage to endure my own suffering in my life when there seems no hope and no love. I come to realize that I can be strongly grateful to little grace when I have experienced ‘suffering’. In term of spirituality in a new millennium, I can say that Therese’ life has inspired many people to be aware of the little things in ordinary life and try to connect both hidden spiritual and busyness life toward balance integration of love both vertically and horizontally. 15 February 2005.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)
I am impressed by Merton’s spirituality that never satisfied to settle in one spirituality but always tried to find the meaning of life in solitude, concerned on social problem even world problem, opened to other spirituality especially between West and East, and paradox in his life journey in many aspects. In my own journal I jotted down some quotations of Merton which I am interested to ponder them and reflect them to my own life. In this reflection I just simply quote them and comment with my own words as follow.
“This kind of monasticism cannot be extinguished. It is imperishable. It represents an instinct of the human heart, and it represents a charism given by God to man. It cannot be rooted out, because it does not depend on man. It does not depend on cultural factors, and it does not depend on sociological or psychological factors. It is something much deeper.” He finished the talk, suggesting that questions wait until the evening session and concluded with the words, “So I will disappear” (The last words of Thomas Merton, OCSO). Merton’s conviction on the syle of monastic life is a kind of prophetic message in our days as we enter a crisis of vocation in the religious life. His last words before he died tragically really gave us a puzzled meaning in many different interpretations. For many people before they close to die, they give a sign and last message that will be remembered by others. That was happened to Merton’s life that his hidden monastic life he embraced showed a deep meaning his never ending spirituality in his effort to connect between world’s issues and contemplative life.
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of ‘separation from the world’ that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudo-angels, ‘spiritual men,’ men of interior life, what have you. …Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.” Merton in his spiritual search came to realize that his solitude life has no difference to others who live in a mundane life. He even was grateful to be one of the ordinary people and trying to question his monastic life. In my own religious life as well, I should be more aware on my conviction that I am not different to others who live out there. I come from an ordinary family and I still one of them then try to be better in this religious life I have chosen in order to be fruitfully bear love to others. Needless to say that I am the same and at the same time I am different with others who live in non religious life.
“Hate is the seed of death in my own heart, while it seeks the death of the other. Love is the seed of life in my own heart when it seeks the good of other.” I always wonder to some people who always complain to other’s behavior and talk negatively as if they have perfect life. Trying to understand others in their positive and negative sides is a lifelong process even to understand oneself is never ending duty in this world. I am a mystery person and also others, so why we have seeds of hatred when we do not know fully ourselves. When I hate others, my heart will not be in peace, so better I pray and wish the best in their life journey. In so doing I will be peace in my heart and peace to others that I will never imagine. It works so far in praying other’s relationship which is damaged by this kind of hatred. My duty as a member of my own family and a minister to bring peace and keep others in my daily prayer so that reconciliation becomes real in other’s life.
“So instead of loving what you think is peace, love other men and love God above all. And instead of hating the people you think are warmakers, hate the appetites and the disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed but hate these things in yourself not in another.” Merton’s remark leads me to see firstly my own heart and life that I believe never finish to work on them in order to be pure in my action. Who am I able to see other’s weaknesses and disable to see clearly my own defects? “For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.”
“Our service of God and of the Church does not consist only in talking and doing. It can also consist in periods of silence, listening and waiting. Perhaps it is very important, in our era of violence and unrest, to rediscover meditation, silent inner unitive prayer, and creative Christian silence.” To face God first of all we should be in a silent manner in order to be ready to listen God’s voice. At the same attitude when we face others, we should take a silent moment listening to their stories in such a way so that they find a good minister who is really a good and attentive listener to their needs and grievances and responsively answering them after confronting God’s voice in silent and attentive states. We should convince ourselves that not us who minister them but God who lives and acts through us, so that we walk humbley with God in this ministry.
“The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him…The only One who can teach me to find God is God, Himself alone.” This quotation ensures my prayer life in times of struggling to find out my own self and the meaning of little events I have in my life that finally I have to return to God who is the source and myster of my life. If I have a sensitive feeling of God’s voice, I should come and unite my will, dream, feeling and acts into it. Only in a mindfulness and silence, can I catch God’s message.
This prayer of Merton is really empowering my faith to surrender totally to God’s hand. It is the basic meaning of faith that without knowing the surety I put my total trust into it, let God arrange and take care of my destiny toward God’s kingdom even though all I face is always mysterious ways in crooked paths.
Merton’s Famous PrayerMy Lord GodI have no idea where I am going.I do not see the road ahead of me.I cannot know for certain where it will end.Nor do I really understand myself.And the fact that I think I am followingYour will does not mean I am actually doing so.But I believe that the desire to please youDoes in fact please you.And I hope I have desire in all that I am doing.I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right roadThough I may know nothing about it.Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost in the shadow of death.I will not fear you are ever with me andYou will never leave me to face my troubles alone.


01 March 2005
Dorothy Day (1897 – 1980)
In the spirituality of a new millennium class, I learned about Dorothy Day and I quote her interesting statements I selected of a book about her in my own weekly journal then I write some reflection upon them.
“Our good readers absolve us from any charges of anticlericalism as they read these rather severe articles on the Church and work. They know that the wish of our heart is to bring closer together the priest and the people. There is a great division between two, and one of the very reasons for the Catholic Worker’s existence is to bridge this gap.” Even though Dorothy knew that the Catholic Church has dark side but she still believed and tried to match people to obey the Church (the authority). It is a hard duty and cordial effort that needs strong inner power to deal with because this kind of tension more often draws to depression and leaving the establishment, namely the Church. She was very faithful to Catholic’s religious practice such as prayer, daily Mass, meditation on the Bible. The Catholic Worker can exist until now because of this vision and mission, namely to connect the power of the Church and the people of God. If it makes separation, sooner or later, it will disappear.
“Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. I have tried to write about it, its joys and its sorrows, for twenty years now; I could probably write about it for another twenty years without conveying what I feel about it as well as I would like. I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. It is a paradox.” Dorothy had very strong concern about the situation of poverty that she perceived as enemy to be overcome. In dealing with it, she realized that it will never finish to wipe out the poverty since it is more than personal matter but moreover social structure that makes people poor and fall in destitution. It is an utopia to kill poverty because people are bound in sins of greedy and proud so that always deep gap separate those two polars both the poor and the rich.
“The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.” I am touched every time I enter the chapel of my ministry, a retreat house, where there is a mural of black and white colour depicting Jesus in the middle of people who take turn in line having food in a soup kitchen. What we do to the least of our brothers/sisters, we do to Jesus our Lord. When we do service with the retreatans in some shelters, I encounter Jesus in many faces of the poor and the needy. It is always struck me to see many people who are need attention and material need even in the richest country like the USA. I wonder with the reality that a lot of food is just thrown away every day and at the same time many people are hunger of food. Why is it happened? How do we connect this surplus and minus so that all get their part justly?
“Sometimes, I think the purpose of the Catholic Worker, quite aside from all our social aims, is to show the providence of God, how God loves us. We are a family, not an institution, in atmosphere, and so we address ourselves especially to families, who have all the woes of insecurity, sin, sickness, and death, side by side with all the joys of family. We talk about what we are doing, because we constantly wonder at the miracle of our continuance.” I believe that if we are doing God’s work and mission, even though it seems hard and impossible but it will be fulfilled eventually. I think it is the faith that Dorothy had in facing difficulty of many aspects and dimensions of her effort in the Catholic Worker. As a minsiter I called to be like so, namely, as an agent of God’s love and providence to the needy. In my own experience, it is my pleasure if I can connect one another in mutual relationship, not for my advantage but for others need. I think about a Buddhist teaching that mentions, “The highest peace of someone if she/he gives help to others.” It is very true that what I do to others without hope receive reply, it will give me peace in my deep heart.
“The most significant thing about the Catholic Worker is poverty, some say. The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not alone anymore. But the final word is love….We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” Once again love and love to be a core theme in life of hero and heroine. The art to love and to be loved determine steps and paths of others to walk together toward ideal and dream. Dorothy had a dream to unite all people who need hospitality in one roof regardless their background. It is not always easy to bear it especially dealing with legal institution such as government, politic and even the Church. Love if it is legalized it will become rigid but if it is practiced in a flexible and creative ways it will lead to enthusiasm and authenticitiy of many people. In my experience in visiting some nursing homes, I have impression that our love that we share to elderly people is just limited to fit our schedule. We do not know whether they need our presence or not but what I know is it is a timetable that the retreat has and we should fulfill it. It requires my own attention that should have been beyond the schedule but out of love and generosity and also authenticity of my heart. This is my weekly journal I wrote last week regards my ministry at a retreat house: “Before noon we visited a nursing home and played Bingo with elderly people there and most of them Afro-Americans. We were coming back to the retreat house then having lunch (hamburger) then watching a video about Dorothy Day. Since they will finish their retreat this night, I went home earlier in the afternoon and next week I will go there again since there will be three groups for the retreat. I went home by CTA train: Orange, Green lines and a bus no. 15.” I am questioning myself: how do I deal with others who are not my concern beside people in my ministry? Do I care to others surround me who are so different to me and I have nothing to do with them? What is my sensitivity towards them as a human, religious and minister? All of these are bothered me as I see my quality of my life in the relationship to others.
“Buddhists teach that a man’s life is divided into three parts: the first part for education and growing up; the second for continued learning, through marriage and raising a family, involvement with the life of the senses, the mind, and the spirit; and the third period, the time of withdrawal from responsibility, letting go of the things of this life, letting God take over.” Dorothy was open to other spirituality especially if it gives real mening in the universal life of people. She believed that everything she had done would be given up to God alone since she was just God’s tool in this divine work. She was just an actor of God’s mission to love people unreservedly and she knew how to surrender only to God’s providence in her dusk age. The spirituality of letting go is not only suitable to old people but it invites me also to relativize and depend on God’s plan. I have plan for my future but at the same time also I should offer to God’s will. Not my will and my plan, O God but yours, that make me happy in this life. Let it be done according to your word only.
“The one thing that makes our work easier most certainly is the love we bear for each other and for the people for whom we work. The work becomes difficult only when there is quarreling and dissension and when one’s own heart is filled with a spirit of criticism.” Love is the greatest virtue in our faith that is used massively by many people in the world but sometimes without meaning and commitment. Love is not merely feeling to someone or something but moreover it is a commitment that needs to be renew day-to-day and time-to-time in the struggle of one’s life. It is a lifelong process that love is tested in ups and downs mood. Love is a clasis word and at the same time love is never ending story in human history in the world. I remember with a teaching of one of my philosophy professors who says: “To love and to be loved as a human being is a highest meaning in the life.” With love, many things that seem difficult can be overcome unbelievably. In the new millennium spirituality, I think love is always relevant to everybody because the more modern and complex our world, the more people need attention in their personal life and communication in pure love is difficult to find because most people are busy with their own agenda. In accord with this love, Dorothy stated confidently: “Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.”

07 March 2005
Simone Weil (1909-1943)

“No human being escapes the necessity of conceiving some good outside him/herself towards which his/her thought turns in a movement of desire, supplication and hope.”

Simone Weil was a moral and political philosopher, teacher, activist, and mystic that searched for truth and ways to overcome the injustices of the world. Her philosophical pursuits began in her youth as she studied at the best schools in Paris and continued until her untimely death. Weil focused her philosophical inquires on social and political injustices and religious inquiry. She wrote mainly in essays and her thought can be characterized as a combination of Marx and Plato that centered on the goal of alleviating oppression and suffering.
Refusing to eat more than the rations of those on relief, Weil distributed her salary to welfare funds and workers' newspapers, and grew extremely thin. Eating, for Weil, represents our willful attachment to the world. Instead of "eating," she writes in Gravity and Grace, we should simply "look": "Looking is what saves us." Weil's brand of renunciation is not, however, a life-denying repression of desire: "If [Eve] had been hungry at the moment when she looked at the fruit," she muses, "if in spite of that she had remained looking at it indefinitely without taking one step toward it, she would have performed a miracle..." To desire and to renounce at once that is the mode of the anorexic. A refusal to "eat" (seek to possess, control) that for which one hungers is a way of honoring that which is eternally beautiful in the world: "We want to eat all the other objects of desire. The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it should be."
After lecturing her students that "The family is legalized prostitution... The wife is a lover reduced to slavery," she was transferred to a school in another town.
Weil incessantly pursued the truth in intellectualism and many other ancient resources including religions. It is a typical of spirituality in a new millennium, namely, one does not finish to dig deep knowledge of the truth that can be drawn from wide-diverse spirituality until one feels a certain religious experience that is struck him/her. The truth and wisdom itself can be found in every teaching and idealism but the complete and total truth will never be gotten in this world. Like Saint Augustine says, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Forced to stop teaching because of migraines, Weil became increasingly obsessed with metaphysical questions. Adding to her encyclopedic knowledge of everything from Homeric poetry to the latest findings in mathematical theory, she began to study the Manicheans, the Gnostics, the Pythagoreans, the Stoics, Taoism, Buddhism. She devoured the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and was so impressed by the Bhagavad-Gita that she began to teach herself Sanskrit. Then, at a Benedictine Abbey, while listening to a Gregorian chant at the moment her migraine was at its worst, she "experienced the joy and bitterness of Christ's passion as a real event" and for the first time began to think of herself as a religious person.
In Marseilles, Weil also met Father Joseph-Marie Perrin, a Catholic priest impressed with her thinking about Christianity. Weil refused his offer to baptize her, insisting that "I do not want to be adopted into a circle, to live among people who say 'we' and to be part of an 'us,' to find I am 'at home' in any human milieu whatever it may be... I feel that it is necessary and ordained that I should be alone, a stranger and an exile in relation to every human circle without exception." Perrin, who eventually published Weil's letters to him, along with some essays, as Attente de Dieu (Waiting For God) introduced her to Gustave Thibon, a lay theologian in charge of a Catholic agricultural colony. There, working in the fields and vineyards during harvest, Weil was finally far enough away from her family to practice asceticism the way she'd always wanted to: She worked alongside agricultural laborers, slept in a sleeping bag on the floor, and ate nothing but onions and tomatoes. She also wrote a lot. Weil's journals of the early '40s are both entertaining and terrifying, since her writing by then was a combination of the dry, eminently rational prose style she'd long perfected and a despairing mysticism. The result of her attempt to fuse ancient Greek ideas of the impersonal and the contemplative with Catholicism is a body of thought, which seems insane and true at the same time.
Weil never became Catholic but she experienced the fruit of Catholicism; that’s why she was called the saint of churchless. In nowadays, probably many people do not belong to a certain church but they practice spirituality and values of the Gospel that Jesus inherited to us. Then, we call them as anonymous Christian (Karl Rahner). In the Interreligious Dialogue, often times I found many interesting wisdom that I perceive in accord to my Catholic spirituality even deeper touching my heart. The never ending reflection is how do I search the seed of the Word in everything I see then draw them to my own Christian faith? In my Xaverian spirituality I am taught, “to see, to seek and to love Christ in everything” (“In Omnibus Christus” = Christ in everything).


09 March 2005Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
“The Church: called to repentance; called to prophesy.”
“A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth—beware!—is not the true church of Jesus Christ” (Archbishop Oscar Romero, March 11,1979).
What have we made of our world? When Jesus of Nazareth proclaimed that he is resurrection and life, he filled that witness with content. Resurrection and life are about love and care for one another, about feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, loving the most rejected and outcast. They are about sharing from our wealth and abundance so that no one is without what they need for a dignified life. They are about the power to raise from the dead, to become unbound, free of bondage to death and sin.
Our world is scarred by injustice, by increasing disparity in wealth, by fabulous affluence for the few, and increasing poverty for the majority, by rising social violence and the disintegration of communities and societies because of this injustice, insecurity and fear. This is the bondage of sin.
Our church is called to repentance for the role it, and we as the people of God have played in creating this world. By what we and our church have done to create this condition of injustice, and by what we have not done to confront and overcome this sin of the world.
On the anniversary of the martyrdom of the great prophet of the Americas, Archbishop Oscar Romero, murdered by an assassin's bullet on March 24, 1980, let us ponder his words as he calls our churches to conversion, repentance and prophecy:
"A PREACHING THAT DOES NOT POINT OUT SIN is not the preaching of the gospel. A preaching that makes sinners feel good, so that they are secured in their sinful state, betrays the gospel's call. A preaching that does not discomfit sinners but lulls them in their sin leaves Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death" (Jan. 22, 1978).
"TO TRY TO PREACH without referring to the history one preaches in is not to preach the gospel. Many would like a preaching so spiritualistic that it leaves sinners unbothered and does not term idolaters those who kneel before money and power. A preaching that says nothing of the sinful environment in which the gospel is reflected upon is not the gospel" (Feb. 18, 1979).
Does the preaching of my church, my community, reflect this commitment to challenge the sinful environment of our world, even to the point of causing discomfort, including my own discomfort?
"THE CHURCH, IN ITS ZEAL TO CONVERT to the gospel, is seeing that its place is by the side of the poor, of the outraged, of the rejected, and that in their names it too must speak out and demand their rights. But many persons belonging to the upper classes and feeling as if they own the church, think that the church is abandoning them and slipping away from its spiritual mission. It is no longer preaches what is spiritual, it only preaches politics. It's not that. The church is pointing out sin, and society must listen to that accusation and be converted and so become what God wants" (July 8,1979).
Is my church clearly on the side of the poor, even to the point of naming sin in our world and its causes, even to the point of risking the discomfort of the wealthy and complacent? Do I, does my church, instead prefer a preaching that lulls, that makes me feel comfortable, rather than one that challenges and causes discomfort about the state of sin in our world and our responsibility for it? Am I, is my congregation or community, willing to listen when this sin is pointed out, and so be converted?
"THIS IS THE MISSION ENTRUSTED TO the church, a hard mission: to uproot sins from history, to uproot sins from the political order, to uproot sins from the economy, to uproot sins wherever they are" (Jan. 15, 1978).
"THE CHURCH IS OBLIGED by its evangelical mission to demand structural changes that favor the reign of God and a more just and comradely way of life. Unjust social structures are the roots of all violence and disturbances. How hard and conflicting are the results of evangelical duty! Those who benefit from obsolete structures react selfishly to any kind of change" (Nov. 1979).
"THE CHURCH CAN BE CHURCH only as long as it goes on being the Body of Christ. Its mission will be authentic only so long as it is the mission of Jesus in the new situations, the new circumstances of history. The criterion that will guide the church will be neither the approval of, nor the fear of, men and women, no matter how powerful or threatening they may be. It is the church's duty in history to lend its voice to Christ so that he may speak, its feet so that he may walk today's world, its hands to build the reign of God . . . " (Aug. 6, 1977).
Does the church fulfill this mission, this duty? Do I call my church to this mission? Am I involved in it? Does my church, do I as a member of my church, really believe enough in the incarnate God in Christ to live the brave and risky mission to which the church is called in our world?
"THE CHURCH, LIKE JESUS, HAS TO GO on denouncing sin in our own day. It has to denounce the selfishness that is hidden in everyone's heart, the sin that dehumanizes persons, destroys families, and turns money, possessions, profit, and power into the ultimate ends for which persons strive. And, like everyone who has the smallest degree of foresight, the slightest capacity for analysis, the church has also to denounce what has rightly been called 'structural sin:' those social, economic, cultural, and political structures that effectively drive the majority of our people onto the margins of society. When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry arises" (Aug. 6, 1977).
"WHAT STARTS CONFLICTS AND PERSECUTIONS, what marks the genuine church, is when the word, burning like the word of the prophets, proclaims to the people and accuses: proclaims God's wonders to be believed and venerated, and accuses of sin those who oppose Cod's reign, so that they may tear that sin out of their hearts, out of their societies, out of their laws—out of the structures that oppress, that imprison, that violate the rights of God and of humanity . . . God's Spirit goes with the prophet, with the preacher, for He is Christ, who keeps on proclaiming God's reign to the people of all times" (Dec. 10, 1977).


2) Hari Minggu Masa Pra-Paskah ke-5, 13 Maret 2005

Senin, 07 Maret 2005. Di sore hari saya mengadakan diskusi kelompok untuk matakuliah Sejarah teologi misi di rumah Melissa seorang murid LSTC (Lutheran School). Diskusi ini cukup menarik karena saya dapat mengekspresikan ide-ide dan pengalaman saya sendiri secara spontan. Setelah tiba di rumah, saya menelpon Ms. Digna di rumah sakit Alexian Brothers untuk mengecek secara pasti bahwa surat jawaban saya serta check $ 100 sudah diterima dan memang sudah diterima sebagai uang muka untuk program CPE saya di musim panas nanti.

Selasa, 08 Maret 2005. Pagi hari saya pergi ke rumah tarekat Norbertin untuk kuliah refleksi teologi dan kali ini Bill frater diakon Norbertin mensharingkan refleksi kerasulannya. Di sore hari saya bertemu formator saya dengan hasil bahwa saya dapat maju ke kaul kekal yaitu tahun depan mungkin di bulan Maret 2006 bersama dengan frater SX lainnya. Saya menerima usulan ini dengan penuh syukur dan penuh kefleksibelan dan terbuka karena sebelumnya saya sudah dijanjikan maju kaul kekal bulan November 2005 ini. Maka dalam waktu satu tahun ke depan ini saya mempersiapkan diri lebih masak untuk jawaban definitif dari proses panggilan yang cukup panjang menuju imamat misioner dalam hidup bakti. Saya mencetak surat-surat saya untuk saya kirimkan ke Indonesia yaitu beberapa wisma SX dan para saudara saya di Indonesia.

Rabu, 09 Maret 2005. Di pagi hari saya meminjam 9 buku dari perpustakaan CTU dan di sore harinya saya memasak untuk komunitas yaitu Lasagna dan roti bawang. Di sore hari saya sakit tidak enak badan lalu kugunakan resep manjurku yaitu kerokan.

Kamis, 10 Maret 2005. Sepanjang hari ini hujan salju cukup banyak dan lebat. Di sore hari kami mengadakan rapat komunitas dengan agenda evaluasi proyek hidup bersama tentang kaul kemurnian.

Jumat, 11 Maret 2005. Saya tetap tinggal di kamar untuk mengetik paper tentang jurnal kuliah spiritualitas millennium. Di sore hari setelah doa jalan salib di kapel dan makan malam, saya diantar Ignas ke rumah retret, David Darst tempat kerasulan saya di Jalan 2834 South Normal Ave. Ada sebuah kelompok yang sudah memulai retret sejak hari Senin lalu yaitu dari sebuah universitas di Michigan. Malam harinya, ada satu volunter lagi yaitu seorang ibu tua bernama Pat dari Michigan datang ke rumah retret ini untuk membantu retret seminggu ke depan ini.

Sabtu, 12 Maret 2005. Pagi hari pukul 9.30, ada satu kelompok kelas dua SMU dari sekolah San Miguel datang ke rumah retret untuk retret sehari lalu kami mengunjungi sebuah rumah panti jompo yang dinamakan H.O.M.E (House Opportunity Maintenance for Elderly) di sebelah Utara Chicago, dekat dengan kampus Universitas Loyola. Ada 10 anak sekolah yang ikut acara ini dan mereka semua adalah keturunan Hispanic/ Amerika Latin. Kami melakukan pelayanan dengan membersihkan jendela kamar para lansia yang tinggal di rumah jompo ini. Banyak dari para lansia ini berasal dari Rusia, ada pula dari Guatemala dan negara-negara lainnya. Di siang harinya kami bermain BINGO bersama mereka. Kami kembali ke rumah retret untuk acara doa penutupan. Pukul 4 sore datang lagi satu kelompok dari Austin, Texas. Mereka adalah dari Universitas Katolik Edward, 7 mahasiswi dan satu koordinator. Mereka terbang dari Texas sejak pagi tadi dan menyewa sebuah mobil van dari bandara O’Hare. Mereka semua adalah cewek dan koordinatornya yang adalah lulusan M.Div Universitas Loyola Chicago mengenal Alexis mantan frater SX dari acara Peacebuilder di CTU. Kami makan malam bersama yang kali ini ada satu tukang masak yaitu Carolina. Kami mulai acara retret dengan sesion pertama dipimpin oleh Suster Paula lalu ia memberikan kesempatan padaku untuk memimpin permainan tali dengan makna salib lalu juga memandu mereka mempersiapkan doa malam dengan tema si kaya dan si miskin dari Kitab Suci. Saya kira ini kali pertamanya saya berbicara di depan para peserta retret tentang tema utama retret yang mashi berhubungan dengan apa yang dibicarakan Suster Paula sebelumnya meskipun tidak terlalu banyak saya bicara, namun cukuplah mengena pada intinya.

Minggu, 13 Maret 2005. Pagi hari kami pergi mengikuti misa di Gereja Santo Basil Visitasi di jalan 51st dan Garfield pukul 9 pagi dengan gaya liturgi Afro-Amerika lalu setelah misa kami ke basement untuk ramah tamah dengan umat. Pukul 11 kami melanjutkan pergi ke SU CASA, sebuah rumah bekas biara Fransiskan lalu dipakai untuk Catholic Worker House di Jalan 51st. Kali ini seorang suster tua dari tarekat Mercy bernama Suster Pat yang adalah saudari kandung Bruder Denis Murphy, memandu kami mengenal tentang sejarah rumah ini. Ada pula seorang ibu, yang selamat dari penganiayaan militer dari El Salvador yang mengungsi ke USA tahun 1993. Rumah ini digunakan untuk para imigran dari negara-negara Amerika Latin. Siang harinya kami membantu di dapur umum/soup kitchen dekat dengan SU CASA ini dan bersama-sama dengan para tuna wisma kebanyakan adalah Afro-Amerikan makan siang bersama. Sementara Pat memandu para peserta retret ini melakukan tour mengenal Chicago, saya bersama Suster Paula kembali ke rumah retret dan pukul 4 sore saya meninggalkan rumah retret. Saya pergi ke rumah Lisa-Edi untuk menitipkan beberapa surat untuk para keluarga saya serta beberapa rumah/wisma Xaverian di Indonesia karena mereka akan pulang ke Indonesia hari Kamis ini. Saya kembali ke Hyde Park dan menulis jurnal ini.