4) 5th Sunday of Easter, April 24, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005. In the morning I registered to CTU for fall semester, summer and J-term. At noon I attended spirituality in a new millennium in which a Vietnamese OFM priest gave a presentation on Music and Spirituality. From 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. I had discussion group of Development of Mission Theology at Maryknool Sister’s house. From 7 p.m. to 8.15 p.m. I met Fathers Rino and Luigi to have inteview regarding my formation. Today I received a letter of my oldest sister in Indonesia and 8 pictures of my niece and nephews. I am happy that eventually I can see their pictures especially my newborn nephews, 6-month-old and one-year-old in Ponorogo-Indonesia.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005. In the morning I went to Norbertin House to have theological reflection group meeting. When I would go to school at 11.15 a.m. suddenly Father Victor called me saying that the new Pope has been elected then I watched TV with curiosity to know who’s the new Pope. It’s interesting to know the crucial time when they announced new elected Pope, the 265th pope in the Catholic Church from Germany, named Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, becomes Pope Benedict XVI. From 1.20 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. at the Xaverian House I had 4-way evaluation of M.Div Ministry Practicum Course with my rector (Father Rocco, SX), my supervisor (Sister Paula, OSF) and theological reflector (Father Mark Schramm, SVD). Overall, it’s been a good overview on my experience this one year ministry at David Darst Center (a retreat house).
Wednesday, April 20, 2005. In the morning I made outline of my MA paper on development of mission theology, on Interreligious Dialogue. At noon I had class of millennium spirituality and Clement presented Father Bede Griffith, OSB. It’s interesting figure that I can share about him in this journal as well. In the afternoon I cooked oven-chicken, Tom Yum soup and mash potatoes. At 5 p.m. we celebrated Holy Hour led by Dharmawan and sharing of Petrus. In the evening I called up my brother, Ronny in Ponorogo and niece, Kezia in Jakarta to congratulate their birthday, 28th year and 6th year.
Thursday, April 21, 2005. At noon I attended class of ethic then I went to CTU to meet Nanko asking about CPE program and registered a workshop after doing CPE (M4201) in Fall Semester 2005 that will be held on Friday, 30 September 2005. From 4.20 p.m. to 5.45 p.m. as community we had meeting with our superior general, Father Rino and his vice, Father Luigi. In our Vesper, Father Rino announced us that Petrus will be assigned as deacon as well as a priest in Indonesia. After supper, Rino and Luigi returned to Milwaukee. I attended World Mission Institute at LSTC.
Friday, April 22, 2005. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. I attended a 2nd year workshop at CTU entitled Human Suffering and Pastoral Care given by Kevin McClone while the day was raining and cold. In the afternoon at 5 p.m. I invited Ignas and Atumisi to come to my ministry, David Darst Retreat Center then we together with my colleague, Gayle, headed to night ministry between Halsted and Belmont, about Northside Chicago. Gayle cooked chicken soup to be shared to homeless people on the corner of these streets. Coincidentally, I met my Vietnamese SVD classmate of CTU, named Long, who has this night ministry. We altogether with other staffs of this ministry stood by on these streets and shared food to homeless people who gathered, listened to music, danced and had conversation. It’s very cold night, bit showering but we enjoyed to have this experience that lasted at 10.20 p.m. One interesting experience we experienced is there was a man who came to us asking condom but he said in a slang word so that we didn’t understand then another staff responded and gave him some various condoms and this man received them with his smile and happiness. This is also part of this night ministry. We were treated by Ignas to have ice cream at Ghirardeli at downtown Chicago then took Gayle to David Darst Center. We arrived home almost in the middle of the night.
Saturday, April 23, 2005. For Petrus’ ordination to diaconate, in the morning we were busy to do this preparation in our job and capacity at Saint Therese Church Chinatown. I helped Father Michael to prepare food with Francois who came down to Chicago from Milwaukee at noon. There was Indonesian choir practice in the church for tomorrow’s occasion. We were there till 8.30 p.m. and some of us returned to Hyde Park. For the first time I was given duty to record/tap Petrus’ ordination with handycam. Dharmawan and Ignas told me how to operate it and I tried it at the church. I guess it will be helpful for me to learn and use it for my presiding class next fall semester in which I have to tape myself in a Eucharistic presiding (Mass).
Sunday, April 24, 2005. Today is beautiful day, the day of diaconate ordination of Petrus Hardiyanto, SX at Saint Therese Chinatown started at 8.30 a.m. concelebrated by Bishop Garcia together with 14 priests including General Superior and his vice of Xaverian Missionaries, Fathers Rino and Luigi and a lot of people coming to this solemn celebration. I took part on this great event with tapping this celebration by handycam from beginning to the end at Saint Therese School. I never saw this church was filled by such many people, so I think it’s a special event I will remember very nicely. Everything was running very well done because of good cooperation of so many people who prepared it. The hospitality at the school also was very well organized, ended with Indonesian Catholic band group who sang very nice songs in Indonesian and English. At 2 p.m. together with our Indonesian friends from Indiana, Mas Renus – Mbak Sari and Nevan, their 2 years and 2 months old son, I returned to Hyde Park then they invited me to go to Argyle and we had delicious food at Vietnamese Restaurant close to Broadway Supermarket. They took me home at 6.20 p.m. and they left for Indiana soon. I am very glad to experience today’s celebration, witnessing Petrus as the first Indonesian Xaverian fruit in Chicago to be a minister as a diacon toward missionary-religious-priesthood. I think the tape I took during this celebration will be a great gift for Petrus to be recalled as many people I asked to give some words for Petrus. We look forward some other fruits next coming years that God provides and gives us. Good luck and congratulation, Petrus, have a good journey and ministry in your ‘new life’ in Indonesia that will be coming very soon. We’ll remember and pray for you as well as we believe you will recall us in your holy office prayers faithfully.
18 April 2005
MUSIC AND SPIRITUALITY
The prayer in the beginning of Joe’s presentation was a very good start to know the talented gift of the presenter on music. Melodiously he sang the entrance song and we all together paid heed meditatively on the text that has a lyric of his Franciscan spirituality. Even though his preparation on music did not work, but he could use his own voice that more expressively and naturally we could enjoy listening to him. His display on his own creation of music on books and CD is very strongly proving that he mastered on his area of music. Not only spiritual/Vietnamese Catholic Church music but he also tries to engage on secular especially youth music. Even he composed love songs in Vietnamese language and I impressed to see the CD that has contents of youth songs even though I don’t know the meaning of Vietnamese words but at least I can see the pictures of young girls playing guitar wearing Vietnamese dress and they’re beautiful, naturally beautiful.
I came to realize that music also has its own spirituality that influences in many ways to live their lives. I’m impressed when the presenter explaining that in the past music was not documented on book or literature but just based and inherited on the listening of human beings that needs a special skill to reproduce it through human’s voice or other music instruments. In addition he points out that if we listening to music and it can move us heartily, it means this music is a good music. It often times happens in my experience as I listen to some particular music, I will be in a certain mood or situation. When I miss God, I will listen to spiritual music such as meditative music or Trapist chanting music both in Latin and Indonesian, or when I am loved and to be loved, I like to listen to love songs. It is so much in accord with a statement, “music has an inner dynamism in the direction of spirituality” (Andrew Marr, OSB in “Is Music Religious? Is It Spiritual?”). I appreciate for the definition of Music that the presenter gave to us and his handout on this presentation is very helpful following his explanation on power point. Music is the fine art of combining vocal and instrumental sounds into rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic structure (to reflect and express thoughts and feelings). It is generally regarded as the most moving emotionally of all the arts (New Catholic Encyclopedia).
In relation to spirituality in a new millennium, I think to know music is also to know our own spirituality. Our feeling, emotion, mind and imagination that are always in dynamical flowing can be nourished by music, music that connect our inner beings to reality of the world in its ups and downs that eventually leads us to a closeness to the source of life and love, the Ultimate One, Godself. In my own experience, when I feel down, I prefer to be silent to make balance of my body, mind and spirit without any music or noise and sometimes I put my meditative music to make me more serene and tranquil. I believe in a silence or even in a natural music of my own environment with awareness of my surrounding sounds such as morning birds, blowing of winds, raining, even noise of vehicle, can draw me to spiritual of awareness both myself and otherness. Beyond this understanding of common music, I think my harmonious between heart, mind, body and spirit is a ‘classical music’ that I have to listen and achieve in balance way and it’s a long live orchestra that only myself can savor its beauty.
20 April 2005
Father Bede Griffiths, OSB (1906-1993)
Bede Griffiths was a monk, a man in whom there was no guile, and was last to see the guile that may have been in any other. This monk with a universal heart was an icon of integrity and guilelessness. Father Bede Griffiths, Swami Dayananda, who died May 13, 1993, barefooted and clothed in the color of the sun, in his thatched hut at Shantivanam in South India was a priest, monk who concerned on Indian culture especially effort to connect local culture and Hinduism and sacredness to Christian teaching. Alan Richard Griffiths was born at home at Walton-on-Thames in 1906 in a British middle class family, youngest of three. He had a sister and a brother. Soon after his birth Alan's Dad lost his business, cheated by a partner to the last penny. Mr. Griffiths lost face and never regained his role or place in the family. Alan's mother, who then became both parents to the children, had to move into less comfortable surroundings and had to go to work and manage her own housecleaning.
Deeply touched by the reading both intellectually and spiritually, in spite of the fact that his mother had verbalized that her greatest grief would be if any in her family would embrace Roman Catholicism, Alan visited Prinknash Abbey and remained six weeks, much impressed. On Christmas eve, 1931, he was received into the Church and at midnight Mass received his first Communion. Alan then entered Prinknash Abbey just a few weeks later. Here, he said, he felt at home. Later with tongue in cheek he said, "Downside would have ruined me as it was too intellectual." On December 20, 1932, Alan was clothed as a Benedictine Novice and received the name of Bede, which means prayer. Years later in India, he received the name of Dhayananda which means bliss of prayer, and still later Dayananda, which means bliss of compassion. Fr. Bede offered his Perpetual Vows in 1937, just one year before his beloved mother met with a car accident and passed away. He was ordained in 1940 at the age of 34. One of the monastic tasks he most enjoyed was guest master, since the Abbey attracted people from different cultures and walks of life. The exchange was energizing.
Bede Griffiths was a man with a universal heart. He had no guile and saw no guile in others. He honored the sacredness of every person because he believed so deeply that each person is a unique image of the divine. With Ruusbroec, Fr. Bede believed that "God's work in the emptiness of the soul is eternal." He all but saw that "spark of God" in everyone. He loved to describe the divine processions within: the Father in Self-reflection bringing forth His Word, His divine Image in pure consciousness in perfect bliss: self-knowing and self-giving. And the whole creation comes to its fullness in this intimacy, this relationship of love. Fr. Bede was fascinated by the Trinitarian Mystery, and even more so by the possibilities the Hindu doctrine of Saccidananda presented our Christian theology. (Cf. Toward a Christian Vedanta, by Wayne Teasdale).
Bede Griffiths had a listening heart that was finely attuned to others and therefore many others came to open their hearts to him. Someone has said so truly, of all the things he was, Bede Griffiths was the perfect gentleman to the End. And it was this listening heart that awaited everyone who came. He even sought out new arrivals to set up a time to share with them. If the deepest meaning of hospitality is "receiving the Divine," Bede Griffiths surely did just that in each one who came into his ambit. Those who left his presence frequently remarked that he treated them as if they were his only business that day; he made them feel so revered.
For Fr. Bede, being universal meant to be centered and grounded. He generated this universality of heart through his daily practice of meditation and contemplative prayer, and this opened him ever more to the myths, symbols and teachings of the other great religions of the world. He was intrigued by the concept of the archetypal or Universal Man. In several of his books one can find how he detailed the names and descriptions of such from all the major religions. (cf The Marriage of the East and West, p.140; 70).
This profound insight was to be tested by fire when the young Father Bede asked his Abbot permission to go to India. He was told "no" because there was too much of Bede Griffiths' will in this. The Abbot was wise enough to recognize how much of the Divine Will was in it also, and later "sent" Fr. Bede to India. "The surrender of the ego is the most difficult thing we have to do," Bede wrote, and insisted "The surrender of the ego is the ONLY way of life."
Bede Griffiths was granted mystical experiences both before and after attending Oxford. This was not merely a psychological analysis, but a deeply contemplative look at the overwhelming inner experience he had gone through. Intimating it was a mystical experience which could not properly be put into words, Father used symbolic language to try and express the depth of the experience. The two symbols he used were the Black Madonna and the Crucified Christ. He said these two images summed up for him something of this mysterious experience of the Divine feminine and the mystery of suffering. When he first spoke about the Black Madonna, he said his experience of her was deeply connected to the Earth-Mother, to the forms of the ancient feminine found in rocks and caves and in the different forms in nature. He likened it to the experience of the feminine expressed in the Hindu concept of Shakti - the power of the Divine Feminine. Later Father wrote these reflections on the Black Madonna: "The Black Madonna symbolizes for me the Black Power in Nature and Life, the hidden power in the womb...I feel it was this Power which struck me. She is cruel and destructive, but also deeply loving and nourishing."
After the stroke and the cure, father Bede did a great amount of travel to foreign countries. He said he never lost this sense of the divine presence from that time on. In a brief explanation he offered his overview of life in contrast to what society teaches us, he said at the age of 85 he begged to differ with those who think that life is all over at 40, and that from then on we go downhill. He saw our lifetime as roughly divided into three interrelated phases: ages 1-20, during which time our bodies develop, our mind and character gradually grow to maturity; then ages 20-40, during which time our psychological faculties are developed, many people marry at this stage and rear a family, professional skills are acquired, sports and arts are perfected. But most people think or are taught that that's all there is and it's all down hill from there. Father Bede insisted that the time from age 40 on is what life is all about; all the rest was preparation for the flowering of the whole personality. For him, here the spiritual powers begin to develop and transcend the capacities of mind and body. These are not left behind but are integrated into what opens us to the Eternal, the discovery of the Absolute, the Transcendent, the deep Source of all Reality. This is the breakthrough to the mystical and this, Fr. Bede believed, is the great hope for everyone. He said the last 20 years of his life were the most wonderful of all. This man, monk, and mystic, left us a message not only in his words but most of all by his very life!
Regarding prayer, he wrote: “It is only in prayer that we can communicate with one another at the deepest level of our being. Behind all words and gestures, behind all thoughts and feelings, there is an inner center of prayer where we can meet one another in the presence of God. It is this center which is the real source of all life and activity and of all love. If we could learn to live from that center we would be moved by love. Here alone can all the conflicts of this life be resolved, and we can experience a love which is beyond time and change.”
For a new millennium spirituality, I think the witness of Bede contributes us a figure of Interreligious Dialogue who pursued never-ending spirituality in surrounding sacredness. His conversion and change day-to-day invites me to see and be aware of my own day-to-day process of life’s journey here and now.
4) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-5, 24 April 2005
Senin, 18 April 2005. Pagi hari saya mendaftar ke CTU untuk matakuliah yang akan diambil dalam semester musim gugur, musim panas dan J-Term (Januari-Term). Siang hari saya mengikuti kuliah spiritualitas dalam millennium baru di mana seorang pastor OFM asal Vietnam mempresentasikan tema Musik dan Spiritualitas. Dari jam 1 hingga 4 sore hari, saya mengadakan diskusi kelompok untuk matakuliah Perkembangan Teologi Misi di rumah Suster Maryknoll. Dari jam 7 hingga 8.15 malam saya bertemu pembesar SX yaitu Pastors Rino dan Luigi untuk wawancara mengenai pembinaan saya di Chicago ini. Hari ini saya menerima sebuah surat dan 8 photo dari kakak sulung saya di Ponorogo-Indonesia.
Selasa, 19 April 2005. Pagi hari saya pergi ke rumah tarekat Norbertin untuk pertemuan kelompok refleksi teologi. Ketika saya akan pergi kuliah jam 11.15 siang, Pastor Victor tiba-tiba berteriak memanggilku mengatakan bahwa paus yang baru sudah terpilih, maka saya menonton TV dengan keingintahuan yang besar menyaksikan siapa paus yang paru terpilih ini. Menarik sekali melihat saat-saat menentukan pengumuman paus baru, paus yang ke-265 di dalam Gereja Katolik Roma, bernama Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, menjadi Paus Benediktus XVI. Dari jam 1.20 hingga 2.15 sore hari di rumah Xaverian saya mengadakan evaluasi 4-arah dalam matakuliah M.Div Ministry Practicum yaitu saya sendiri dengan rektor saya (Pastor Rocco, SX), supervisor saya (Suster Paula, OSF) dan dosen kelompok refleksi teologi saya (Pastor Mark Schramm, SVD). Secara keseluruhan, pengalaman saya dalam karya kerasulan ini cukup baik adanya selama hampir setahun ini di David Darst Center (sebuah tempat retret).
Rabu, 20 April 2005. Pagi hari saya membuat outline untuk paper MA matakuliah perkembangan teologi misi dalam topik Dialog Antaragama. Siang harinya saya mengikuti kuliah spiritualitas millennium dan Clement mempresentasikan tentang Pastor Bede Griffith, OSB. Ia adalah figure yang cukup menarik yang saya dapat bagikan refleksi mengenai dia di jurnal ini juga. Di sore hari saya memasak untuk komunitas saya: dua ayam utuh yang dioven, sup Tom Yum soup dan kentang instant (mash potatoes). Pukul 5 sore kami merayakan adorasi di kapel dipandu oleh Dharmawan an sharing dari Petrus. Di sore hari saya menelpon adik saya, Roni di Ponorogo dan Kezia, keponakan saya di Jakarta yang berulang tahun pada hari yang sama, 21 April dalam usi 28 tahun dan 6 tahun.
Kamis, 21 April 2005. Siang hari saya mengikuti kuliah etika lalu pergi ke CTU untuk bertemu Nanko bertanya mengenai program CPE lalu mendaftarkan diri untuk workshop setelah CPE (M4201) dalam semester musim gugur 2005 yang akan diadakan pada hari Jumat, 30 September 2005. Dari pukul 4.20 hingga 5.45 sore hari sebagai komunitas kami bertemu dengan pejabat tertinggi Xaverian kami dan wakilnya dari Roma, yaitu Pastors Rino dan Luigi. Dalam doa sore, Pastor Rino mengumumkan bahwa Petrus akan ditugaskan sebagai diakon lalu pastor di Indonesia. Setelah makan malam, Pastors Rino, Luigi dan Ivan kembali ke Milwaukee. Petang hari saya menghadiri sebuah seminar World Mission Institute di LSTC (sekolah teologi Lutheran).
Jumat, 22 April 2005. Dari pukul 9 hingga 12 tengah hari saya mengikuti workshop untuk mahasiswa tahun kedua CTU dengan judul Penderitaan Manusia dalam Konseling yang diberikan oleh Kevin McClone sementara dari pagi hari hujan dan lumayan dingin. Sore hari pukul 5 saya mengajak Ignas dan Atumisi untuk datang ke tempat kerasulan saya di rumah retret David Darst Retreat Center lalu kami bersama dengan rekan tempat kerasulanku bernama Gayle pergi menuju ke tempat kerasulan ‘malam hari’ yang terletak antara Jalan Halsted dan Belmont, bagian Utara Chicago. Gayle memasak sup ayam untuk dibagikan pada para tuna wisma di sudut jalan ini. Secara kebetulan, saya bertemu teman sekelas saya di CTU, yaitu dari tarekat SVD, asal Vietnam bernama Long yang memiliki kerasulan di sini juga. Kami bersama dengan para staff karya kerasulan ini pergi ke sudut jalan ini membagikan makanan untuk para tuna wisma yang berkumpul, mendengarkan musik, berjoged dan membagikan makanan dan mereka makan di tepi jalan yang ramai ini sambil bercakap-cakap santai. Malam ini cukup dingin dan hujan rintik-rintik namun kami menikmati pengalaman yang cukup menarik ini yang berlangsung hingga pukul 10.20 malam hari. Hal menarik adalah ada seorang pria yang datang kepada kami dan minta sesuatu namun kami tidak mengerti apa yang diucapkannya. Tidak tahunya dia minta diberi kondom dan memang staff lainnya mengerti maksud pria ini dan memberikannya beberapa macam dan ragam kondom ini sambil pria ini senyum-senyum senang menerimanya. Ini juga merupakan bagian dari kerasulan ‘malam’ semacam ini. Kami ditraktir oleh Ignas makan es krim di Ghirardeli di downtown Chicago lalu mengantar Gayle pulang kembali ke Darst Center lalu kami tiba di rumah hampir tengah malam.
Sabtu, 23 April 2005. Untuk tahbisan diakonat Petrus, pagi hari kami sibuk melakukan persiapan di Gereja Santa Theresia Chinatown dengan mengerjakan tugas sesuai kemampuan dan kerelaan kami. Saya membantu Pastor Michael untuk memasak yang dibantu oleh Francois yang baru tiba di siang hari dari Milwaukee. Ada pula latihan koor umat Katolik Indonesia untuk acara Petrus besok. Kami berada di gereja St. Theresia ini hingga malam hari pukul 8.30 lalu sebagian pulang kembali ke rumah di Hyde Park termasuk Harno. Untuk kali pertamanya saya diberi tugas merekam acara tahbisan ini dengan handycam. Dharmawan dan Ignas mentraining saya bagaimana menggunakan alat elektronik ini dan saya mencobanya di gereja. Saya kira hal ini akan sangat berguna bagi saya untuk mengetahui cara menggunakannya untuk kuliah presiding saya semester gugur yang akan datang di mana saya harus merekam diri saya sendiri dalam memimpin perayaan Ekaristi/misa kudus sebagai latihan/praktikum sebelum jadi imam betulan.
Minggu, 24 April 2005. Hari ini adalah hari yang sungguh indah, hari pentahbisan diakonat Petrus Hardiyanto, SX di Gereja Santa Theresia Chinatown Chicago diawali pukul 8.30 pagi, dipimpin oleh Uskup Garcia bersama 14 imam termasuk Superior Jenderal Serikat Misionaris Xaverian dan wakilnya: Pastor Rino dan Luigi dan banyak orang datang dalam peristiwa agung ini. Saya mengambil bagian dalam acara ini dengan merekam perayaan istimewa ini dengan handycam dari awal hingga akhir di Sekolah Santa Theresia. Saya tidak pernah melihat gereja ini penuh dengan begitu banyak orang yang datang dalam misa, maka saya berpikir ini adalah suatu acara khusus yang akan saya kenang dengan baik. Segala sesuatu berjalan dengan lancar dan terkendali berkat kerjasama yang baik dari sekian banyak orang yang mempersiapkannya. Acara ramah tamah di sekolah juga cukup terorganisir dengan baik, diakhiri dengan lagu-lagu yang dibawakan oleh kelompok baru band kelompok Katolik Indonesia di Chicago dengan lagu-lagu Indonesia yang sungguh menawan dan lagu bahasa Inggris. Pukul 2 sore bersama dengan Mas Renus – Mbak Sari dan anak mereka Nevan, 2 tahun 2 bulan, saya pulang kembali ke Hyde Park lalu mereka mengajak saya pergi ke Argyle dan kami makan makanan Vietnam yang cukup lezat dan murah di Broadway Supermarket. Mereka mengantarku pulang kembali ke Hyde Park sekitar pukul 6.20 sore dan mereka kembali ke Indiana segera. Saya sungguh sangat senang mengalami perayaan indah hari ini, menyaksikan Petrus sebagai buah sulung pertama Xaverian Indonesia di Chicago menjadi seorang diakon menuju panggilan hidup imamat religious misioner. Saya kira video yang saya rekam selama perayaan hari ini akan menjadi hadiah yang bagus buat Petrus untuk dikenang karena banyak orang saya mintai komentar untuk sepatah dua patah kata bagi Petrus. Kami menunggu buah-buah berikutnya di tahun-tahun yang akan datang yang sudah Tuhan persiapkan dan berikan pada kita semua. Selamat buat Petrus dan semoga berhasil dan setia dalam menapaki suatu perjalanan yang indah dan pelayanan di ‘hidup baru’ mu di Indonesia sesaat lagi. Kami akan mengingat dan berdoa buat kamu sebagaimana kami percaya bahwa kamu juga akan mengenang kami semua dalam doa-doa harian (brevir kamu) dengan penuh kesetiaan.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
surat ke-3 bulan April 2005
3) 4th Sunday of Easter, April 17, 2005
Monday, April 11, 2005. Today I presented my Bonhoeffer presentation in the class of spirituality in a new millennium at CTU. It’s been going well with my power point presentation and ended up with the last part of a DVD movie entitled Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Father Pascal bought for me a couple of months ago. I shared to you some quotations of Bonhoeffer, which I used at the class and some reflections/questions. Please, you can read at the end of this journal.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005. In the morning I hosted my theological reflection group in which I presented my reflection on my ministry that I share also to you with this journal, at the bottom of this journal. In the courtyard of CTU, at 4.30 p.m. we celebrated a memorial Mass for Pope John Paul II presided by the president of CTU, Donald Senior, CP. He shared his experience during his biblical group meeting in Vatican that coincided with the death of the Pope.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005. This morning I met my academic advisor, Gil Ostidek, OFM to sign forms of my summer and fall semester studies at CTU for this coming academic year, 2005/2006. At noon I attended a class of millennium spirituality and this time my classmate from Srilanka named Ranjith gave presentation about Father Michael Rodrigo, OMI, that I shared here at this journal my own reflection upon this figure after the class. At night I telephoned my family in Indonesia to keep in touch with them especially my father and siblings.
13 April 2005
Father Michael Rodrigo, OMI (1927-1988)
The real heroic example of Michael Rodrigo in his biographical life presented by Ranjith in the class presentation pointed out an incarnation topic of great figure in Srilanka in the context of Interreligious Dialogue between Christians and Buddhists. Incarnation because in his middle class family, he voluntarily devoted himself to real social problems of his own people in society dealing with poverty, injustice in many areas of life politically, socially, economically that cost his own life to be a martyr for those who are oppressed. His intellectual talent pursuing the truth in both Catholicism and Buddhism, he used it effectively in gaining two doctoral studies both in Gregoriana University in Rome and Paris. His study was implemented widely in his later life especially among seminarians in Srilanka and his last station of ministry among poor people whose different religions. His mastered-knowledge on Buddhism made him a professor to teach Dharma to Buddhist people. He’s really a Buddhist-Catholic or a Catholic-Buddhist. I believe that he hold his own faith in Christ in Catholic Church but he opened himself in a reality of his own society in which Buddhism has high value and he successfully matched them in his own ministry. From outside if we see him in one glance, maybe we will think that he mixed two different religions both Catholic and Buddhism. It cost him to ‘costly grace’ like Bonhoeffer’s life, namely, to be denied by authority of Catholic Church in suspicious presumption. It did not make him lost spirit to continue the work of God among his people in Srilanka. Instead he had more courage to invent new style of Interreligious Dialogue. His radical changing style of life in preference to the poor challenges me as a minister and missionary in my own ministry in the future. He practiced his spiritual life in high commitment ascetically imitating Buddhist way. His simplicity of life and surrender life into God’s hand is very evident in his own word, “We must die for our people if our time comes.” And it’s true that he died tragically that was brutally gunned down. It is very similar with Bonhoeffer’s conviction: “Whenever Christ calls us, his call lead us to death.” Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and the Srilankan government never pursued this murder case. To live as a prophet is always or often times costs one’s life but it will be remembered by those who know and experience his/her merit and hopefully will be continued by other who have same spirit and strength to enhance humanity in better ways.
In term of spirituality in a new millennium, I think Rodrigo is a key figure in facing pluralistic milieu especially in Asia with so many religions and beliefs. Three-dimensional dialogue in Asia, namely dialogue with the poor, the culture and the religions are profoundly given by him in his real example of life to death. Widely our world becomes more and more plural in many dimensions of life, so his prophetic example will always give us spirit and insight to continue his good work and God’s mission. I was thinking before that Michael Rodrigo is a foreign missionary who worked in Srilanka, but after this presentation given by Ranjith I came to know that he’s a local man (Sriankan) who devoted himself into Interreligious dialogue ministry and put himself into core of socially, economically and politically oppressed people in rural areas of his own country. Personally, it challenges me and at the same time gives me courage to proceed my vocation to do Interreligious Dialogue in my own country and wherever I will minister. Another challenge and example to me that I can draw from his life is how to integrate my formal study to real life in our ministry for goodness and advantage of others I minister. It’s a life long process that I have been doing so far. In this case, Rodrigo totally committed himself on Buddhist study and implemented on his ministry among Buddhist people in his own area, Srilanka.
Thursday, April 14, 2005. This afternoon I cooked for my community at Hyde Park with menu: some leftover food that I recycled to be ‘gado-gado’ (salad with peanut sauce dressing), rice and shrimp cracker. In the evening we had community meeting talking about Petrus’ preparation to deaconate ordination on April 24th and other miscellaneous things.
Friday, April 15, 2005. In the morning Mass at my community, I shared my reflection on the Gospel of John 6 about the Eucharist. From 9 to 12 a.m. I attended a workshop or training of Virtus Program (Protecting God’s Children) at CTU that was held by Peacebuilder Initiative Group of CTU. It’s given by Archdiocese of Chicago. We can register on-line (via Internet): www.virtusonline.com There were about 25 participants including some CTU professors such as Gil Ostdiek OFM, Zachary Hayes OFM, Paul LaChance OFM, Opal Easter and some other students. Attending this kind of workshop becomes a pre-requisite to do ministry in the U.S.A Catholic Church due some scandal abuse issues widely impact church’s ministers. At noon I headed to Saint Therese Church to meet Father Michael for spiritual direction then I had personal confession at Saint Peter Church at Loop, downtown. While we had supper hamburger and hotdog cooked by Alejandro, I got a phone call from Mother Oey who is visiting his son in California-USA. At night I continued to call up my sibling and I was glad listening to my 4 year-old niece, named Febbe, who answered my phone but she doesn’t know me. I can understand it; she doesn’t recognize me since I left Indonesia 2.5 years ago when she’s 1.5 year-old. It convinced me to my plan to meet them next year in the summer 2006 when I take vacation in Indonesia, keeping touch with my own family origin with my presence, not only my voice (via phone).
Saturday, April 16, 2005. In the Mass this morning I continued to give a reflection on the Gospel reading, John 6. After having breakfast, I asked favor to Ignas to cut my hair to be shorter, not bald like I have done it twice during my living in the USA. The whole day I spent at home, watching a DVD, reading, and typing this journal.
Sunday, April 17, 2005. After personal prayer I attended Mass at Saint Thomas Church at 8 a.m., while the day was cloudy and little bit showering. I spent this day in my own room, preparing my final paper on Bonhoeffer. In the afternoon our general superior and his vice, Fathers Rino and Luigi come to visit our community as well as Father Ivan, our U.S. provincial. We had supper at 7.30 p.m. cooked by Atumisi, with menu: chicken and rice.
Theological Reflection Denny Wahyudi (12 April 2005)
Background
My ministry site is at Brother David Darst Center for Justice and Peace Spirituality and Education (DDS), which is located on 2834 South Normal, Chicago-Illinois 60616, close to Chinatown Chicago. The Center is a four-story brick building with neighborhood is middle class with an increased number of Chinese living there. The building was formerly a Sister’s convent located in the All Saints-St. Anthony parish, which is located on the same ground. The Center has been set up to accommodate up to 18 retreatans sharing two people to a room using bunk beds. It can also accommodate two retreat moderators as well as a live in staff of 3-4 retreat leaders.
The Center’s staff conducts immersion retreats in Chicago’s inner city for high school juniors and seniors and college students. Most of the retreats are conducted on weekends from Friday evening to Sunday mid-afternoon. A few full week retreats are given for college students on fall and spring breaks. Students visit and volunteer in a number of sites: homeless shelters, public schools, day care centers, soup kitchens, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The staff and students process the day’s activities in group discussion as well as delve into justice and peace issues concerning the sites they visited, i.e., why there are homeless shelters and soup kitchens in the USA, the richest country in the world. The retreatans themselves plan and conduct morning and evening prayer.
Ministry interns would help plan, conduct and evaluate retreats. They would accompany retreatans to volunteer sites, lead process discussion groups, and supervise the planning and execution of prayer by the retreatans as well as help the activities necessary for house maintenance. When retreatans are not scheduled the intern could contact and visit new sites, work on the newsletter and website and research justice topics such as poverty, homelessness and peace.
Description
My experience to be a co-minister at DDS is being improved with my involvement in the retreat program. I am glad that eventually this semester I have involved more than ever in some sessions and discussions of the retreats. At least at this semester I have been coming to weekend retreat seven times. Some active participation I have been doing at this semester so far are conducting retreatans once to a Sunday Mass at Saint Therese Chinatown in which my Xaverian congregation has ministry, giving a rope game that has a spiritual meaning, participating in group discussions, accompanying retreatans to have field trip to see downtown Chicago, engaging in conversations with retreatans and those whom we visited at some sites, leading a night prayer, helping my supervisor in little things at the retreat house such as shoveling snow at the winter, arranging the chapel, etc. It seems to me that there is more mutual cooperation with my supervisor and other minister. Even I am grateful that a couple of times my supervisor gave me a ride to go home after finishing retreat. One thing that always makes me happy is I can apply my rope game to the retreatans that my supervisor and other minister recommend to me. When my supervisor asked me, “Please, you can give the rope game at the beginning of this session, ” I was very glad that finally my supervisor gives me portion to little session. It happened a couple of times at some retreats. I am also glad that this game is also being used by them when I was absent at some retreats. Actually, I have known this game since I was in Indonesia and I used to give it also to some youth retreats and it works very well. In the setting of the U. S. A I have tried it and it works as well. Once I know this game I tried to figure out what is the meaning of this simple game. Then, I found it by myself that it has a cross meaning. (Now, I’d like to show you this game with the meaning…). When I gave it to a Skutt High School from Omaha-Nebraska (18 people), some of them, namely, a chaperon and a teacher said, “Thank you for your game, it’s very interesting. I will use it in other retreats with our students and our faculty.” I said, “Thank you. It will be great.” After giving this game, I had chance to talk more about other things, namely, I gave them a picture that depicts the face of Jesus. I said to them, “As you find and see the face of Jesus, please try to see the face of Jesus in the people whom we will meet this coming days. Like in the mural at this chapel, may you see Jesus in the middle of us.” I wonder to myself that I could speak like so in front of the retreatans that normally I just keep silent. I feel better than ever that finally I can speak publicly without being nervous. (I will give the mural picture and Jesus image…)
Other thing that makes me being useful as a minister is I can share what I have such as my digital camera that I use at this retreat I can share the pictures to the retreatans and other minister at DDS. The last retreat with 4 students from Saint Mary University in Winona-Minnesota on (1-3 April 2005), I offered it to one of the students, “If you want I can send my pictures I took at this retreat to you via e-mail.” She agreed and gave me her e-mail address. One of the ministers who came with us visiting the soup kitchen at SU CASA Catholic Worker House, named Takhiya is also being grateful for pictures I have sent her very quickly. She interviewed a lady who is in charge of the soup kitchen and she needs her picture that will be used for DDS bulletin.
Analysis
Having all experiences at DDS this semester, I have no complain at all. Many things I have experienced are very wonderful to my feeling, memory, and courage to communicate that perhaps improve my quality as a minister. As an ‘introvert’ person, I enjoy being alone with myself in silence, but at this ministry I have to be able and improve my skill and personality to communicate to others openly and creatively. It does not mean that I will not be a genuine person, but I have to be humble to learn of others in dealing with many things. Communication in here is very crucial to me. I know that speaking in English is a challenge to me, but I believe that with my good will to minister plus my presence among others faithfully and feel ‘in’ at many new situations, I can survive and minister others better. Everything is grace to me.
Evaluation
If I evaluate myself, at this semester I feel happier than before. To be a good minister is not a matter to have good feeling but beyond that I have to see God’s work in my life and ministry I have. I should not be proud deeply with myself, instead I should walk humbly with God to do my ministry with ups and downs experiences. It is good that I have a good feeling, feel to be accepted by others in my ministry, but actually it is not what I have to seek. I should find God’s message in the real sense not my own will merely since my expectation and will always to be good and better. To be surrender in God's love and cooperatively work with God’s grace whatever the result will be should be my aim and program in the never-ending process become a minister of others.
Theological Reflection
Seeing myself in this ministry, I identify myself with Jesus’ Word (Luke 17:10), “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.” I should not fall into two different extremes, namely being pessimist and passive or being too proud with what I achieve. Instead I should seek and do God’s will whatever it costs. I am always being encouraged when I recall these two mottos in my life: “Happiness is not fulfilled if it is not shared” and “ The me I see is the me I’ll be, If I cannot see it I’ll not be it, Until I believe it I will never achieve it.”
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945) Pastor-Pacifist-Nazi Resister
Questions of reflection and discussion:
1. In what situation do we practice improper silence in our society? What kinds of silence do we have when we morally have to speak up against injustice of others? Why do we keep silent in the difficult situation that costs our safety even our life? What do you think with this statement: “It is easy to be faithful to a good person rather than to be faithful to a right person”?
2. What do you think of Bonhoeffer’s participation in the plots to kill Hitler? How was it that a person of such a background, so deeply steeped in the traditions of the church and his own culture, a person of such deep spirituality and enamoured with the ideas of non-violence and passive resistance, came to engage in a plot to kill Hitler? What shift in his spiritual and ethical perspectives brought him to this point? What is my experience being changed in my own close-minded view toward radical and new even paradox one?
3. CHEAP GRACE
“Cheap grace is grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel. It costs people their lives. It costs the life of God’s Son, and nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God” (Discipleship, 1935). What is our cheap grace and costly grace both personally and communally in our society perhaps in the USA and my own country origin?
1. THE EARLY YEARS
AFTER TEN YEARS
We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds…
We have been drenched by many storms…
We have learned the art of equivocation and pretense…
Experience has made us suspicious of others,
And kept us from being truthful and open…
Are we still of any use?
(After Ten Years: A letter to the family and conspirators, 1942)
2. RISE OF NAZISM
CHURCH AND COMMUNITY
Christ is really present only in the community.
The Church is the presence of Christ, just as
Christ is the presence of God.
But our Church today is bourgeois. The best proof is that
the poor working classes have turned away from the Church,
whereas the bourgeois – the petty officials, the artisans and
the merchants – have remained. When the community is split,
is Christ himself divided?
(Sanctorum Communio, 1927).
3. NEW YORK
BLACK CHURCH
I have had the chance to hear the Gospels preached in black churches. Here, one can truly speak and hear about sin and grace and the love of God, if in forms we are not used to. In contrast to the often didactic style of “white” preaching, the “black Christ” is preached with rapturous passion and vision.
(Letter to Julie Tafel, 1930-31)
4. GERMAN CHURCH
LEADERSHIP
Should the leader allow himself to succumb
to the wishes of those he leads, who will always seek to turn him into an idol,
then the image of the leader will gradually
become the image of the misleader. This is the leader who makes an idol of
himself and his office and who thus mocks God.
(Radio Speech: The Younger Generation’s Changed View of the
Concept of Fuhrer, 1933)
5. THE JEWISH QUESTION
CHURCH AND STATE
The church has three possible ways
it can act against the state.
First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate.
Second, it can aid the victims of state action.
The church has an unconditional obligation
to the victims of any ordering society,
even if they do not belong to the Christian society.
The third possibility is not just to bandage
the victim under the wheel
but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself.
(The Church and The Jewish Question, 1933)
6. CHURCH RESISTENCE
PEACE
There is no way to peace along the way of safety.
For peace has to be dared. It is the great venture.
It can never be safe.
Peace is the opposite of security.
To demand guarantees is
To mistrust and this mistrust in turn brings forth war.
Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God.
(Speech at Fano Conference:
The Church and the People of
the World, 1934)
7. FINKENWALDE
CHEAP GRACE
Cheap grace is grace without the cross,
grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel.
It costs people their lives.
It cost the life of God’s Son,
and nothing can be cheap to us
which is costly to God.
(Discipleship, 1935)
CHRISTIAN CALL
Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.
(Discipleship, 1935)
8. DIFFICULT CHOICES
RETURNING TO GERMANY
I have made a mistake in coming to America. I will have no
right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in
Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time
with my people. Christians in Germany will face the terrible
alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order
that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory
of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know
which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make
that choice in security. Dietrich.
(Letter to R. Niebuhr, 1939)
9. CONSPIRACY
WILL OF GOD
The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset.
It is something new and different in each different situation in life,
and for this reason a man must forever
reexamine what the will of God may be.
The will of God may lie deeply concealed
beneath a great number of possibilities.
(Ethics, 1943-45)
10. THE ARREST
COMPASSION AND ACTION
We have for once learned to see the great events of world
history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled, in short from
the perspective of those who suffer.
Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.
Christians are called to compassion and action.
(Ten Years: A letter to the family and conspirators, 1942)
LETTER TO MARIA
We have grown together in a different way than
we have thought and wished,
but these are unusual
times and will remain so a while longer,
and everything
depends on our being one in the essential things and on our remaining with each other.
Your Ditrich.
(Letter to Maria Von Wedemeyer, 1943)
11. TEGEL AND 1944 ATTEMPT
PRISON LIFE
I want you to be quite sure that I am alright.
Strangely enough, the discomforts that one generally
associates with prison life, the physical hardships, hardly
bother me at all…
You can imagine that I am most particularly
anxious about my fiancée at this moment. It is a great deal
for her to bear. Here in the prison yard there is a thrush
that sings beautifully in the morning.
Your Dietrich…
(Letter to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, 1943)
CHURCH AND WORLD
The church is the church only when it exists for others.
The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human
life, not by dominating but by helping and serving.
(Outline for a book, 1944)
REFLECTION FROM PRISON
One of my predecessors here has scribbled over the cell
door “in 100 years it will all be over…” I am reading the Bible
straight through from cover to cover
and I have just got as far as Job,
which I am particularly fond of.
I read the Psalms everyday as I have for years.
I know them and love them more
than any other book.
(Letter to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, 1943)
12. EXECUTION
WHO AM I?
Who am I? I have been told that I suffer the days of misfortune
with serenity, smiles and pride, as someone accustomed to
victory. Am I really what others say about me? Or am I only
what I know of myself ?…Bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great
events that might never occur, fearfully powerless and worried
for friends far away, weary and empty in prayer, in thinking, in
doing, weak and ready to take leave of it all. Who am I? They
mock me these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, you
know me, oh God, you know I am yours.
(Poem: Who Am I? 1944)
3) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-4, 17 April 2005
Senin, 11 April 2005. Hari ini saya mempresentasikan presentasi tentang Bonhoeffer di kuliah spiritualitas millennium di CTU. Semua berjalan lancar dan baik dengan presentasi power point dan saya tutup dengan memutar bagian akhir film tentang Bonhoeffer dengan DVD yang dibelikan oleh Pastor Pascal beberapa bulan lalu. Saya juga mesharingkan beberapa pernyataan penting Bonhoeffer serta pertanyaan releksi yang saya gunakan di kelas. Silahkan baca di bagian edisi bahasa Inggris jurnal ini.
Selasa, 12 April 2005. Pagi hari saya menjadi tuan rumah untuk kuliah refleksi teologi di mana saya mensharingkan refleksi atas kegiatan kerasulan saya yang saya bagikan di jurnal ini juga untuk Anda sekalian (silahkan baca di atas, hanya dalam bahasa Inggris saja). Di ruang serba guna CTU (tiga kelas jadi satu, three in one), pukul 4.30 sore kami merayakan misa mengenang Paus Yohanes Paulus II yang dipimpin oleh Presiden CTU yaitu Pastor Donald Senior, CP. Ia mensharingkan pengalamannya selama menghadiri rapat komisi Alkitab di Vatikan yang bertepatan dengan saat wafatnya Paus.
Rabu, 13 April 2005. Pagi ini saya bertemu penasehat akademik saya, Gil Ostidek, OFM untuk minta tanda tangan formulir untuk registrasi matakuliah musim panas dan semester musim gugur tahun ajaran yang akan datang di CTU, 2005/2006. Siang hari saya menghadiri kuliah spiritualitas millennium dan kali ini teman kami bernama Ranjith dari Srilanka mempresentasikan tentang Pastor Michael Rodrigo, OMI, asal Srilanka yang juga saya sharingkan dalam jurnal ini dalam refleksi pribadi saya setelah mengikuti kuliah ini. Malam hari saya menelpon keluarga saya di Indonesia untuk menjaga hubungan dengan mereka khususnya Papi dan adik-adik dan kakak-kakakku.
Kamis, 14 April 2005. Sore ini saya memasak untuk komunitas saya di Hyde Park dengan menu: sisa makanan yang ada yang saya olah kembali menjadi gado-gado, nasi dan krupuk udang. Malam hari kami mengadakan rapat komunitas berbicara tentang persiapan tahbisan diakonat Petrus nanti tanggal 24 April dan berbagai hal lainnya.
Jumat, 15 April 2005. Dalam misa pagi di komunitas, saya mensharingkan refleksi atas bacaan Injil hari ini dari Yohanes bab 6 tentang Ekaristi. Dari jam 9 hingga 12 siang, saya menghadiri sebuah workshop atau pelatihan Virtus Program (Melindungi Anak-anak Allah = Protecting God’s Children) di CTU yang diadakan oleh Peacebuilder Initiative Group CTU. Pelatihan ini diberikan oleh Keuskupan Agung Chicago. Kita dapat mendaftar lewat Internet: www.virtusonline.com Ada sekitar 25 peserta yang mengikuti program ini termasuk para dosen CTU seperti Gil Ostdiek OFM, Zachary Hayes OFM, Paul LaChance OFM, Opal Easter dan beberapa mahasiswa. Mengikuti workshop semacam ini menjadi syarat mutlak bagi semua orang yang terlibat dalam kerasulan di Gerja Katolik di USA ini berkaitan dengan isu pelecehan seksual secara luas yang berdampak luas di seluruh karya pastoral dan pelayanan gereja. Siang hari saya pergi ke Gereja Santa Theresia untuk menemui Pastor Michael Davitti, SX untuk bimbingan rohani pribadi lalu saya pergi ke Gereja Santo Petrus di downtown untuk sakramen rekonsiliasi. Sementara kami makan malam dengan menu hamburger dan hotdog yang dimasak oleh Alejandro, saya mendapat telepon dari Mother Oey yang sedang berlibur mengunjungi puteranya di California-USA. Malam hari saya melanjutkan kontak saya dengan saudari saya dan saya gembira mendengarkan keponakan saya berusia 4 tahun bernama Febbe yang menjawab telepon saya namun dia tidak mengenal saya. Saya dapat memahami hal ini; ia tidak mengenal suara saya karena saya meninggalkan Indonesia 2,5 tahun lalu ketika ia berusia 1,5 tahun. Hal ini meyakinkan saya pada rencana saya tahun depan untuk bertemu mereka dalam musim panas 2006 saat saya mengambil waktu liburan di Indonesia, menjalin relasi dengan keluarga asal saya sendiri dengan kehadiran fisik saya, bukan hanya melalui suara saya saja (per telepon).
Sabtu, 16 April 2005. Dalam misa pagi ini saya masih melanjutkan refleksi tentang Injil Yohanes, Bab 6. Setelah sarapan pagi, saya minta tolong Ignas untuk memotong rambut saya menjadi lebih pendek, tidak gundul seperti sudah saya lakukan dua kali sejak tinggal di USA. Sepanjang hari ini saya hanya tinggal di rumah, nonton DVD, baca, dan mengetik jurnal ini.
Minggu, 17 April 2005. Setelah doa pribadi (brevir) saya mengikuti misa di Gereja Santo Thomas jam 8 pagi sementara hari mendung dan hujan sedikit. Saya gunakan waktu saya tinggal di kamar seharian mempersiapkan paper terakhir tentang Bonhoeffer. Sore hari superior jenderal SX dan wakilnya (Pastors: Rino dan Luigi) juga Pastor provinsial SX di USA, Pastor Ivan, mengunjungi komunitas teologi kami. Kami makan makan malam bersama pukul 7.30 yang dimasak oleh Atumisi dengan menu ayam dan nasi.
Monday, April 11, 2005. Today I presented my Bonhoeffer presentation in the class of spirituality in a new millennium at CTU. It’s been going well with my power point presentation and ended up with the last part of a DVD movie entitled Dietrich Bonhoeffer that Father Pascal bought for me a couple of months ago. I shared to you some quotations of Bonhoeffer, which I used at the class and some reflections/questions. Please, you can read at the end of this journal.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005. In the morning I hosted my theological reflection group in which I presented my reflection on my ministry that I share also to you with this journal, at the bottom of this journal. In the courtyard of CTU, at 4.30 p.m. we celebrated a memorial Mass for Pope John Paul II presided by the president of CTU, Donald Senior, CP. He shared his experience during his biblical group meeting in Vatican that coincided with the death of the Pope.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005. This morning I met my academic advisor, Gil Ostidek, OFM to sign forms of my summer and fall semester studies at CTU for this coming academic year, 2005/2006. At noon I attended a class of millennium spirituality and this time my classmate from Srilanka named Ranjith gave presentation about Father Michael Rodrigo, OMI, that I shared here at this journal my own reflection upon this figure after the class. At night I telephoned my family in Indonesia to keep in touch with them especially my father and siblings.
13 April 2005
Father Michael Rodrigo, OMI (1927-1988)
The real heroic example of Michael Rodrigo in his biographical life presented by Ranjith in the class presentation pointed out an incarnation topic of great figure in Srilanka in the context of Interreligious Dialogue between Christians and Buddhists. Incarnation because in his middle class family, he voluntarily devoted himself to real social problems of his own people in society dealing with poverty, injustice in many areas of life politically, socially, economically that cost his own life to be a martyr for those who are oppressed. His intellectual talent pursuing the truth in both Catholicism and Buddhism, he used it effectively in gaining two doctoral studies both in Gregoriana University in Rome and Paris. His study was implemented widely in his later life especially among seminarians in Srilanka and his last station of ministry among poor people whose different religions. His mastered-knowledge on Buddhism made him a professor to teach Dharma to Buddhist people. He’s really a Buddhist-Catholic or a Catholic-Buddhist. I believe that he hold his own faith in Christ in Catholic Church but he opened himself in a reality of his own society in which Buddhism has high value and he successfully matched them in his own ministry. From outside if we see him in one glance, maybe we will think that he mixed two different religions both Catholic and Buddhism. It cost him to ‘costly grace’ like Bonhoeffer’s life, namely, to be denied by authority of Catholic Church in suspicious presumption. It did not make him lost spirit to continue the work of God among his people in Srilanka. Instead he had more courage to invent new style of Interreligious Dialogue. His radical changing style of life in preference to the poor challenges me as a minister and missionary in my own ministry in the future. He practiced his spiritual life in high commitment ascetically imitating Buddhist way. His simplicity of life and surrender life into God’s hand is very evident in his own word, “We must die for our people if our time comes.” And it’s true that he died tragically that was brutally gunned down. It is very similar with Bonhoeffer’s conviction: “Whenever Christ calls us, his call lead us to death.” Unfortunately, the Catholic Church and the Srilankan government never pursued this murder case. To live as a prophet is always or often times costs one’s life but it will be remembered by those who know and experience his/her merit and hopefully will be continued by other who have same spirit and strength to enhance humanity in better ways.
In term of spirituality in a new millennium, I think Rodrigo is a key figure in facing pluralistic milieu especially in Asia with so many religions and beliefs. Three-dimensional dialogue in Asia, namely dialogue with the poor, the culture and the religions are profoundly given by him in his real example of life to death. Widely our world becomes more and more plural in many dimensions of life, so his prophetic example will always give us spirit and insight to continue his good work and God’s mission. I was thinking before that Michael Rodrigo is a foreign missionary who worked in Srilanka, but after this presentation given by Ranjith I came to know that he’s a local man (Sriankan) who devoted himself into Interreligious dialogue ministry and put himself into core of socially, economically and politically oppressed people in rural areas of his own country. Personally, it challenges me and at the same time gives me courage to proceed my vocation to do Interreligious Dialogue in my own country and wherever I will minister. Another challenge and example to me that I can draw from his life is how to integrate my formal study to real life in our ministry for goodness and advantage of others I minister. It’s a life long process that I have been doing so far. In this case, Rodrigo totally committed himself on Buddhist study and implemented on his ministry among Buddhist people in his own area, Srilanka.
Thursday, April 14, 2005. This afternoon I cooked for my community at Hyde Park with menu: some leftover food that I recycled to be ‘gado-gado’ (salad with peanut sauce dressing), rice and shrimp cracker. In the evening we had community meeting talking about Petrus’ preparation to deaconate ordination on April 24th and other miscellaneous things.
Friday, April 15, 2005. In the morning Mass at my community, I shared my reflection on the Gospel of John 6 about the Eucharist. From 9 to 12 a.m. I attended a workshop or training of Virtus Program (Protecting God’s Children) at CTU that was held by Peacebuilder Initiative Group of CTU. It’s given by Archdiocese of Chicago. We can register on-line (via Internet): www.virtusonline.com There were about 25 participants including some CTU professors such as Gil Ostdiek OFM, Zachary Hayes OFM, Paul LaChance OFM, Opal Easter and some other students. Attending this kind of workshop becomes a pre-requisite to do ministry in the U.S.A Catholic Church due some scandal abuse issues widely impact church’s ministers. At noon I headed to Saint Therese Church to meet Father Michael for spiritual direction then I had personal confession at Saint Peter Church at Loop, downtown. While we had supper hamburger and hotdog cooked by Alejandro, I got a phone call from Mother Oey who is visiting his son in California-USA. At night I continued to call up my sibling and I was glad listening to my 4 year-old niece, named Febbe, who answered my phone but she doesn’t know me. I can understand it; she doesn’t recognize me since I left Indonesia 2.5 years ago when she’s 1.5 year-old. It convinced me to my plan to meet them next year in the summer 2006 when I take vacation in Indonesia, keeping touch with my own family origin with my presence, not only my voice (via phone).
Saturday, April 16, 2005. In the Mass this morning I continued to give a reflection on the Gospel reading, John 6. After having breakfast, I asked favor to Ignas to cut my hair to be shorter, not bald like I have done it twice during my living in the USA. The whole day I spent at home, watching a DVD, reading, and typing this journal.
Sunday, April 17, 2005. After personal prayer I attended Mass at Saint Thomas Church at 8 a.m., while the day was cloudy and little bit showering. I spent this day in my own room, preparing my final paper on Bonhoeffer. In the afternoon our general superior and his vice, Fathers Rino and Luigi come to visit our community as well as Father Ivan, our U.S. provincial. We had supper at 7.30 p.m. cooked by Atumisi, with menu: chicken and rice.
Theological Reflection Denny Wahyudi (12 April 2005)
Background
My ministry site is at Brother David Darst Center for Justice and Peace Spirituality and Education (DDS), which is located on 2834 South Normal, Chicago-Illinois 60616, close to Chinatown Chicago. The Center is a four-story brick building with neighborhood is middle class with an increased number of Chinese living there. The building was formerly a Sister’s convent located in the All Saints-St. Anthony parish, which is located on the same ground. The Center has been set up to accommodate up to 18 retreatans sharing two people to a room using bunk beds. It can also accommodate two retreat moderators as well as a live in staff of 3-4 retreat leaders.
The Center’s staff conducts immersion retreats in Chicago’s inner city for high school juniors and seniors and college students. Most of the retreats are conducted on weekends from Friday evening to Sunday mid-afternoon. A few full week retreats are given for college students on fall and spring breaks. Students visit and volunteer in a number of sites: homeless shelters, public schools, day care centers, soup kitchens, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The staff and students process the day’s activities in group discussion as well as delve into justice and peace issues concerning the sites they visited, i.e., why there are homeless shelters and soup kitchens in the USA, the richest country in the world. The retreatans themselves plan and conduct morning and evening prayer.
Ministry interns would help plan, conduct and evaluate retreats. They would accompany retreatans to volunteer sites, lead process discussion groups, and supervise the planning and execution of prayer by the retreatans as well as help the activities necessary for house maintenance. When retreatans are not scheduled the intern could contact and visit new sites, work on the newsletter and website and research justice topics such as poverty, homelessness and peace.
Description
My experience to be a co-minister at DDS is being improved with my involvement in the retreat program. I am glad that eventually this semester I have involved more than ever in some sessions and discussions of the retreats. At least at this semester I have been coming to weekend retreat seven times. Some active participation I have been doing at this semester so far are conducting retreatans once to a Sunday Mass at Saint Therese Chinatown in which my Xaverian congregation has ministry, giving a rope game that has a spiritual meaning, participating in group discussions, accompanying retreatans to have field trip to see downtown Chicago, engaging in conversations with retreatans and those whom we visited at some sites, leading a night prayer, helping my supervisor in little things at the retreat house such as shoveling snow at the winter, arranging the chapel, etc. It seems to me that there is more mutual cooperation with my supervisor and other minister. Even I am grateful that a couple of times my supervisor gave me a ride to go home after finishing retreat. One thing that always makes me happy is I can apply my rope game to the retreatans that my supervisor and other minister recommend to me. When my supervisor asked me, “Please, you can give the rope game at the beginning of this session, ” I was very glad that finally my supervisor gives me portion to little session. It happened a couple of times at some retreats. I am also glad that this game is also being used by them when I was absent at some retreats. Actually, I have known this game since I was in Indonesia and I used to give it also to some youth retreats and it works very well. In the setting of the U. S. A I have tried it and it works as well. Once I know this game I tried to figure out what is the meaning of this simple game. Then, I found it by myself that it has a cross meaning. (Now, I’d like to show you this game with the meaning…). When I gave it to a Skutt High School from Omaha-Nebraska (18 people), some of them, namely, a chaperon and a teacher said, “Thank you for your game, it’s very interesting. I will use it in other retreats with our students and our faculty.” I said, “Thank you. It will be great.” After giving this game, I had chance to talk more about other things, namely, I gave them a picture that depicts the face of Jesus. I said to them, “As you find and see the face of Jesus, please try to see the face of Jesus in the people whom we will meet this coming days. Like in the mural at this chapel, may you see Jesus in the middle of us.” I wonder to myself that I could speak like so in front of the retreatans that normally I just keep silent. I feel better than ever that finally I can speak publicly without being nervous. (I will give the mural picture and Jesus image…)
Other thing that makes me being useful as a minister is I can share what I have such as my digital camera that I use at this retreat I can share the pictures to the retreatans and other minister at DDS. The last retreat with 4 students from Saint Mary University in Winona-Minnesota on (1-3 April 2005), I offered it to one of the students, “If you want I can send my pictures I took at this retreat to you via e-mail.” She agreed and gave me her e-mail address. One of the ministers who came with us visiting the soup kitchen at SU CASA Catholic Worker House, named Takhiya is also being grateful for pictures I have sent her very quickly. She interviewed a lady who is in charge of the soup kitchen and she needs her picture that will be used for DDS bulletin.
Analysis
Having all experiences at DDS this semester, I have no complain at all. Many things I have experienced are very wonderful to my feeling, memory, and courage to communicate that perhaps improve my quality as a minister. As an ‘introvert’ person, I enjoy being alone with myself in silence, but at this ministry I have to be able and improve my skill and personality to communicate to others openly and creatively. It does not mean that I will not be a genuine person, but I have to be humble to learn of others in dealing with many things. Communication in here is very crucial to me. I know that speaking in English is a challenge to me, but I believe that with my good will to minister plus my presence among others faithfully and feel ‘in’ at many new situations, I can survive and minister others better. Everything is grace to me.
Evaluation
If I evaluate myself, at this semester I feel happier than before. To be a good minister is not a matter to have good feeling but beyond that I have to see God’s work in my life and ministry I have. I should not be proud deeply with myself, instead I should walk humbly with God to do my ministry with ups and downs experiences. It is good that I have a good feeling, feel to be accepted by others in my ministry, but actually it is not what I have to seek. I should find God’s message in the real sense not my own will merely since my expectation and will always to be good and better. To be surrender in God's love and cooperatively work with God’s grace whatever the result will be should be my aim and program in the never-ending process become a minister of others.
Theological Reflection
Seeing myself in this ministry, I identify myself with Jesus’ Word (Luke 17:10), “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.” I should not fall into two different extremes, namely being pessimist and passive or being too proud with what I achieve. Instead I should seek and do God’s will whatever it costs. I am always being encouraged when I recall these two mottos in my life: “Happiness is not fulfilled if it is not shared” and “ The me I see is the me I’ll be, If I cannot see it I’ll not be it, Until I believe it I will never achieve it.”
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER (1906-1945) Pastor-Pacifist-Nazi Resister
Questions of reflection and discussion:
1. In what situation do we practice improper silence in our society? What kinds of silence do we have when we morally have to speak up against injustice of others? Why do we keep silent in the difficult situation that costs our safety even our life? What do you think with this statement: “It is easy to be faithful to a good person rather than to be faithful to a right person”?
2. What do you think of Bonhoeffer’s participation in the plots to kill Hitler? How was it that a person of such a background, so deeply steeped in the traditions of the church and his own culture, a person of such deep spirituality and enamoured with the ideas of non-violence and passive resistance, came to engage in a plot to kill Hitler? What shift in his spiritual and ethical perspectives brought him to this point? What is my experience being changed in my own close-minded view toward radical and new even paradox one?
3. CHEAP GRACE
“Cheap grace is grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel. It costs people their lives. It costs the life of God’s Son, and nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God” (Discipleship, 1935). What is our cheap grace and costly grace both personally and communally in our society perhaps in the USA and my own country origin?
1. THE EARLY YEARS
AFTER TEN YEARS
We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds…
We have been drenched by many storms…
We have learned the art of equivocation and pretense…
Experience has made us suspicious of others,
And kept us from being truthful and open…
Are we still of any use?
(After Ten Years: A letter to the family and conspirators, 1942)
2. RISE OF NAZISM
CHURCH AND COMMUNITY
Christ is really present only in the community.
The Church is the presence of Christ, just as
Christ is the presence of God.
But our Church today is bourgeois. The best proof is that
the poor working classes have turned away from the Church,
whereas the bourgeois – the petty officials, the artisans and
the merchants – have remained. When the community is split,
is Christ himself divided?
(Sanctorum Communio, 1927).
3. NEW YORK
BLACK CHURCH
I have had the chance to hear the Gospels preached in black churches. Here, one can truly speak and hear about sin and grace and the love of God, if in forms we are not used to. In contrast to the often didactic style of “white” preaching, the “black Christ” is preached with rapturous passion and vision.
(Letter to Julie Tafel, 1930-31)
4. GERMAN CHURCH
LEADERSHIP
Should the leader allow himself to succumb
to the wishes of those he leads, who will always seek to turn him into an idol,
then the image of the leader will gradually
become the image of the misleader. This is the leader who makes an idol of
himself and his office and who thus mocks God.
(Radio Speech: The Younger Generation’s Changed View of the
Concept of Fuhrer, 1933)
5. THE JEWISH QUESTION
CHURCH AND STATE
The church has three possible ways
it can act against the state.
First, it can ask the state if its actions are legitimate.
Second, it can aid the victims of state action.
The church has an unconditional obligation
to the victims of any ordering society,
even if they do not belong to the Christian society.
The third possibility is not just to bandage
the victim under the wheel
but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself.
(The Church and The Jewish Question, 1933)
6. CHURCH RESISTENCE
PEACE
There is no way to peace along the way of safety.
For peace has to be dared. It is the great venture.
It can never be safe.
Peace is the opposite of security.
To demand guarantees is
To mistrust and this mistrust in turn brings forth war.
Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God.
(Speech at Fano Conference:
The Church and the People of
the World, 1934)
7. FINKENWALDE
CHEAP GRACE
Cheap grace is grace without the cross,
grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel.
It costs people their lives.
It cost the life of God’s Son,
and nothing can be cheap to us
which is costly to God.
(Discipleship, 1935)
CHRISTIAN CALL
Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.
(Discipleship, 1935)
8. DIFFICULT CHOICES
RETURNING TO GERMANY
I have made a mistake in coming to America. I will have no
right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in
Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time
with my people. Christians in Germany will face the terrible
alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order
that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory
of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know
which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make
that choice in security. Dietrich.
(Letter to R. Niebuhr, 1939)
9. CONSPIRACY
WILL OF GOD
The will of God is not a system of rules established from the outset.
It is something new and different in each different situation in life,
and for this reason a man must forever
reexamine what the will of God may be.
The will of God may lie deeply concealed
beneath a great number of possibilities.
(Ethics, 1943-45)
10. THE ARREST
COMPASSION AND ACTION
We have for once learned to see the great events of world
history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled, in short from
the perspective of those who suffer.
Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior.
Christians are called to compassion and action.
(Ten Years: A letter to the family and conspirators, 1942)
LETTER TO MARIA
We have grown together in a different way than
we have thought and wished,
but these are unusual
times and will remain so a while longer,
and everything
depends on our being one in the essential things and on our remaining with each other.
Your Ditrich.
(Letter to Maria Von Wedemeyer, 1943)
11. TEGEL AND 1944 ATTEMPT
PRISON LIFE
I want you to be quite sure that I am alright.
Strangely enough, the discomforts that one generally
associates with prison life, the physical hardships, hardly
bother me at all…
You can imagine that I am most particularly
anxious about my fiancée at this moment. It is a great deal
for her to bear. Here in the prison yard there is a thrush
that sings beautifully in the morning.
Your Dietrich…
(Letter to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, 1943)
CHURCH AND WORLD
The church is the church only when it exists for others.
The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human
life, not by dominating but by helping and serving.
(Outline for a book, 1944)
REFLECTION FROM PRISON
One of my predecessors here has scribbled over the cell
door “in 100 years it will all be over…” I am reading the Bible
straight through from cover to cover
and I have just got as far as Job,
which I am particularly fond of.
I read the Psalms everyday as I have for years.
I know them and love them more
than any other book.
(Letter to Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer, 1943)
12. EXECUTION
WHO AM I?
Who am I? I have been told that I suffer the days of misfortune
with serenity, smiles and pride, as someone accustomed to
victory. Am I really what others say about me? Or am I only
what I know of myself ?…Bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great
events that might never occur, fearfully powerless and worried
for friends far away, weary and empty in prayer, in thinking, in
doing, weak and ready to take leave of it all. Who am I? They
mock me these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, you
know me, oh God, you know I am yours.
(Poem: Who Am I? 1944)
3) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-4, 17 April 2005
Senin, 11 April 2005. Hari ini saya mempresentasikan presentasi tentang Bonhoeffer di kuliah spiritualitas millennium di CTU. Semua berjalan lancar dan baik dengan presentasi power point dan saya tutup dengan memutar bagian akhir film tentang Bonhoeffer dengan DVD yang dibelikan oleh Pastor Pascal beberapa bulan lalu. Saya juga mesharingkan beberapa pernyataan penting Bonhoeffer serta pertanyaan releksi yang saya gunakan di kelas. Silahkan baca di bagian edisi bahasa Inggris jurnal ini.
Selasa, 12 April 2005. Pagi hari saya menjadi tuan rumah untuk kuliah refleksi teologi di mana saya mensharingkan refleksi atas kegiatan kerasulan saya yang saya bagikan di jurnal ini juga untuk Anda sekalian (silahkan baca di atas, hanya dalam bahasa Inggris saja). Di ruang serba guna CTU (tiga kelas jadi satu, three in one), pukul 4.30 sore kami merayakan misa mengenang Paus Yohanes Paulus II yang dipimpin oleh Presiden CTU yaitu Pastor Donald Senior, CP. Ia mensharingkan pengalamannya selama menghadiri rapat komisi Alkitab di Vatikan yang bertepatan dengan saat wafatnya Paus.
Rabu, 13 April 2005. Pagi ini saya bertemu penasehat akademik saya, Gil Ostidek, OFM untuk minta tanda tangan formulir untuk registrasi matakuliah musim panas dan semester musim gugur tahun ajaran yang akan datang di CTU, 2005/2006. Siang hari saya menghadiri kuliah spiritualitas millennium dan kali ini teman kami bernama Ranjith dari Srilanka mempresentasikan tentang Pastor Michael Rodrigo, OMI, asal Srilanka yang juga saya sharingkan dalam jurnal ini dalam refleksi pribadi saya setelah mengikuti kuliah ini. Malam hari saya menelpon keluarga saya di Indonesia untuk menjaga hubungan dengan mereka khususnya Papi dan adik-adik dan kakak-kakakku.
Kamis, 14 April 2005. Sore ini saya memasak untuk komunitas saya di Hyde Park dengan menu: sisa makanan yang ada yang saya olah kembali menjadi gado-gado, nasi dan krupuk udang. Malam hari kami mengadakan rapat komunitas berbicara tentang persiapan tahbisan diakonat Petrus nanti tanggal 24 April dan berbagai hal lainnya.
Jumat, 15 April 2005. Dalam misa pagi di komunitas, saya mensharingkan refleksi atas bacaan Injil hari ini dari Yohanes bab 6 tentang Ekaristi. Dari jam 9 hingga 12 siang, saya menghadiri sebuah workshop atau pelatihan Virtus Program (Melindungi Anak-anak Allah = Protecting God’s Children) di CTU yang diadakan oleh Peacebuilder Initiative Group CTU. Pelatihan ini diberikan oleh Keuskupan Agung Chicago. Kita dapat mendaftar lewat Internet: www.virtusonline.com Ada sekitar 25 peserta yang mengikuti program ini termasuk para dosen CTU seperti Gil Ostdiek OFM, Zachary Hayes OFM, Paul LaChance OFM, Opal Easter dan beberapa mahasiswa. Mengikuti workshop semacam ini menjadi syarat mutlak bagi semua orang yang terlibat dalam kerasulan di Gerja Katolik di USA ini berkaitan dengan isu pelecehan seksual secara luas yang berdampak luas di seluruh karya pastoral dan pelayanan gereja. Siang hari saya pergi ke Gereja Santa Theresia untuk menemui Pastor Michael Davitti, SX untuk bimbingan rohani pribadi lalu saya pergi ke Gereja Santo Petrus di downtown untuk sakramen rekonsiliasi. Sementara kami makan malam dengan menu hamburger dan hotdog yang dimasak oleh Alejandro, saya mendapat telepon dari Mother Oey yang sedang berlibur mengunjungi puteranya di California-USA. Malam hari saya melanjutkan kontak saya dengan saudari saya dan saya gembira mendengarkan keponakan saya berusia 4 tahun bernama Febbe yang menjawab telepon saya namun dia tidak mengenal saya. Saya dapat memahami hal ini; ia tidak mengenal suara saya karena saya meninggalkan Indonesia 2,5 tahun lalu ketika ia berusia 1,5 tahun. Hal ini meyakinkan saya pada rencana saya tahun depan untuk bertemu mereka dalam musim panas 2006 saat saya mengambil waktu liburan di Indonesia, menjalin relasi dengan keluarga asal saya sendiri dengan kehadiran fisik saya, bukan hanya melalui suara saya saja (per telepon).
Sabtu, 16 April 2005. Dalam misa pagi ini saya masih melanjutkan refleksi tentang Injil Yohanes, Bab 6. Setelah sarapan pagi, saya minta tolong Ignas untuk memotong rambut saya menjadi lebih pendek, tidak gundul seperti sudah saya lakukan dua kali sejak tinggal di USA. Sepanjang hari ini saya hanya tinggal di rumah, nonton DVD, baca, dan mengetik jurnal ini.
Minggu, 17 April 2005. Setelah doa pribadi (brevir) saya mengikuti misa di Gereja Santo Thomas jam 8 pagi sementara hari mendung dan hujan sedikit. Saya gunakan waktu saya tinggal di kamar seharian mempersiapkan paper terakhir tentang Bonhoeffer. Sore hari superior jenderal SX dan wakilnya (Pastors: Rino dan Luigi) juga Pastor provinsial SX di USA, Pastor Ivan, mengunjungi komunitas teologi kami. Kami makan makan malam bersama pukul 7.30 yang dimasak oleh Atumisi dengan menu ayam dan nasi.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
surat ke-2 bulan April 2005
2) 3rd Sunday of Easter, April 10, 2005
Monday, April 04, 2005. In the morning at 7 o’clock we had Mass presided by Father Willy and in the evening I led the lectio divina. In the class of millennium spirituality, Liz Cope presented Georgia O’Keeffe, a woman painter of the US. At night I did research on Bonhoeffer for my presentation.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005. Early in the morning at 7 o’clock Ignas and I headed to O’hare airport to pick up an Indonesian Jesuit priest, Father Rukiyanto, who studies theology in Boston. He is our professor at Driyarkara School of Philosophy and Theology in Jakarta. Today also sister and mother of Jacques came to our house. They came from R.D. Congo (Africa). In the morning I met Sister Barbara Bowe, RSCJ to make an appointment of academic advisement at CTU. At 3 p.m. Ignas and I attended Mass at our chapel celebrated by Father Ruki in English. In the afternoon, I took Father Ruki to go to CTU attending a seminar of Thomas O’Meara about Karl Rahner. I took schedule of fall and spring semesters for next academic year (2205-2006) at the registration office after waiting for a while during these days. Arriving at the house, I pondered on the schedule and planned my studies for the coming semesters. Today also we received “Warta Xaverian” (a magazine of Xaverian students in Indonesia) edition of Sept 2004 to March 2005. I was delighted to read it in the evening. At night I called up my brother in Ponorogo-Indonesia to congratulate his son’s first year birthday.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005. In the morning as usual we celebrated Mass led by Father Ruki. I was typing my theological reflection for next week. At noon the class of millennium spirituality, we had presentation of Mary about Flannery O’Connor who was a U.S. writer. In the afternoon I was cooking for my community: fried rice, crackers, oven-chicken and beef soup (gule).
Thursday, April 07, 2005. We had Mass at 7 a.m. presided by Father Ruki. Since I didn’t have class today, together with Ignas, I took Father Ruki and inviting Father Edi, osc to go to Father Jack’s house. Before that, we were shopping at Argyle. At the house of Vincentian, the house of Father Jack, we had lunch and hospitality at his room. At 5 p.m. Jacques guided us at the Holy Hour. In the evening after cleaning the basement, I was preparing my Bonhoeffer’s presentation for this coming Monday and doing laundry.
Friday, April 08, 2005. Early in the morning Fathers Rocco and Victor returned home from retreat and assembly at the East Coast. Today is the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican. I watched television reported this solemn ceremonial Mass in the morning time of Chicago. At 7 a.m. Father Ruki and Father Victor concelebrated the Mass at our community. In the afternoon I was cooking again for my community: fried rice of leftover food and pork soup (sayur asin/baikut). In the evening to midnight I was preparing my Bonhoeffer’s presentation.
Saturday, April 09, 2005. At 6 a.m. Ignas and I took Father Ruki to O’hare airport. He has been in Chicago to do his doctoral research and meet some professors at CTU. He returned to Boston and visit Philadelphia first. Since the traffic was not bad, we still had time to attend our Mass at 7.30 concelebrated by Fathers Victor and Rocco. I was preparing my power point presentation on Bonhoeffer. In the afternoon Pascal Atumisi and I attended the deaconate ordination of two African Combonian students at Saint Michael Archangel Church, at Damen and 51st street that was started at 3.20 p.m. It was concelebrated by Most Rev. Perry, an Afro-American bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Most people who came to this celebration were Africans and Latinos. We had dinner at the gym of Saint Michael School with Mexican food. I returned home at 7.15 p.m. while in our Xaverian house there were some guests: Mulianto-Dewi and one from California, Ibu Densy. Ibu Densy is the one who invited me to attend an Asian Pacific workshop in Los Angeles back in the summer 2004 while I was experiencing immersion at Saint Thomas Aquinas Church in Philadelphia. She works as a consultant of Asian Pacific Ministry at Catholic Church in the U.S. She attends convocation for three days in Chicago. She lives in San Bernardino-California. Together with Ignas and Petrus as well, we had supper at Lao Tze Chuan restaurant at Chinatown. We took Ibu Densy to meet two OSC’s fathers at CTU, Edi and Rudi. Nearly midnight we took her to Cenacle Retreat House at Fullerton, Northern Chicago.
Sunday, April 10, 2005. I woke up at 7 a.m., took shower, praying breviary personally at my room and typing this journal. At 9.30 a.m. Petrus and I headed to Saint Therese Church, Chinatown to attend Indonesian Mass at 11 a.m. and this time Father Jack, CM concelebrated it. It seemed few people came to this Mass but the music and choir was wonderful with band and electric guitar, piano and organ that made the liturgy of the Mass more alive. After having lunch and hospitality, I returned home by CTA, taking a rest a while and typing my homework of millennium spirituality. We had supper cooked by Ignas, namely, rice, fish and shrimp.
04 April 2005
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
“Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) is the most famous American woman artist and an important pioneering modernist.” It is the first time I know about her and I found she’s very interesting woman in the relation between art (painting) and new millennium spirituality. I’m grateful to have experience of this presentation given interestingly by Liz Cope. The video about O’Keeffe gave me her real life in the process of knowing nature such as dessert in Mexico then she implemented in beautiful paintings. I was impressed by her spirituality especially her spirit in her aging and wrinkle skin of face she still had passion to create harmony and beauty of the nature. I hope I also have a same spirit in my aging process, not to be old and feel old in my old days. The playing of light colors in the power point presentation gave me insight and hope that this figure has optimistic and realistic life. I appreciate Liz’ integration of this presentation in which she can connect the spirituality of other figures of our class in the spirituality of O’Keeffe that was evidenced in her power point quotations.
In her age 11, O’Keeffe knew already that she wanted to become a painter. It reminds me of the idea and dream of Martin Luther King Jr. when he was a little boy, he also said that he wanted to become like Jesus. The ideal and dream since I was a boy sometimes changed until I got a certain idea when I was at 16 year-old when I knew for the first time a vocation of becoming a missionary. I was convinced at that time that I would be one of the Xaverian missionaries and it becomes real now. In the relation to a new millennium spirituality, I can draw the spirituality of O’Keeffe into our care of the nature and how to reveal the beauty and mystery of our tremendous nature into our talent such as painting art. It is interesting to see O’Keeffe in the dessert of Mexico in the hot day paying attention to the reality of nature and put it into her creative and imaginative work. Our care and talent can be implemented in many ways as we create harmony in our heart and for the good of others. The spirituality that comes up and spread toward others we can call it as a real spirituality. In other words: happiness is not fulfilled if it is not shared. The same thing with spirituality if it is not shared for others, it will not be complete.
In creating good art, we need imagination and inspiration. It can happen in conducive situation that often times in a silence manner. It is exactly what O’Keeffe did when she needed solitude place and time for herself and her art. In a new millennium spirituality I think it is very important to spare solitude time to reflect upon human work in busy and hectic days with full of activities that normally people never finish to achieve their material aims. For myself as a religious, always there is a time to do it in my annual retreat even vacation during the summers always gave me new energy and spirit to start new life. To stop for a while and look back our life’s journey will help us to know ourselves, others, God and nature then we start again this ever long and longing story of human being toward unity with God. Even in my own daily lives, I can also draw a solitude time to see again myself in the relationship with all surrounds me and to be aware of every grace I privilege to have in here and now.
06 April 2005
Flannery O’Conner (1925-1964)
I never know about Flanner O’Conner before, so I am grateful to know about her in this presentation. She is a woman and a writer in which Bishop George H. Niederaruer witnessed as savvy, sly with, and dead-on honest observer. Other qualities on her are she is a supreme artist in fiction, valuable witness to the Catholic Church and its leaders in the USA. She is also the testimony of a watchful, honest, faith-filled, eloquent lay person and she had much to say about life experience in the Catholic faith. He points out four aspects in her letters connected aspects in the Catholic faith: the experience of being a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ; the cost of discipleship; the power of grace in the experience of the believer and the experience of the church as the setting of that life of faith and discipleship. I think they are in accord with our millennium spirituality we engage and pursue in this course. I have impression that O’Conner has deep spirituality in her early life. It is evidenced when she pursued her identity toward her work. She declared that she wanted to be a writer and tried all effort to prove it even though sometimes she was disappointed and failed. She is a prolific author who combined various spirituality such as Thomas Merton as her writing. Her profound example to write and to write incessantly gives me insight to continue my weekly journal writing based on my own daily experience.
To understand the spirituality of Flannery O’Conner, it’s much easier for me when I read an essay of The Most Reverend George H. Niederauer (Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake City) entitled The Church Listens to Flannery O’Conner. But, it’s difficult when I have to understand the two stories of “The Life You Save May Be your Own” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” even though I have read it. Perhaps it is my own limitation on comprehending English literature that is not my first language. Thank you to Mary who has given me handout of before the class so that I could try to understand who’s Flannery O’Conner.
I can correlate the essay of Bishop George on my presentation of Bonhoeffer, especially the cost of discipleship. Bonhoeffer wrote: “Cheap grace is grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel. It costs people their lives. It costs the life of God’s Son, and nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.” O’Connor also had strong aspiration to say about faith, discipleship and living together as church and she admitted herself in good doing it. It’s pretty much connect on my own life in the journey of my vocation life become a disciple in ministering God’s people at church and as a member of our Catholic Church. The question and task for me is: how I do integrate myself in the spirituality of faith journey in discipleship that often times requires ‘costly grace’?
2) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-3, 10 April 2005
Senin, 04 April 2005. Pagi ini pukul 7 kami merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy, sx dan sore harinya saya memimpin lectio divina di komunitas kami. Dalam kuliah spiritualitas millennium, Liz Cope mempresentasikan tentang Georgia O’Keeffe, seorang pelukis wanita terkenal di USA ini. Malam harinya saya mengadakan riset tentang Bonhoeffer untuk presentasi saya.
Selasa, 05 April 2005. Pagi ini sebelum jam 7 saya dan Ignas pergi ke bandara O’hare untuk menjemput seorang romo Jesuit Indonesia yaitu Romo Rukiyanto yang studi teologi di Boston. Ia adalah dosen teologi kami di STF Driyarkara, Jakarta. Hari ini juga ibunda dan adik perempuan Jacques datang ke komunitas kami di Hyde Park. Mereka datang dari R.D. Congo (Afrika). Pagi hari saya menemui Suster Barbara Bowe, RSCJ di kantornya untuk membuat janji pertemuan perihal program studi di CTU. Pukul 3 sore, Ignas dan saya merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki di kapel kami dalam bahasa Inggris. Sore harinya, saya mengantar Romo Ruki ke CTU untuk mengikuti seminar dibawakan oleh Thomas O’Meara tentang Karl Rahner. Saya pergi ke kantor registrasi mengambil daftar matakuliah untuk tahun akademis berikutnya (2205-2006) di mana sebelumnya saya sudah menunggu lama daftar ini diterbitkan. Tiba di rumah, saya langsung memikirkan dengan cermat dan seksama daftar kuliah ini dan merencanakan kuliah-kuliah yang akan saya ambil di dua semester depan ini. Hari ini pula kami menerima Warta Xaverian dari wisma xaverian di Cempaka Putih Jakarta edisi September 2004 hingga Maret 2005. Saya senang sekali membaca majalah ini di malam hari. Malam harinya saya menelpon adik saya di Ponorogo untuk mengucapkan ulang tahun pertama putera sulungnya, Frederiko.
Rabu, 06 April 2005. Pagi hari seperti biasanya, kami merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki. Saya mengetik refleksi teologi untuk kerasulan saya yang digunakan minggu depan. Siang hari kuliah spiritualitas millennium, kami menyaksikan presentasi dari Mary mengenai Flannery O’Connor yang adalah seorang penulis di USA ini. Sore hari saya memasak untuk komunitas saya di Hyde Park ini: nasi goreng, kerupuk, ayam yang di-oven dan gule daging sapi.
Kamis, 07 April 2005. Kami mengadakan misa pukul 7 dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki. Karena saya tidak ada kuliah, bersama dengan Ignas, saya mengantar Romo Ruki serta mengajak Romo Edi, osc pergi mengunjungi Romo Jack, cm di rumahnya. Sebelum itu kami sempat berbelanja di Argyle, bahan makanan Asia, toko Thailand dan Vietnam. Di rumah Vinsentian rumah Romo Jack, kami makan ditraktir makan siang lalu ramah tamah di kamarnya. Pukul 5 sore kami mengadakan adorasi sembah sujud di kapel rumah Xaverian kami di mana Jacques memimpin acara ini. Sore hari setelah membersihkan basement, saya menyiapkan presentasi tentang Bonhoeffer untuk hari Senin mendatang ini dan mencuci – menyeterika baju.
Jumat, 08 April 2005. Pagi-pagi buta, Pastors Rocco dan Victor kembali dari retret dan asemblea mereka di New Jersey. Hari ini adalah pemakaman Paus Yohanes Paulus II di Vatikan. Saya menonton TV yang menyiarkan langsung misa ini di pagi hari waktu Chicago. Pukul 7 pagi Romo Ruki bersama Pastor Victor memimpin misa di komunitas kami. Di sore hari saya memasak lagi untuk komunitas di sini: nasi goreng lagi dari sisa-sisa makanan yang ada dan sayur asin/baikut. Di malam hari saya menyiapkan lagi bahan presentasi saya tentang Bonhoeffer.
Sabtu, 09 April 2005. Pukul 6 Ignas dan saya mengantar Romo Ruki ke bandara O’hare. Ia sudah berada di Chicago dalam 4 hari ini untuk melakukan riset untuk studi doktoralnya di bidang teologi eklesiologi dan menemui beberapa dosen di CTU. Ia kembali ke Boston di mana dia berkuliah di Weston Theological School di Boston dan singgah sebentar di Philadelphia. Karena lalu-lintas tidak padat maka kami masih sempat tiba di rumah lebih awal dan mengikuti misa di rumah pukul 7.30 dipimpin oleh Pastors Victor dan Rocco. Saya menyiapkan presentasi dengan power point tentang Dietrich Bonhoeffer dalam kuliah spiritualitas millennium. Di sore hari Pascal Atumisi dan saya pergi ke acara tahbisan diakonat dua orang frater Combonians asal Afrika di Gereja Santo Michael Malaikat Agung di Jalan Damen dan 51st yang dimulai pukul 3.20 sore hari. Misa ini dipimpin oleh Uskup Perry, seorang uskup dari Keuskupan Agung Chicago keturunan Afro-Amerikan. Kebanyakan orang yang datang dalam acara ini adalah orang Afrika dan orang keturunan Amerika Latin. Setelah misa kami makan bersama di gedung olah raga sekolah Santo Michael dengan menu makanan Mexico. Saya kembali ke rumah pukul 7.15 sore di mana di rumah Xaverian sudah ada tamu: Mulianto-Dewi dan seorang lagi dari yaitu Ibu Densy. Ibu Densy adalah seorang yang mengundang saya ke acara workshop Asia Pasifik di Los Angeles saat musim panas 2004 lalu saat saya sedang menjalani pengalaman pastoral di paroki Santo Thomas Aquinas di Philadelphia. Ia bekerja sebagai konsultan di Pelayanan kerasulan Asia Pasifik di gereja Katolik di USA. Saat ini selama tiga hari ia menghadiri pertemuan di Chicago. Ia tinggal di San Bernardino-California. Bersama dengan para tamu ini juga dengan Ignas dan Petrus, kami makan malam bersama di restauran Lao Tze Chuan di Chinatown. Kami mengantar Ibu Densy menemui kedua romo OSC di CTU yaitu Edi dan Rudi. Menjelang tengah malam kami mengantar Ibu Densy ke rumah retret Cenacle di Fullerton, Utara Chicago di mana dia menginap dan mengadakan pertemuan.
Minggu, 10 April 2005. Saya bangun pagi pukul 7, mandi, doa brevir pribadi di kamar lalu mengetik jurnal ini. At 9.30 a.m. Petrus dan saya pergi menuju Gereja Santa Theresia Chinatown untuk mengikuti misa bahasa Indonesia pukul 11 pagi dan kali ini Romo Jack, CM memimpin misa ini. Nampaknya sedikit orang yang datang di misa ini namun musik dan koornya sungguh bagus sekali dengan band, gitar elektrik, piano dan organ yang membuat suasana liturgi misa bertambah lebih semarak dan hidup. Setelah makan siang dan ramah tamah, saya kembali ke rumah dengan bis dan kereta CTA, istirahat siang sejenak, lalu mengerjakan PR kuliah spiritualitas millennium. Kami makan malam bersama di komunitas yang dimasak oleh Ignas dengan menu nasi, ikan dan udang.
Monday, April 04, 2005. In the morning at 7 o’clock we had Mass presided by Father Willy and in the evening I led the lectio divina. In the class of millennium spirituality, Liz Cope presented Georgia O’Keeffe, a woman painter of the US. At night I did research on Bonhoeffer for my presentation.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005. Early in the morning at 7 o’clock Ignas and I headed to O’hare airport to pick up an Indonesian Jesuit priest, Father Rukiyanto, who studies theology in Boston. He is our professor at Driyarkara School of Philosophy and Theology in Jakarta. Today also sister and mother of Jacques came to our house. They came from R.D. Congo (Africa). In the morning I met Sister Barbara Bowe, RSCJ to make an appointment of academic advisement at CTU. At 3 p.m. Ignas and I attended Mass at our chapel celebrated by Father Ruki in English. In the afternoon, I took Father Ruki to go to CTU attending a seminar of Thomas O’Meara about Karl Rahner. I took schedule of fall and spring semesters for next academic year (2205-2006) at the registration office after waiting for a while during these days. Arriving at the house, I pondered on the schedule and planned my studies for the coming semesters. Today also we received “Warta Xaverian” (a magazine of Xaverian students in Indonesia) edition of Sept 2004 to March 2005. I was delighted to read it in the evening. At night I called up my brother in Ponorogo-Indonesia to congratulate his son’s first year birthday.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005. In the morning as usual we celebrated Mass led by Father Ruki. I was typing my theological reflection for next week. At noon the class of millennium spirituality, we had presentation of Mary about Flannery O’Connor who was a U.S. writer. In the afternoon I was cooking for my community: fried rice, crackers, oven-chicken and beef soup (gule).
Thursday, April 07, 2005. We had Mass at 7 a.m. presided by Father Ruki. Since I didn’t have class today, together with Ignas, I took Father Ruki and inviting Father Edi, osc to go to Father Jack’s house. Before that, we were shopping at Argyle. At the house of Vincentian, the house of Father Jack, we had lunch and hospitality at his room. At 5 p.m. Jacques guided us at the Holy Hour. In the evening after cleaning the basement, I was preparing my Bonhoeffer’s presentation for this coming Monday and doing laundry.
Friday, April 08, 2005. Early in the morning Fathers Rocco and Victor returned home from retreat and assembly at the East Coast. Today is the funeral of Pope John Paul II in Vatican. I watched television reported this solemn ceremonial Mass in the morning time of Chicago. At 7 a.m. Father Ruki and Father Victor concelebrated the Mass at our community. In the afternoon I was cooking again for my community: fried rice of leftover food and pork soup (sayur asin/baikut). In the evening to midnight I was preparing my Bonhoeffer’s presentation.
Saturday, April 09, 2005. At 6 a.m. Ignas and I took Father Ruki to O’hare airport. He has been in Chicago to do his doctoral research and meet some professors at CTU. He returned to Boston and visit Philadelphia first. Since the traffic was not bad, we still had time to attend our Mass at 7.30 concelebrated by Fathers Victor and Rocco. I was preparing my power point presentation on Bonhoeffer. In the afternoon Pascal Atumisi and I attended the deaconate ordination of two African Combonian students at Saint Michael Archangel Church, at Damen and 51st street that was started at 3.20 p.m. It was concelebrated by Most Rev. Perry, an Afro-American bishop in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Most people who came to this celebration were Africans and Latinos. We had dinner at the gym of Saint Michael School with Mexican food. I returned home at 7.15 p.m. while in our Xaverian house there were some guests: Mulianto-Dewi and one from California, Ibu Densy. Ibu Densy is the one who invited me to attend an Asian Pacific workshop in Los Angeles back in the summer 2004 while I was experiencing immersion at Saint Thomas Aquinas Church in Philadelphia. She works as a consultant of Asian Pacific Ministry at Catholic Church in the U.S. She attends convocation for three days in Chicago. She lives in San Bernardino-California. Together with Ignas and Petrus as well, we had supper at Lao Tze Chuan restaurant at Chinatown. We took Ibu Densy to meet two OSC’s fathers at CTU, Edi and Rudi. Nearly midnight we took her to Cenacle Retreat House at Fullerton, Northern Chicago.
Sunday, April 10, 2005. I woke up at 7 a.m., took shower, praying breviary personally at my room and typing this journal. At 9.30 a.m. Petrus and I headed to Saint Therese Church, Chinatown to attend Indonesian Mass at 11 a.m. and this time Father Jack, CM concelebrated it. It seemed few people came to this Mass but the music and choir was wonderful with band and electric guitar, piano and organ that made the liturgy of the Mass more alive. After having lunch and hospitality, I returned home by CTA, taking a rest a while and typing my homework of millennium spirituality. We had supper cooked by Ignas, namely, rice, fish and shrimp.
04 April 2005
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986)
“Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) is the most famous American woman artist and an important pioneering modernist.” It is the first time I know about her and I found she’s very interesting woman in the relation between art (painting) and new millennium spirituality. I’m grateful to have experience of this presentation given interestingly by Liz Cope. The video about O’Keeffe gave me her real life in the process of knowing nature such as dessert in Mexico then she implemented in beautiful paintings. I was impressed by her spirituality especially her spirit in her aging and wrinkle skin of face she still had passion to create harmony and beauty of the nature. I hope I also have a same spirit in my aging process, not to be old and feel old in my old days. The playing of light colors in the power point presentation gave me insight and hope that this figure has optimistic and realistic life. I appreciate Liz’ integration of this presentation in which she can connect the spirituality of other figures of our class in the spirituality of O’Keeffe that was evidenced in her power point quotations.
In her age 11, O’Keeffe knew already that she wanted to become a painter. It reminds me of the idea and dream of Martin Luther King Jr. when he was a little boy, he also said that he wanted to become like Jesus. The ideal and dream since I was a boy sometimes changed until I got a certain idea when I was at 16 year-old when I knew for the first time a vocation of becoming a missionary. I was convinced at that time that I would be one of the Xaverian missionaries and it becomes real now. In the relation to a new millennium spirituality, I can draw the spirituality of O’Keeffe into our care of the nature and how to reveal the beauty and mystery of our tremendous nature into our talent such as painting art. It is interesting to see O’Keeffe in the dessert of Mexico in the hot day paying attention to the reality of nature and put it into her creative and imaginative work. Our care and talent can be implemented in many ways as we create harmony in our heart and for the good of others. The spirituality that comes up and spread toward others we can call it as a real spirituality. In other words: happiness is not fulfilled if it is not shared. The same thing with spirituality if it is not shared for others, it will not be complete.
In creating good art, we need imagination and inspiration. It can happen in conducive situation that often times in a silence manner. It is exactly what O’Keeffe did when she needed solitude place and time for herself and her art. In a new millennium spirituality I think it is very important to spare solitude time to reflect upon human work in busy and hectic days with full of activities that normally people never finish to achieve their material aims. For myself as a religious, always there is a time to do it in my annual retreat even vacation during the summers always gave me new energy and spirit to start new life. To stop for a while and look back our life’s journey will help us to know ourselves, others, God and nature then we start again this ever long and longing story of human being toward unity with God. Even in my own daily lives, I can also draw a solitude time to see again myself in the relationship with all surrounds me and to be aware of every grace I privilege to have in here and now.
06 April 2005
Flannery O’Conner (1925-1964)
I never know about Flanner O’Conner before, so I am grateful to know about her in this presentation. She is a woman and a writer in which Bishop George H. Niederaruer witnessed as savvy, sly with, and dead-on honest observer. Other qualities on her are she is a supreme artist in fiction, valuable witness to the Catholic Church and its leaders in the USA. She is also the testimony of a watchful, honest, faith-filled, eloquent lay person and she had much to say about life experience in the Catholic faith. He points out four aspects in her letters connected aspects in the Catholic faith: the experience of being a believer, a disciple of Jesus Christ; the cost of discipleship; the power of grace in the experience of the believer and the experience of the church as the setting of that life of faith and discipleship. I think they are in accord with our millennium spirituality we engage and pursue in this course. I have impression that O’Conner has deep spirituality in her early life. It is evidenced when she pursued her identity toward her work. She declared that she wanted to be a writer and tried all effort to prove it even though sometimes she was disappointed and failed. She is a prolific author who combined various spirituality such as Thomas Merton as her writing. Her profound example to write and to write incessantly gives me insight to continue my weekly journal writing based on my own daily experience.
To understand the spirituality of Flannery O’Conner, it’s much easier for me when I read an essay of The Most Reverend George H. Niederauer (Catholic Bishop of Salt Lake City) entitled The Church Listens to Flannery O’Conner. But, it’s difficult when I have to understand the two stories of “The Life You Save May Be your Own” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” even though I have read it. Perhaps it is my own limitation on comprehending English literature that is not my first language. Thank you to Mary who has given me handout of before the class so that I could try to understand who’s Flannery O’Conner.
I can correlate the essay of Bishop George on my presentation of Bonhoeffer, especially the cost of discipleship. Bonhoeffer wrote: “Cheap grace is grace without the cross, grace without the living, incarnate Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the gospel. It costs people their lives. It costs the life of God’s Son, and nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.” O’Connor also had strong aspiration to say about faith, discipleship and living together as church and she admitted herself in good doing it. It’s pretty much connect on my own life in the journey of my vocation life become a disciple in ministering God’s people at church and as a member of our Catholic Church. The question and task for me is: how I do integrate myself in the spirituality of faith journey in discipleship that often times requires ‘costly grace’?
2) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-3, 10 April 2005
Senin, 04 April 2005. Pagi ini pukul 7 kami merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy, sx dan sore harinya saya memimpin lectio divina di komunitas kami. Dalam kuliah spiritualitas millennium, Liz Cope mempresentasikan tentang Georgia O’Keeffe, seorang pelukis wanita terkenal di USA ini. Malam harinya saya mengadakan riset tentang Bonhoeffer untuk presentasi saya.
Selasa, 05 April 2005. Pagi ini sebelum jam 7 saya dan Ignas pergi ke bandara O’hare untuk menjemput seorang romo Jesuit Indonesia yaitu Romo Rukiyanto yang studi teologi di Boston. Ia adalah dosen teologi kami di STF Driyarkara, Jakarta. Hari ini juga ibunda dan adik perempuan Jacques datang ke komunitas kami di Hyde Park. Mereka datang dari R.D. Congo (Afrika). Pagi hari saya menemui Suster Barbara Bowe, RSCJ di kantornya untuk membuat janji pertemuan perihal program studi di CTU. Pukul 3 sore, Ignas dan saya merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki di kapel kami dalam bahasa Inggris. Sore harinya, saya mengantar Romo Ruki ke CTU untuk mengikuti seminar dibawakan oleh Thomas O’Meara tentang Karl Rahner. Saya pergi ke kantor registrasi mengambil daftar matakuliah untuk tahun akademis berikutnya (2205-2006) di mana sebelumnya saya sudah menunggu lama daftar ini diterbitkan. Tiba di rumah, saya langsung memikirkan dengan cermat dan seksama daftar kuliah ini dan merencanakan kuliah-kuliah yang akan saya ambil di dua semester depan ini. Hari ini pula kami menerima Warta Xaverian dari wisma xaverian di Cempaka Putih Jakarta edisi September 2004 hingga Maret 2005. Saya senang sekali membaca majalah ini di malam hari. Malam harinya saya menelpon adik saya di Ponorogo untuk mengucapkan ulang tahun pertama putera sulungnya, Frederiko.
Rabu, 06 April 2005. Pagi hari seperti biasanya, kami merayakan misa dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki. Saya mengetik refleksi teologi untuk kerasulan saya yang digunakan minggu depan. Siang hari kuliah spiritualitas millennium, kami menyaksikan presentasi dari Mary mengenai Flannery O’Connor yang adalah seorang penulis di USA ini. Sore hari saya memasak untuk komunitas saya di Hyde Park ini: nasi goreng, kerupuk, ayam yang di-oven dan gule daging sapi.
Kamis, 07 April 2005. Kami mengadakan misa pukul 7 dipimpin oleh Romo Ruki. Karena saya tidak ada kuliah, bersama dengan Ignas, saya mengantar Romo Ruki serta mengajak Romo Edi, osc pergi mengunjungi Romo Jack, cm di rumahnya. Sebelum itu kami sempat berbelanja di Argyle, bahan makanan Asia, toko Thailand dan Vietnam. Di rumah Vinsentian rumah Romo Jack, kami makan ditraktir makan siang lalu ramah tamah di kamarnya. Pukul 5 sore kami mengadakan adorasi sembah sujud di kapel rumah Xaverian kami di mana Jacques memimpin acara ini. Sore hari setelah membersihkan basement, saya menyiapkan presentasi tentang Bonhoeffer untuk hari Senin mendatang ini dan mencuci – menyeterika baju.
Jumat, 08 April 2005. Pagi-pagi buta, Pastors Rocco dan Victor kembali dari retret dan asemblea mereka di New Jersey. Hari ini adalah pemakaman Paus Yohanes Paulus II di Vatikan. Saya menonton TV yang menyiarkan langsung misa ini di pagi hari waktu Chicago. Pukul 7 pagi Romo Ruki bersama Pastor Victor memimpin misa di komunitas kami. Di sore hari saya memasak lagi untuk komunitas di sini: nasi goreng lagi dari sisa-sisa makanan yang ada dan sayur asin/baikut. Di malam hari saya menyiapkan lagi bahan presentasi saya tentang Bonhoeffer.
Sabtu, 09 April 2005. Pukul 6 Ignas dan saya mengantar Romo Ruki ke bandara O’hare. Ia sudah berada di Chicago dalam 4 hari ini untuk melakukan riset untuk studi doktoralnya di bidang teologi eklesiologi dan menemui beberapa dosen di CTU. Ia kembali ke Boston di mana dia berkuliah di Weston Theological School di Boston dan singgah sebentar di Philadelphia. Karena lalu-lintas tidak padat maka kami masih sempat tiba di rumah lebih awal dan mengikuti misa di rumah pukul 7.30 dipimpin oleh Pastors Victor dan Rocco. Saya menyiapkan presentasi dengan power point tentang Dietrich Bonhoeffer dalam kuliah spiritualitas millennium. Di sore hari Pascal Atumisi dan saya pergi ke acara tahbisan diakonat dua orang frater Combonians asal Afrika di Gereja Santo Michael Malaikat Agung di Jalan Damen dan 51st yang dimulai pukul 3.20 sore hari. Misa ini dipimpin oleh Uskup Perry, seorang uskup dari Keuskupan Agung Chicago keturunan Afro-Amerikan. Kebanyakan orang yang datang dalam acara ini adalah orang Afrika dan orang keturunan Amerika Latin. Setelah misa kami makan bersama di gedung olah raga sekolah Santo Michael dengan menu makanan Mexico. Saya kembali ke rumah pukul 7.15 sore di mana di rumah Xaverian sudah ada tamu: Mulianto-Dewi dan seorang lagi dari yaitu Ibu Densy. Ibu Densy adalah seorang yang mengundang saya ke acara workshop Asia Pasifik di Los Angeles saat musim panas 2004 lalu saat saya sedang menjalani pengalaman pastoral di paroki Santo Thomas Aquinas di Philadelphia. Ia bekerja sebagai konsultan di Pelayanan kerasulan Asia Pasifik di gereja Katolik di USA. Saat ini selama tiga hari ia menghadiri pertemuan di Chicago. Ia tinggal di San Bernardino-California. Bersama dengan para tamu ini juga dengan Ignas dan Petrus, kami makan malam bersama di restauran Lao Tze Chuan di Chinatown. Kami mengantar Ibu Densy menemui kedua romo OSC di CTU yaitu Edi dan Rudi. Menjelang tengah malam kami mengantar Ibu Densy ke rumah retret Cenacle di Fullerton, Utara Chicago di mana dia menginap dan mengadakan pertemuan.
Minggu, 10 April 2005. Saya bangun pagi pukul 7, mandi, doa brevir pribadi di kamar lalu mengetik jurnal ini. At 9.30 a.m. Petrus dan saya pergi menuju Gereja Santa Theresia Chinatown untuk mengikuti misa bahasa Indonesia pukul 11 pagi dan kali ini Romo Jack, CM memimpin misa ini. Nampaknya sedikit orang yang datang di misa ini namun musik dan koornya sungguh bagus sekali dengan band, gitar elektrik, piano dan organ yang membuat suasana liturgi misa bertambah lebih semarak dan hidup. Setelah makan siang dan ramah tamah, saya kembali ke rumah dengan bis dan kereta CTA, istirahat siang sejenak, lalu mengerjakan PR kuliah spiritualitas millennium. Kami makan malam bersama di komunitas yang dimasak oleh Ignas dengan menu nasi, ikan dan udang.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
surat ke-1 bulan April 2005
1) 2nd Sunday of Easter, April 03, 2005
Monday, March 28, 2005. This morning I met Father Rocco for monthly personal formation. Harno returned to Milwaukee, taken by Petrus and Dharmawan.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005. In the morning I had theological reflection group at Scalabrinian house. In the afternoon I had turn to cook for my community, just leftover and already made Lasagna plus garlic bread. Good news for me that I got roundtrip ticket Chicago-Orlando that was purchased today by Father Rocco via Internet, namely, Southwest. It’s a good deal one, costs $ 125.40. In the evening I telephoned Cik Ana in Orlando to confirm that I will go to visit her in May. At night eagerly I was reading the new I Saveriani, the edition of February 2005 (the Xaverian bi-montly intern booklet).
Wednesday, March 30, 2005. In the morning all Xaverian priests headed to the East Coast to attend retreat and assembly and in the morning we had Mass presided by Father Willy, sx. I got a phone call from my friend, Fredy in Jakarta. At noon I attended a class of millennium spirituality and this time there was a presentation given by Gabriel Amoateng about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the afternoon, Jacques took Brother Paul Kofi, csc (holy cross congregation) to O’Hare airport to return to Ghana-Africa after finishing his MA study at CTU-Chicago. I got news that my letters for my family and all Xaverian formation houses in Indonesia I gave to Edi-Lisa who have been in Surabaya-Indonesia, have already arrived in the addresses.
Thursday, March 31, 2005. This morning we had Mass as well concelebrated by Father Willy with sharing of our Easter or Holy Week experience. I borrowed from CTU library a videocassette and book entitled ‘Charo of the Barrio’ for my retreat ministry tomorrow evening. It’s about Columban mission in Peru. In the evening we prayed Holy Hour led by Pascal Atumisi. Since there are no formators here, so we don’t have community meeting. I have times this evening to type this journal and my paper of millennium spirituality.
Friday, April 01, 2005. This morning Father Willy concelebrated Mass at our community then I attended a workshop at CTU about Public Relationship and Marketing (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.). At the end of the workshop, Father Steve Bevans, SVD presided a short prayer for our Pope, John Paul II who is very sick together with all faculty and staff of CTU. In the raining of the dusk, I headed to my ministry site, David Darst Center by bicycle through Green Line train station and took this train, stopped at 35th Street toward 28th Street on South Normal. Unfortunately, the door of the retreat house was closed and I assumed I misunderstood of the information. Patiently, I was waiting for one hour till 7 p.m. I tried to call up Sister Paula but I couldn’t succeed, then I returned to the retreat house and eventually I saw light on in the house; Gayle was there and opened the door for me. Thanks be to God that my patience is fruitful. At 8.20 p.m. the retreatans came from Saint Mary University, Winona-Minnesota. They are 3 girls of college students and one man of graduate studies (Matt, Michelle, Cathy and Caroline). This time only Gayle and I accompanied them in this weekend retreat since Sister Paula, my supervisor and the director of the retreat house has operation of her eyes. Directly, we went to Lakeview homeless shelter at North of Chicago. A couple of times I have been coming to this man shelter and I always see some new faces. We had supper together served by some other volunteers. I had opportunity to make conversation with an Afro-American man from New York City while the television was on reporting the very sickness of our Pope. At 10.30 p.m. we returned to the retreat house.
Saturday, April 02, 2005. This morning I had private prayer and together with the retreatans having breakfast then departed to Martin de Porres recovery house for women and children who have drug and alcohol addiction. We accompanied and played with the children at the park close by the house. We were having fun with the kids who were Afro-Americans. The director of the house shared her story how she struggled in the recovery of addictions and to be helper of other women at this house. The house is run also by nuns. At 1 p.m. we returned to the retreat house to have lunch then visited Saint Agnes nursing home close to Chinatown. As we entered the nursing home, we saw on the television that Pope, John Paul II has died at night in Rome. We met some residents at this three-floor nursing home and personally I had nice conversation with a 90-year-old Afro-American lady originally from Chicago. At 4 p.m. we came back to the retreat house and the retreatans invited me to go to downtown to see Grand Millennium Park. At 6 p.m. we arrived at the retreat house and had supper at 7 p.m. In the evening I shared the rope game to them and Gayle led a session and reflection and once in a while I shared my point of views referring to my own experience and culture.
Sunday, April 03, 2005. We attended Mass at Saint Basil the Visitation Church at 9 a.m. and visited SU CASA Catholic Worker House. After Gayle guided us to know SU CASA, we were getting in line with homeless people to enter the soup kitchen to have lunch. I had lunch together with Derick, an Afro-American who carries Chicago Tribune newspaper and he said that he likes to read it. The coordinator of the soup kitchen named Freida told us her experience being helped by Brother Denis (Christian Brother) 14 years ago and now she is a volunteer of this soup kitchen. We had closing prayer at the chapel of the retreat house then the retratans left for Minnesota at 2 p.m. I enjoyed this retreat, especially in the small group I can share openly my own experience and Matt always asked me many things about my vocation in the seminary and my own culture. Most of us have ‘silence’ attitude, needless to say as introvert so most of the time there was quiet moment and I tried to initiate the talk or Matt started then I told other stories. I am glad that I can help them to the process of the retreat with being present among them and available to walk together with them. I promised to them I would share the pictures I took with them via e-mail. It’s a good experience that I can reflect it more for my theological reflection. I am curious to know a Catholic church named Saint Mary the Perpetual Help at 32nd Street and with my bicycle finally I found it and took some pictures of this old church with huge dome. I went to Chinatown to buy a phone card then continued to go home at Hyde Park through some streets that I never passed by. It’s really a nice and beautiful day to finish the retreat. Arrived at home I tried to transfer my digital camera pictures to CD and computer and finally at night I could do it with the help of Alejandro.
28 March 2005
Howard Thurman (1900-1981)
Thurman was from Daytona-Beach, where he was born in 1900 and his grandmother, who took care of him and his sisters after his father died and his other went to work, had been born a slave; she could neither read nor write. But it was the grandmother who insisted on the importance of an education above all else. He was the first Afro-American child in the town to receive an eighth grade certificate from the public school. His grandmother had big influence to his future life as she said, “I want to tell you something, and you remember it all your life: Look up always; down never. Look forward always; backwards never. And remember, everything you get you have to work for.” It reminds me also of my own family especially my grandmother who took care of me after my mother passed away. She often times telling me stories of her life and gave me example to care of other extended family. She gave a real and compassionate action toward her other children and grandchildren especially who were needed her attention. It seems it is inherited on my own principle of life, namely, to care of my family and extended family with whom I belong. Her closeness and care to me from 10 to 17 year-old will never be forgotten.
Thurman’s carrier afterward was greatly influenced by his professors such as Dr. George Cross who said to him: “Howard Thurman, you have the capacity to become one of the great original creative thinkers; to influence the religious thought of our nation, perhaps of the whole world-if you are not tampered with! Because you are a Negro you may be tricked into using all your valuable creativity in fighting the race question. The race question is a social question and all social questions are temporary. Suppose Jesus had used all his energies in fighting the Roman Empire? Address your mind to the timeless questions of the human spirit! You have that kind of mind.” In my own life as well, I also have many experiences that draw me to others’ influence to my life now. I am being shaped and have been shaped by others as well as I shape others.
Thurman had an idea of interracial church in 1935 in which he and his wife, the former Sue Bailey, as chairman of the Pilgrimage of Friendship to students of India, Burma, and Ceylon under the auspices of the World Student Christian Federation. He met Gandhi in India and in their conversation Gandhi said, “That is the only way I could come, but not unless I have some creative and healing thing to say to the people. Until I have found an answer to our own problem in India. I have no right to come to America and say anything.” Then Thurman asked, “What is the greatest enemy that Jesus Christ has in India?” “Christianity,” Gandhi answered.
Thurman’s spirituality included others who are different in their many ways. In his own era, he already recognized plurality in the society in wider understanding. In the spirituality of a new millennium, it is important to see the reality in the global world that plurality is the important issue to be addressed. Thurman defines a creed as ‘a bronze plaque erected at the site of a battle, signifying who won,’ and dogma as ‘the rationalization of somebody else’s personal religious experience.’ His basic teaching theme is reiterated: ‘We are one at any level’. He said, “Man builds his little shelter, he raises his little wall, builds his little altar, worship his little God, organizes the resources of his little life to defend his little barrier, and he can’t do it! What we are committed to here, and what many other people in other places are committed to, is very simple-that it is possible to develop a religious fellowship that it is creative in character, so convincing in quality that it inspires the mind to multiply experiences of unity-which experiences of unity become over and over again more compelling than the concepts, the way of life, the sects and the creeds that separate men. We believe that in the presence of God with His dream of order there is neither male nor female, white nor black, Gentile nor Jew, Protestant nor Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, nor Moslem, but a human spirit stripped to the literal substance of itself.”
Howard Thurman’s best known work Jesus and the Disinherited influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He retired in 1965 from his position as Professor of Spiritual Resources and Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. He was the first black man to occupy the post of dean at a traditionally white university. “The ocean and the night together surrounded my little life with a reassurance that could not be affronted by the behavior of human beings. The ocean at night gave me a sense of timeless, of existing beyond the reach of the ebb and glow of circumstances. Death would be a minor thing, I felt, in the sweep of that natural embrace.”
30 March 2005
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Janury 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)
He was a Nobel Laureate, Baptist minister and African American civil rights activist. He is one of the most significant leaders in U.S. history in the modern history of non-violence, and is considered a hero, peacemaker and martyr by many people in the world. Since his death, King’s reputation has grown to become one of the most reverend names in American history to the point where he is compared with Abraham Lincoln. Both were leaders credited with strongly advancing human rights against poor odds in a nation divided against itself on the issue and were assassinated in part for it. A decade and a half after his 1968 assassination, Martin Luther King Day, a U.S. holiday, was established in his honor.
Having read and reflected on Martin’s life, I come to realize that his strength to never surrender effort to aspire equal right of Afro-Americans in his era were supported by his own inner spirituality. His study and ministry to God’s people as pastor and his experience of compassionate toward his same race people, who were oppressed, propelled him to do action in real massive demonstration. He acted, as if he knew what he did was right and just. This heroic example is in accord with spirituality in a new millennium, namely, solidarity to the marginalized in real actions and spirituality that comes out of strong inner power as a result of pondering the truth in God’s spirit. A lot of challenges he faced to voice the truth especially against other race and established system in the U.S. society. It is a typical of prophet’ life who is rejected and ended in death. Prophetically, he uttered his speech on April 3, 1968: “It really doesn’t matter what happens now…some began to…talk about the threats that were out-what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Even though he was not fear of anything, he still kept his non-violence actions as his spirituality admiring Gandhi’s example in India. Paying attention to Gabriel’s presentation in the class, I can understand how his ‘anger’ and not fear of anything comes from as his admiration of this black hero and he wants to imitate his heroic example in his own country Ghana against the establishment of the Catholic Church. For myself, I do not know how I can express this same spirit in my own context, probably to voice same and equal rights of my own people in Indonesia in regards of Chinese descendants who often times were treated unjustly by government and the major society.
It seems to me that King’s struggle was only for the Afro-American people but in fact, he included others as he said in his speech. I am impressed by the ‘I Have a Dream’s King’s speech he uttered on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.: “…I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’…When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
1) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-2, 03 April 2005
Senin, 28 Maret 2005. Pagi ini saya bertemu formator/rektor saya, Pstor Rocco untuk pembinaan bulanan. Harno kembali ke Milwaukee diantar oleh Petrus dan Dharmawan.
Selasa, 29 Maret 2005. Pagi hari saya mengikuti kelompok refleksi teologi di rumah Scalabrinian. Di sore hari saya masak untuk komunitas, hanya sisa makanan dari hari Minggu lalu plus Lasagna yang sudah jadi tinggal dipanaskan di oven dan juga roti bawang. Kabar gembira buat saya bahwa sore ini Pastor Rocco memberiku tiket pulang pergi Chicago-Orlando yang dia beli dari Internet yaitu Southwest Airlines. Ini termasuk tiket yang masih murah yaitu $ 125.40. Sore harinya aku menelpon Cik Ana di Orlando untuk mengkonfirmasikan bahwa saya akan jadi pergi mengunjunginya di bulan Mei ini. Malam hari dengan kemauan besar saya membaca booklet edaran dua bulanan I Saveriani edisi Februari 2005.
Rabu, 30 Maret 2005. Pagi hari semua pastor Xaverian pergi menuju Pantai Timur untuk mengikuti retret dan asemblea dan di pagi hari kami mengadakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy, sx. Saya mendapat telepon dari teman lama di Jakarta, Fredy. Tengah hari saya mengikuti kuliah di CTU yaitu spiritualitas millennium dan kali ini Gabriel Amoateng dari Ghana memberikan presentasi mengenai Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Di sore hari Jacques mengantar Bruder Paul Kofi, csc (kongregasi salib suci) ke bandara O’Hare untuk pulang kembali ke Ghana-Africa setelah menyelesaikan studi MA nya di CTU-Chicago. Saya mendapat berita bahwa surat-surat saya untuk keluargaku dan semua rumah formasi Xaverian di Indonesia yang saya berikan pada Edi-Lisa yang sudah berada di Surabaya-Indonesia, telah tiba di alamatnya masing-masing.
Kamis, 31 Maret 2005. Pagi ini kami mengadakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy dengan sharing dari beberapa frater tentang pengalaman pekan suci dan hari Paskah. Saya meminjam buku dan kaset dari perpustakaan CTU yaitu berjudul ‘Charo of the Barrio’ untuk acara retret saya besok malam di tempat kerasulan David Darst Center. Ini mengenai misi kongregasi Columban di Peru. Sore hari kami mengadakan adorasi/sembah sujud dipandu oleh Pascal Atumisi. Karena tidak ada formator di sini, maka kami tidak mengadakan pertemuan komunitas. Saya punya waktu semalaman mengetik jurnal ini dan paper spiritualitas millennium.
Jumat, 01 April 2005. Pagi ini Pastor Willy merayakan misa di komunitas kami lalu saya menghadiri workshop di CTU dengan tema Public Relation dan Marketing (jam 9 hinga 4 sore). Pada akhir workshop ini, Pastor Steve Bevans, SVD memimpin doa singkat untuk Paus kita, Yohanes Paulus II yang sedang sakit parah menjelang ajalnya bersama-sama dengan para dosen dan karyawan CTU lainnya. Dalam cuaca hujan di akhir hari Jumat menjelang gelap ini saya naik sepeda menuju ke tempat kerasulan saya di David Darst Center dan naik kereta jalur hijau turun di 35th Street lalu menuju ke 28th Street di South Normal. Malangnya, pintu rumah retret tertutup dan nampak tak ada orang di dalam, gelap dan saya berpikir bahwa saya salah informasi. Dengan sabar, saya menunggu selama sejam hingga jam 7 malam berdiri di depan pintu rumah retret ini. Saya mencoba telpon ke Suster Paula namun tidak berhasil, lalu kembali lagi ke rumah retret ini dan akhirnya saya melihat cahaya di jendela rumah ini; Gayle membukakan pintu dan syukur kepada Allah kesabaran saya memberikan buah. pukul 8.20 malam peserta retret dating dari Universitas Saint Mary di Winona-Minnesota. Mereka berempat terdiri dari 3 cewek dari college dan seorang cowok dari graduate study (yaitu: Matt, Michelle, Cathy dan Caroline). Kali ini hanya Gayle dan saya yang mendampingi retret ini karena Suster Paula menjalani operasi mata. Langsung malam ini juga kami pergi ke Lakeview, sebuah shelter untuk para tuna wisma di sebelah utara Chicago. Sudah beberapa kali saya datang ke tempat ini dan selalu melihat wajah baru. Kami ikut makan bersama mereka yang dilayani oleh volunteer lain. Saya punya kesempatan berbincang dengan seorang Afro-American asal New York City sementara televisi di ruangan menyiarkan tentang keadaan Paus yang sedang sakit parah menjelang wafatnya. Pukul 10.30 malam kami kembali ke rumah retreat.
Sabtu, 02 April 2005. Pagi ini saya berdoa pribadi dan bersama-sama para peserta retret sarapan pagi lalu pergi ke sebuah rumah untuk pemulihan ibu pecandu obat-obatan dan alcohol dan anak-anak mereka, dan rumah ini bernama Martin de Porres. Kami menemani dan bermain bersama anak-anak yang adalah were Afro-Americans di sebuah taman dekat rumah ini. Director rumah ini membagikan pengalamannya berjuang dalam pemulihan dirinya dari kecanduan obat-obatan dan akhirnya menjadi penolong bagi sesama wanita yang kecanduan di rumah ini. Rumah ini juga dikelola oleh beberapa suster biarawati. Pukul 1 siang kami kembali ke rumah retret untuk makan siang lalu berkunjung ke Santa Agnes sebuah panti jompo dekat dengan Chinatown. Saat kami masuk gedung ini, kami melihat televisi bahwa Paus telah meninggal dunia dengan tenang malam hari di Roma. Kami bertemu beberapa orang tua penghuni rumah tiga lantai ini dan secara pribadi pula saya bercakap dengan seorang wanita Afro-American berusia 90 tahun asli Chicago. Pukl 4 sore kami kembali ke rumah retret dan para peserta retret mengajak saya untuk jalan-jalan ke downtown melihat Taman bernama Grand Millennium. Pukul 6 sore kami sudah tiba di rumah retret dan makan malam jam 7 malam. Di malam hari saya memberikan permainan tali kepada mereka lalu Gayle memimpin sesi dan refleksi dan sesekali saya menyumbangkan pendapat dan pengalaman saya sesuai budaya dan pemahaman budaya saya.
Minggu, 03 April 2005. Kami menghadiri misa pagi hari di Gereja Santo Basil the Visitation pukul 9 dan mengunjungi SU CASA Catholic Worker House. Setelah Gayle memandu kami semua mengenal SU CASA ini, kami ikut mengantri bersama para tuna wisma untuk makan siang di dapur umum SU CASA ini. Saya sempat berbincang dengan seorang pria Afro-American bernama Derick yang membawa koran Chicago Tribune newspaper dan ia bilang bahwa ia suka membaca. Koordinator dapur umum ini adalah Freida membagikan pengalamannya kepada kami bagaimana ia ditolong oleh Bruder Denis Brother Denis (Christian Brother) 14 tahun lalu dan sekarang ia sebagai seorang volunteer dari soup kitchen/dapur umum ini. Kami menutup retret ini dengan doa penutup di kapel rumah retret dan para peserta retret kembali pulang ke Minnesota pukul 2 siang. Saya menikmati retret ini khususnya dalam kelompok kecil ini saya dapat membagikan secara terbuka pengalaman saya dan Matt selalu bertanya tentang panggilan hidup saya di seminari dan juga tentang budaya saya sendiri. Hampir dari kami semua memiliki sikap ‘diam’, tak perlu dibilang sebagai introvert sehingga kebanyakan bila ada saat hening sekali saya mencoba untuk berbicara atau Matt kemudian saya bercerita hal lain lagi. Saya senang bahwa saya dapat membantu mereka dalam proses retret ini dengan tetap tinggal dan hadir bersama mereka dan siap sedia bila diperlukan dan berjalan bersama mereka. Saya berjanji akan mengirimkan photo-photo yang sempat saya ambil kepada mereka lewat Internet atau e-mail. Ini adalah pengalaman yang bagus yang saya dapat refleksikan lebih lanjut untuk refleksi teologi dalam kelompok saya. Usai retret, saya ingin tahu sebuah gereja katolik dekat rumah retret ini bernama Santa Maria Bunda Penolong Abadi di 32nd Street dan dengan bersepeda saya akhirnya menemukan gereja ini dan mengambil beberapa photo yang hasilnya lumayan indah dengan langit biru dan menara gereja yang cukup besar dan berwarna hijau. Saya pergi ke Chinatown untuk beli kartu telepon lalu pergi pulang ke Hyde Park melewati jalan-jalan yang tidak pernah saya lewati sebelumnya. Ini sungguh hari yang cerah dan indah untuk mengakhiri retret akhir pekan ini. Tiba di rumah saya mencoba untuk mentransfer photo dari kamera digital saya ke komputer dan CD; akhirnya saya berhasil dengan bantuan Alejandro.
Monday, March 28, 2005. This morning I met Father Rocco for monthly personal formation. Harno returned to Milwaukee, taken by Petrus and Dharmawan.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005. In the morning I had theological reflection group at Scalabrinian house. In the afternoon I had turn to cook for my community, just leftover and already made Lasagna plus garlic bread. Good news for me that I got roundtrip ticket Chicago-Orlando that was purchased today by Father Rocco via Internet, namely, Southwest. It’s a good deal one, costs $ 125.40. In the evening I telephoned Cik Ana in Orlando to confirm that I will go to visit her in May. At night eagerly I was reading the new I Saveriani, the edition of February 2005 (the Xaverian bi-montly intern booklet).
Wednesday, March 30, 2005. In the morning all Xaverian priests headed to the East Coast to attend retreat and assembly and in the morning we had Mass presided by Father Willy, sx. I got a phone call from my friend, Fredy in Jakarta. At noon I attended a class of millennium spirituality and this time there was a presentation given by Gabriel Amoateng about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In the afternoon, Jacques took Brother Paul Kofi, csc (holy cross congregation) to O’Hare airport to return to Ghana-Africa after finishing his MA study at CTU-Chicago. I got news that my letters for my family and all Xaverian formation houses in Indonesia I gave to Edi-Lisa who have been in Surabaya-Indonesia, have already arrived in the addresses.
Thursday, March 31, 2005. This morning we had Mass as well concelebrated by Father Willy with sharing of our Easter or Holy Week experience. I borrowed from CTU library a videocassette and book entitled ‘Charo of the Barrio’ for my retreat ministry tomorrow evening. It’s about Columban mission in Peru. In the evening we prayed Holy Hour led by Pascal Atumisi. Since there are no formators here, so we don’t have community meeting. I have times this evening to type this journal and my paper of millennium spirituality.
Friday, April 01, 2005. This morning Father Willy concelebrated Mass at our community then I attended a workshop at CTU about Public Relationship and Marketing (9 a.m. to 4 p.m.). At the end of the workshop, Father Steve Bevans, SVD presided a short prayer for our Pope, John Paul II who is very sick together with all faculty and staff of CTU. In the raining of the dusk, I headed to my ministry site, David Darst Center by bicycle through Green Line train station and took this train, stopped at 35th Street toward 28th Street on South Normal. Unfortunately, the door of the retreat house was closed and I assumed I misunderstood of the information. Patiently, I was waiting for one hour till 7 p.m. I tried to call up Sister Paula but I couldn’t succeed, then I returned to the retreat house and eventually I saw light on in the house; Gayle was there and opened the door for me. Thanks be to God that my patience is fruitful. At 8.20 p.m. the retreatans came from Saint Mary University, Winona-Minnesota. They are 3 girls of college students and one man of graduate studies (Matt, Michelle, Cathy and Caroline). This time only Gayle and I accompanied them in this weekend retreat since Sister Paula, my supervisor and the director of the retreat house has operation of her eyes. Directly, we went to Lakeview homeless shelter at North of Chicago. A couple of times I have been coming to this man shelter and I always see some new faces. We had supper together served by some other volunteers. I had opportunity to make conversation with an Afro-American man from New York City while the television was on reporting the very sickness of our Pope. At 10.30 p.m. we returned to the retreat house.
Saturday, April 02, 2005. This morning I had private prayer and together with the retreatans having breakfast then departed to Martin de Porres recovery house for women and children who have drug and alcohol addiction. We accompanied and played with the children at the park close by the house. We were having fun with the kids who were Afro-Americans. The director of the house shared her story how she struggled in the recovery of addictions and to be helper of other women at this house. The house is run also by nuns. At 1 p.m. we returned to the retreat house to have lunch then visited Saint Agnes nursing home close to Chinatown. As we entered the nursing home, we saw on the television that Pope, John Paul II has died at night in Rome. We met some residents at this three-floor nursing home and personally I had nice conversation with a 90-year-old Afro-American lady originally from Chicago. At 4 p.m. we came back to the retreat house and the retreatans invited me to go to downtown to see Grand Millennium Park. At 6 p.m. we arrived at the retreat house and had supper at 7 p.m. In the evening I shared the rope game to them and Gayle led a session and reflection and once in a while I shared my point of views referring to my own experience and culture.
Sunday, April 03, 2005. We attended Mass at Saint Basil the Visitation Church at 9 a.m. and visited SU CASA Catholic Worker House. After Gayle guided us to know SU CASA, we were getting in line with homeless people to enter the soup kitchen to have lunch. I had lunch together with Derick, an Afro-American who carries Chicago Tribune newspaper and he said that he likes to read it. The coordinator of the soup kitchen named Freida told us her experience being helped by Brother Denis (Christian Brother) 14 years ago and now she is a volunteer of this soup kitchen. We had closing prayer at the chapel of the retreat house then the retratans left for Minnesota at 2 p.m. I enjoyed this retreat, especially in the small group I can share openly my own experience and Matt always asked me many things about my vocation in the seminary and my own culture. Most of us have ‘silence’ attitude, needless to say as introvert so most of the time there was quiet moment and I tried to initiate the talk or Matt started then I told other stories. I am glad that I can help them to the process of the retreat with being present among them and available to walk together with them. I promised to them I would share the pictures I took with them via e-mail. It’s a good experience that I can reflect it more for my theological reflection. I am curious to know a Catholic church named Saint Mary the Perpetual Help at 32nd Street and with my bicycle finally I found it and took some pictures of this old church with huge dome. I went to Chinatown to buy a phone card then continued to go home at Hyde Park through some streets that I never passed by. It’s really a nice and beautiful day to finish the retreat. Arrived at home I tried to transfer my digital camera pictures to CD and computer and finally at night I could do it with the help of Alejandro.
28 March 2005
Howard Thurman (1900-1981)
Thurman was from Daytona-Beach, where he was born in 1900 and his grandmother, who took care of him and his sisters after his father died and his other went to work, had been born a slave; she could neither read nor write. But it was the grandmother who insisted on the importance of an education above all else. He was the first Afro-American child in the town to receive an eighth grade certificate from the public school. His grandmother had big influence to his future life as she said, “I want to tell you something, and you remember it all your life: Look up always; down never. Look forward always; backwards never. And remember, everything you get you have to work for.” It reminds me also of my own family especially my grandmother who took care of me after my mother passed away. She often times telling me stories of her life and gave me example to care of other extended family. She gave a real and compassionate action toward her other children and grandchildren especially who were needed her attention. It seems it is inherited on my own principle of life, namely, to care of my family and extended family with whom I belong. Her closeness and care to me from 10 to 17 year-old will never be forgotten.
Thurman’s carrier afterward was greatly influenced by his professors such as Dr. George Cross who said to him: “Howard Thurman, you have the capacity to become one of the great original creative thinkers; to influence the religious thought of our nation, perhaps of the whole world-if you are not tampered with! Because you are a Negro you may be tricked into using all your valuable creativity in fighting the race question. The race question is a social question and all social questions are temporary. Suppose Jesus had used all his energies in fighting the Roman Empire? Address your mind to the timeless questions of the human spirit! You have that kind of mind.” In my own life as well, I also have many experiences that draw me to others’ influence to my life now. I am being shaped and have been shaped by others as well as I shape others.
Thurman had an idea of interracial church in 1935 in which he and his wife, the former Sue Bailey, as chairman of the Pilgrimage of Friendship to students of India, Burma, and Ceylon under the auspices of the World Student Christian Federation. He met Gandhi in India and in their conversation Gandhi said, “That is the only way I could come, but not unless I have some creative and healing thing to say to the people. Until I have found an answer to our own problem in India. I have no right to come to America and say anything.” Then Thurman asked, “What is the greatest enemy that Jesus Christ has in India?” “Christianity,” Gandhi answered.
Thurman’s spirituality included others who are different in their many ways. In his own era, he already recognized plurality in the society in wider understanding. In the spirituality of a new millennium, it is important to see the reality in the global world that plurality is the important issue to be addressed. Thurman defines a creed as ‘a bronze plaque erected at the site of a battle, signifying who won,’ and dogma as ‘the rationalization of somebody else’s personal religious experience.’ His basic teaching theme is reiterated: ‘We are one at any level’. He said, “Man builds his little shelter, he raises his little wall, builds his little altar, worship his little God, organizes the resources of his little life to defend his little barrier, and he can’t do it! What we are committed to here, and what many other people in other places are committed to, is very simple-that it is possible to develop a religious fellowship that it is creative in character, so convincing in quality that it inspires the mind to multiply experiences of unity-which experiences of unity become over and over again more compelling than the concepts, the way of life, the sects and the creeds that separate men. We believe that in the presence of God with His dream of order there is neither male nor female, white nor black, Gentile nor Jew, Protestant nor Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, nor Moslem, but a human spirit stripped to the literal substance of itself.”
Howard Thurman’s best known work Jesus and the Disinherited influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. He retired in 1965 from his position as Professor of Spiritual Resources and Dean of Marsh Chapel at Boston University. He was the first black man to occupy the post of dean at a traditionally white university. “The ocean and the night together surrounded my little life with a reassurance that could not be affronted by the behavior of human beings. The ocean at night gave me a sense of timeless, of existing beyond the reach of the ebb and glow of circumstances. Death would be a minor thing, I felt, in the sweep of that natural embrace.”
30 March 2005
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Janury 15, 1929-April 4, 1968)
He was a Nobel Laureate, Baptist minister and African American civil rights activist. He is one of the most significant leaders in U.S. history in the modern history of non-violence, and is considered a hero, peacemaker and martyr by many people in the world. Since his death, King’s reputation has grown to become one of the most reverend names in American history to the point where he is compared with Abraham Lincoln. Both were leaders credited with strongly advancing human rights against poor odds in a nation divided against itself on the issue and were assassinated in part for it. A decade and a half after his 1968 assassination, Martin Luther King Day, a U.S. holiday, was established in his honor.
Having read and reflected on Martin’s life, I come to realize that his strength to never surrender effort to aspire equal right of Afro-Americans in his era were supported by his own inner spirituality. His study and ministry to God’s people as pastor and his experience of compassionate toward his same race people, who were oppressed, propelled him to do action in real massive demonstration. He acted, as if he knew what he did was right and just. This heroic example is in accord with spirituality in a new millennium, namely, solidarity to the marginalized in real actions and spirituality that comes out of strong inner power as a result of pondering the truth in God’s spirit. A lot of challenges he faced to voice the truth especially against other race and established system in the U.S. society. It is a typical of prophet’ life who is rejected and ended in death. Prophetically, he uttered his speech on April 3, 1968: “It really doesn’t matter what happens now…some began to…talk about the threats that were out-what would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I’m concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” Even though he was not fear of anything, he still kept his non-violence actions as his spirituality admiring Gandhi’s example in India. Paying attention to Gabriel’s presentation in the class, I can understand how his ‘anger’ and not fear of anything comes from as his admiration of this black hero and he wants to imitate his heroic example in his own country Ghana against the establishment of the Catholic Church. For myself, I do not know how I can express this same spirit in my own context, probably to voice same and equal rights of my own people in Indonesia in regards of Chinese descendants who often times were treated unjustly by government and the major society.
It seems to me that King’s struggle was only for the Afro-American people but in fact, he included others as he said in his speech. I am impressed by the ‘I Have a Dream’s King’s speech he uttered on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.: “…I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’…When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’”
1) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-2, 03 April 2005
Senin, 28 Maret 2005. Pagi ini saya bertemu formator/rektor saya, Pstor Rocco untuk pembinaan bulanan. Harno kembali ke Milwaukee diantar oleh Petrus dan Dharmawan.
Selasa, 29 Maret 2005. Pagi hari saya mengikuti kelompok refleksi teologi di rumah Scalabrinian. Di sore hari saya masak untuk komunitas, hanya sisa makanan dari hari Minggu lalu plus Lasagna yang sudah jadi tinggal dipanaskan di oven dan juga roti bawang. Kabar gembira buat saya bahwa sore ini Pastor Rocco memberiku tiket pulang pergi Chicago-Orlando yang dia beli dari Internet yaitu Southwest Airlines. Ini termasuk tiket yang masih murah yaitu $ 125.40. Sore harinya aku menelpon Cik Ana di Orlando untuk mengkonfirmasikan bahwa saya akan jadi pergi mengunjunginya di bulan Mei ini. Malam hari dengan kemauan besar saya membaca booklet edaran dua bulanan I Saveriani edisi Februari 2005.
Rabu, 30 Maret 2005. Pagi hari semua pastor Xaverian pergi menuju Pantai Timur untuk mengikuti retret dan asemblea dan di pagi hari kami mengadakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy, sx. Saya mendapat telepon dari teman lama di Jakarta, Fredy. Tengah hari saya mengikuti kuliah di CTU yaitu spiritualitas millennium dan kali ini Gabriel Amoateng dari Ghana memberikan presentasi mengenai Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Di sore hari Jacques mengantar Bruder Paul Kofi, csc (kongregasi salib suci) ke bandara O’Hare untuk pulang kembali ke Ghana-Africa setelah menyelesaikan studi MA nya di CTU-Chicago. Saya mendapat berita bahwa surat-surat saya untuk keluargaku dan semua rumah formasi Xaverian di Indonesia yang saya berikan pada Edi-Lisa yang sudah berada di Surabaya-Indonesia, telah tiba di alamatnya masing-masing.
Kamis, 31 Maret 2005. Pagi ini kami mengadakan misa dipimpin oleh Pastor Willy dengan sharing dari beberapa frater tentang pengalaman pekan suci dan hari Paskah. Saya meminjam buku dan kaset dari perpustakaan CTU yaitu berjudul ‘Charo of the Barrio’ untuk acara retret saya besok malam di tempat kerasulan David Darst Center. Ini mengenai misi kongregasi Columban di Peru. Sore hari kami mengadakan adorasi/sembah sujud dipandu oleh Pascal Atumisi. Karena tidak ada formator di sini, maka kami tidak mengadakan pertemuan komunitas. Saya punya waktu semalaman mengetik jurnal ini dan paper spiritualitas millennium.
Jumat, 01 April 2005. Pagi ini Pastor Willy merayakan misa di komunitas kami lalu saya menghadiri workshop di CTU dengan tema Public Relation dan Marketing (jam 9 hinga 4 sore). Pada akhir workshop ini, Pastor Steve Bevans, SVD memimpin doa singkat untuk Paus kita, Yohanes Paulus II yang sedang sakit parah menjelang ajalnya bersama-sama dengan para dosen dan karyawan CTU lainnya. Dalam cuaca hujan di akhir hari Jumat menjelang gelap ini saya naik sepeda menuju ke tempat kerasulan saya di David Darst Center dan naik kereta jalur hijau turun di 35th Street lalu menuju ke 28th Street di South Normal. Malangnya, pintu rumah retret tertutup dan nampak tak ada orang di dalam, gelap dan saya berpikir bahwa saya salah informasi. Dengan sabar, saya menunggu selama sejam hingga jam 7 malam berdiri di depan pintu rumah retret ini. Saya mencoba telpon ke Suster Paula namun tidak berhasil, lalu kembali lagi ke rumah retret ini dan akhirnya saya melihat cahaya di jendela rumah ini; Gayle membukakan pintu dan syukur kepada Allah kesabaran saya memberikan buah. pukul 8.20 malam peserta retret dating dari Universitas Saint Mary di Winona-Minnesota. Mereka berempat terdiri dari 3 cewek dari college dan seorang cowok dari graduate study (yaitu: Matt, Michelle, Cathy dan Caroline). Kali ini hanya Gayle dan saya yang mendampingi retret ini karena Suster Paula menjalani operasi mata. Langsung malam ini juga kami pergi ke Lakeview, sebuah shelter untuk para tuna wisma di sebelah utara Chicago. Sudah beberapa kali saya datang ke tempat ini dan selalu melihat wajah baru. Kami ikut makan bersama mereka yang dilayani oleh volunteer lain. Saya punya kesempatan berbincang dengan seorang Afro-American asal New York City sementara televisi di ruangan menyiarkan tentang keadaan Paus yang sedang sakit parah menjelang wafatnya. Pukul 10.30 malam kami kembali ke rumah retreat.
Sabtu, 02 April 2005. Pagi ini saya berdoa pribadi dan bersama-sama para peserta retret sarapan pagi lalu pergi ke sebuah rumah untuk pemulihan ibu pecandu obat-obatan dan alcohol dan anak-anak mereka, dan rumah ini bernama Martin de Porres. Kami menemani dan bermain bersama anak-anak yang adalah were Afro-Americans di sebuah taman dekat rumah ini. Director rumah ini membagikan pengalamannya berjuang dalam pemulihan dirinya dari kecanduan obat-obatan dan akhirnya menjadi penolong bagi sesama wanita yang kecanduan di rumah ini. Rumah ini juga dikelola oleh beberapa suster biarawati. Pukul 1 siang kami kembali ke rumah retret untuk makan siang lalu berkunjung ke Santa Agnes sebuah panti jompo dekat dengan Chinatown. Saat kami masuk gedung ini, kami melihat televisi bahwa Paus telah meninggal dunia dengan tenang malam hari di Roma. Kami bertemu beberapa orang tua penghuni rumah tiga lantai ini dan secara pribadi pula saya bercakap dengan seorang wanita Afro-American berusia 90 tahun asli Chicago. Pukl 4 sore kami kembali ke rumah retret dan para peserta retret mengajak saya untuk jalan-jalan ke downtown melihat Taman bernama Grand Millennium. Pukul 6 sore kami sudah tiba di rumah retret dan makan malam jam 7 malam. Di malam hari saya memberikan permainan tali kepada mereka lalu Gayle memimpin sesi dan refleksi dan sesekali saya menyumbangkan pendapat dan pengalaman saya sesuai budaya dan pemahaman budaya saya.
Minggu, 03 April 2005. Kami menghadiri misa pagi hari di Gereja Santo Basil the Visitation pukul 9 dan mengunjungi SU CASA Catholic Worker House. Setelah Gayle memandu kami semua mengenal SU CASA ini, kami ikut mengantri bersama para tuna wisma untuk makan siang di dapur umum SU CASA ini. Saya sempat berbincang dengan seorang pria Afro-American bernama Derick yang membawa koran Chicago Tribune newspaper dan ia bilang bahwa ia suka membaca. Koordinator dapur umum ini adalah Freida membagikan pengalamannya kepada kami bagaimana ia ditolong oleh Bruder Denis Brother Denis (Christian Brother) 14 tahun lalu dan sekarang ia sebagai seorang volunteer dari soup kitchen/dapur umum ini. Kami menutup retret ini dengan doa penutup di kapel rumah retret dan para peserta retret kembali pulang ke Minnesota pukul 2 siang. Saya menikmati retret ini khususnya dalam kelompok kecil ini saya dapat membagikan secara terbuka pengalaman saya dan Matt selalu bertanya tentang panggilan hidup saya di seminari dan juga tentang budaya saya sendiri. Hampir dari kami semua memiliki sikap ‘diam’, tak perlu dibilang sebagai introvert sehingga kebanyakan bila ada saat hening sekali saya mencoba untuk berbicara atau Matt kemudian saya bercerita hal lain lagi. Saya senang bahwa saya dapat membantu mereka dalam proses retret ini dengan tetap tinggal dan hadir bersama mereka dan siap sedia bila diperlukan dan berjalan bersama mereka. Saya berjanji akan mengirimkan photo-photo yang sempat saya ambil kepada mereka lewat Internet atau e-mail. Ini adalah pengalaman yang bagus yang saya dapat refleksikan lebih lanjut untuk refleksi teologi dalam kelompok saya. Usai retret, saya ingin tahu sebuah gereja katolik dekat rumah retret ini bernama Santa Maria Bunda Penolong Abadi di 32nd Street dan dengan bersepeda saya akhirnya menemukan gereja ini dan mengambil beberapa photo yang hasilnya lumayan indah dengan langit biru dan menara gereja yang cukup besar dan berwarna hijau. Saya pergi ke Chinatown untuk beli kartu telepon lalu pergi pulang ke Hyde Park melewati jalan-jalan yang tidak pernah saya lewati sebelumnya. Ini sungguh hari yang cerah dan indah untuk mengakhiri retret akhir pekan ini. Tiba di rumah saya mencoba untuk mentransfer photo dari kamera digital saya ke komputer dan CD; akhirnya saya berhasil dengan bantuan Alejandro.
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