surat ke-2 bulan Mei 2005

2) 7th Sunday of Easter, May 08, 2005

Monday, May 02, 2005. Before attending class I was reading a book written by Paul Knitter entitled Introducing Theologies of Religions, about four models interreligious dialogue, namely, replacement model, fulfillment model, mutuality model and acceptance model. After supper I felt headache then I took medicine and went to sleep directly.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005. In the morning I had theological reflection group meeting at Claretian House. In the afternoon I cooked for my community with menu: pork soup (semur babi) and rice. From Internet I found out the website of Indonesian Catholic Group in Orlando-Florida and choicersjakarta@yahoogroups.com

Wednesday, May 04, 2005. At noon I attended Millennium Spirituality class in which Cajetan presented Pope John Paul II. At night I worked on my Bonhoeffer paper.

Thursday, May 05, 2005. After supper we had community meeting with topic about ministry.

Friday, May 06, 2005. In the morning from 9 to 2.15 p.m. I attended a Pearl and Treasures workshop at CTU with its topic about Stewardship and Fundraising. It’s the 6th and the last workshop of Pearl and Treasures I have attended at CTU as requirements of M.Div program. The rest of the day I concentrated myself to finish my paper both on Ethic and Millennium Spirituality and at midnight I could print them out.

Saturday, May 07, 2005. In the morning I did paper of Interreligious Dialogue for Anthony Gittin’s class (Development of Mission Theology) and did laundry of my own clothes (my weekly routine schedule). In the afternoon there was choir practice of Indonesian Catholic group for the Indonesian Mass tomorrow. At 6.15 p.m. we had prayer together at our chapel with our guests and supper (Lebanese food) to utter our gratitude as the Xaverian theology community to the Indonesian Catholic group in Chicago for their assistance and attention to Petrus’ deaconate ordination. We continued our hospitality with dance and music.

Sunday, May 08, 2005. We attended Indonesian Mass at 11 a.m. at Saint Therese Church in Chinatown, presided by Father Edi, osc and Deacon Petrus, sx as the preacher. There were about 40 people coming to this Mass. He points out four occasions on today’s celebration, namely: Mother’s Day, May as the month of Mary, the Ascension of Christ and the Evangelization Day of Archdiocese of Chicago, with its bottom line about ‘escortment’. We continued with hospitality and lunch at the basement of Saint Therese Church while the weather today is very nice, about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (= 27 degrees Celsius).


Name: Denny Wahyudi, SX
Course: Spirituality, Liturgy and the Quest for Justice (E-4345-1)
Professor: John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D
Due: May 12, 2005

DOROTHY DAY (1897-1980)
AND CATHOLIC WORKER MOVEMENT

At the end of my first year studying English in Milwaukee-Wisconsin, I volunteered for five days at the Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee. I never knew what is Catholic Worker House and who is Dorothy Day as the founder. Having experience of this immersion at this Catholic Worker House, I came to know more about this ‘divine work’, I can say, because I believe that young people who lived in this houseare devoted volunteers who had good will to serve others especially the poor and the needy. A lot of good experiences I could draw of this immersion. One of those experiences is that I took part in a protest/demonstration against Taco Bell Restaurant in Milwaukee together with three other young people, I stood in front of this restaurant voicing the fare wage of tomatoes pickers in California. We shared flyers to people who passed by this street and we yelled loudly our just action and holded written banners and posters both in English and Spanish. I never had experience in such demonstration in Indonesia, so it was a quite new one for me.

In addition, as I minister at David Darst Center, a retreat house for justice and peace as my M.Div ministry practicum, I have another experience with Catholic Worker House in which I visited a couple of times with retreatans. I can feel the atmosphere of hospitality at this SU CASA Catholic Worker House in Chicago that provides soup kitchen, called Hogan, serving poor people for lunch every Sunday. It is interesting experience that together with the retreatans, who are mostly Caucasians (White Americans) from middle class, I took part in line outside to get in the soup kitchen and having conversation with those people who are mostly African Americans. It reminds me the image of Jesus in the middle of homeless people who are in line at a soup kitchen as it is depicted in a mural at the chapel of retreat house. This Catholic Worker House is inhabited by refugees from Latin Americas and one of the ministers here in the past was Sister Dianna Ortiz who had been raped and tortured in Guatemala and I found and read her book entitled The Blindfold’s Eyes, My Journey from Torture to Truth that is very real moving story to me.

After studying of Dorothy Day, I come to understand what kind of this movement. The Catholic Worker Movement began simply enough on May 1, 1933, when a journalist named Dorothy Day and a French philospher named Peter Maurin teamed up to publish and distribute a newspaper called “The Catholic Worker.” This radical paper promoted the biblical promise of justice and mercy. Grounded in a firm belief in the God-given dignity or every human person, their movement was committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, and the Works of Mercy as a way of life. It was not long before Dorothy and Peter were putting clothes,” Dorothy Day explained, “but there is strong faith at work. We pray. If an outsider comes to visit us does not pay attention to our prayings and what that means, then he/she will miss the whole point.” It is unlikely that any religious community was ever less structured than the Catholic Worker. Each community is autonomous. There is no board of directors, no sponsor, no system of governance, no endowment, no pay checks, no pension plans. Since Dorothy Day’s death, there has been no central leader.

I find out that this movement has goals toward personal and social transformation as the means of Jesus revealed in his sacrifical love. With Christ as the exemplar, by prayer and communion with his Body and Blood, they strive for practices of:

- Nonviolence. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mat.5:9). Only through nonviolent action can a personalist revolution come about, one in which one evil will not be replaced simply by another. Thus, we oppose the deliberate taking of human life for any reason, and see every oppresion as blasphemy. Jesus taught us to take suffering upon ourselves rather than inflict it upon others and he calls us to fight against violence with the spiritual weapons of prayer, fasting and noncooperation with evil. Refusal topay taxes for war, to register for conscription, to comply with any unjust legislation; participation in nonviolent strikes and boycotts, protects or vigils; withdrawal of support for dominant systems, corporate funding or usurious practices are all excellent means to establish peace.
- The work of mercy (as found in Mat. 25:31-46) are the heart of the Gospel and they are clear mandates for our response to “the least of our brothers and sisters.” Houses of hospitality are centers for learning to do the acts of love, so that the poor can receive what is, in justice, theirs, the second coat in our closet, the spare room in our home, a place at our table. Anything beyond what we immediately need belongs to those who go without.
- Manual labor, in a society that rejects it as undignified and inferior. “Besides inducing cooperation, besides overcoming barriers and establishing the spirit of sister and brotherhood (besides just getting things done), manual labors enables us to use our bodies as well as our hands, our minds” (Dorothy Day). The Benedictine motto Ora et labora reminds us that the work of human hands is a gift for the edification of the world and the glory of God.
- Voluntary poverty. “The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge and belief in love” (Dorothy Day). By embracing voluntary poverty, that is, by casting our lot freely with those whose impoverishment is not a choice, we would ask for the grace to abandon ourselves to the love of God. It would put us on the path to incarnate the Church’s “preferential option for the poor.”

Dorothy Day insisted , “We must be prepared to accept seeming failure with these aims, for sacrifice and suffering are part of the Christian life. Success, as the world determines it, is not the final criterion for judgments. The most important thing is the love of Jesus Christ and how to live his truth.

In my studies at CTU this spring semester 2005, I learned about Dorothy Day and I quote her interesting statements I selected of a book about her in my own weekly journal then I write some reflection upon them as follows:

“Our good readers absolve us from any charges of anticlericalism as they read these rather severe articles on the Church and work. They know that the wish of our heart is to bring closer together the priest and the people. There is a great division between two, and one of the very reasons for the Catholic Worker’s existence is to bridge this gap.” Even though Dorothy knew that the Catholic Church has dark side but she still believed and tried to match people to obey the Church (the authority). It is a hard duty and cordial effort that needs strong inner power to deal with because this kind of tension more often draws to depression and leaving the establishment, namely the Church. She was very faithful to Catholic’s religious practice such as prayer, daily Mass, meditation on the Bible. The Catholic Worker can exist until now because of this vision and mission, namely to connect the power of the Church and the people of God. If it makes separation, sooner or later, it will disappear.

“Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. I have tried to write about it, its joys and its sorrows, for twenty years now; I could probably write about it for another twenty years without conveying what I feel about it as well as I would like. I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. It is a paradox.” Dorothy had very strong concern about the situation of poverty that she perceived as enemy to be overcome. In dealing with it, she realized that it will never finish to wipe out the poverty since it is more than personal matter but moreover social structure that makes people poor and fall in destitution. It is an utopia to kill poverty because people are bound in sins of greedy and proud so that always deep gap separate those two polars both the poor and the rich.

“The mystery of the poor is this: That they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.” I am touched every time I enter the chapel of my ministry, a retreat house, where there is a mural of black and white colour depicting Jesus in the middle of people who take turn in line having food in a soup kitchen. What we do to the least of our brothers/sisters, we do to Jesus our Lord. When we do service with the retreatans in some shelters, I encounter Jesus in many faces of the poor and the needy. It is always struck me to see many people who are need attention and material need even in the richest country like the USA. I wonder with the reality that a lot of food is just thrown away every day and at the same time many people are hunger of food. Why is it happened? How do we connect this surplus and minus so that all get their part justly?

“Sometimes, I think the purpose of the Catholic Worker, quite aside from all our social aims, is to show the providence of God, how God loves us. We are a family, not an institution, in atmosphere, and so we address ourselves especially to families, who have all the woes of insecurity, sin, sickness, and death, side by side with all the joys of family. We talk about what we are doing, because we constantly wonder at the miracle of our continuance.” I believe that if we are doing God’s work and mission, even though it seems hard and impossible but it will be fulfilled eventually. I think it is the faith that Dorothy had in facing difficulty of many aspects and dimensions of her effort in the Catholic Worker. As a minsiter I called to be like so, namely, as an agent of God’s love and providence to the needy. In my own experience, it is my pleasure if I can connect one another in mutual relationship, not for my advantage but for others need. I think about a Buddhist teaching that mentions, “The highest peace of someone if she/he gives help to others.” It is very true that what I do to others without hope receive reply, it will give me peace in my deep heart.

“The most significant thing about the Catholic Worker is poverty, some say. The most significant thing is community, others say. We are not alone anymore. But the final word is love….We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.” Once again love and love to be a core theme in life of hero and heroine. The art to love and to be loved determine steps and paths of others to walk together toward ideal and dream. Dorothy had a dream to unite all people who need hospitality in one roof regardless their background. It is not always easy to bear it especially dealing with legal institution such as government, politic and even the Church. Love if it is legalized it will become rigid but if it is practiced in a flexible and creative ways it will lead to enthusiasm and authenticitiy of many people. In my experience in visiting some nursing homes, I have impression that our love that we share to elderly people is just limited to fit our schedule. We do not know whether they need our presence or not but what I know is it is a timetable that the retreat has and we should fulfill it. It requires my own attention that should have been beyond the schedule but out of love and generosity and also authenticity of my heart. This is my weekly journal I wrote last week regards my ministry at a retreat house: “Before noon we visited a nursing home and played Bingo with elderly people there and most of them Afro-Americans. We were coming back to the retreat house then having lunch (hamburger) then watching a video about Dorothy Day. Since they will finish their retreat this night, I went home earlier in the afternoon and next week I will go there again since there will be three groups for the retreat. I went home by CTA train: Orange, Green lines (in which majority are Afro-Americans) and a bus no. 15.” I am questioning myself: how do I deal with others who are not my concern beside people in my ministry? Do I care to others surround me who are so different to me and I have nothing to do with them? What is my sensitivity towards them as a human, religious and minister? All of these are bothered me as I see my quality of my life in the relationship to others.

“Buddhists teach that a man’s life is divided into three parts: the first part for education and growing up; the second for continued learning, through marriage and raising a family, involvement with the life of the senses, the mind, and the spirit; and the third period, the time of withdrawal from responsibility, letting go of the things of this life, letting God take over.” Dorothy was open to other spirituality especially if it gives real mening in the universal life of people. She believed that everything she had done would be given up to God alone since she was just God’s tool in this divine work. She was just an actor of God’s mission to love people unreservedly and she knew how to surrender only to God’s providence in her dusk age. The spirituality of letting go is not only suitable to old people but it invites me also to relativize and depend on God’s plan. I have plan for my future but at the same time also I should offer to God’s will. Not my will and my plan, O God but yours, that make me happy in this life. Let it be done according to your word only.

“The one thing that makes our work easier most certainly is the love we bear for each other and for the people for whom we work. The work becomes difficult only when there is quarreling and dissension and when one’s own heart is filled with a spirit of criticism.” Love is the greatest virtue in our faith that is used massively by many people in the world but sometimes without meaning and commitment. Love is not merely feeling to someone or something but moreover it is a commitment that needs to be renew day-to-day and time-to-time in the struggle of one’s life. It is a lifelong process that love is tested in ups and downs mood. Love is a clasis word and at the same time love is never ending story in human history in the world. I remember with a teaching of one of my philosophy professors who says: “To love and to be loved as a human being is a highest meaning in the life.” With love, many things that seem difficult can be overcome unbelievably. In the new millennium spirituality, I think love is always relevant to everybody because the more modern and complex our world, the more people need attention in their personal life and communication in pure love is difficult to find because most people are busy with their own agenda. In accord with this love, Dorothy stated confidently: “Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.”

I end this paper with the works of mercy that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin lived out their “active love.” The corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, offering hospitality to the homeless, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, and burying the dead. The spiritual works of mercy: admonishing the sinner, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving all injuries, praying for the living and the dead.


Name: Denny Wahyudi, SX
Course: Spirituality, Liturgy and the Quest for Justice (E-4345-1)
Professor: John T. Pawlikowski, OSM, Ph.D
Due: 12 May 2005

THE PROPER INTEGRATION OF LITURGY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
ON A PRACTICAL LEVEL

With modals of having experience doing ministry practicum at David Darst Center for almost this one-year plus my study on this ethic class about spirituality, liturgy and quest for justice, I try to put them together in this reflection paper in order to integrate my experience and my learning. To put into practice what I have been learning at the class and my ministry site especially dealing with issues of social justice and peace is a life-long process that never finish after I write this paper or end my ministry and submit this paper. It will be continued, as I am becoming a minister in serving God’s people and doing follow-up reflection. I believe this paper will help me to see again sometimes in the future what I have been doing and reflecting both on my studies and ministry that I do at CTU in the context of City of Chicago.

David Darst Center is named in memory of Brother David Darst who was a peace activist during the Vietnam War. It was founded in August 2002 at the former All Saints-St. Anthony convent, located in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. Later that fall, the Center began to offer an immersion experience in urban ministries for high school and college students. Within that first year, the staff and volunteers prepared the facility for immersion retreats. The first retreat was held in February 2003.

David Darst, a Christian Brother and a teacher at Bishop Rummel High School in Omaha, was challenged by his students to recognize the momentous civil and social events that were transforming US society in the 1960s. He became a peace activist and author on social and political justice. He died in an auto crash near Auburn, Nebraska in 1969 at the age of 28. The Darst Center is dedicated not only to his memory, but to adopt his process of personal transformation, to know the world through the eyes of young people and the gospel.

Reflecting the spirit and mission of Saint John Baptist de La Salle and in communion with all who work for social justice and the advancement of peace, the work of The Brother David Darst Center seeks to advance the social and self-understanding of young people, inviting their participation in multicultural urban ministries as a response to and an extension of the gospel call of Jesus Christ. At the center, we examine the complexities of human need through direct involvement, discussion and study of the social structures that perpetuate poverty and injustice.

Unique to the center, students are empowered to process their experiences through discussion, reflection and peer led prayer. The format begins with direct experience of various social ministries followed by time given to personal reflection through journal writing on the experience, social analysis of why an agency at which they volunteered is necessary in US society such as a homeless shelter or soup kitchen and finally personal/group plans for serving the poor and marginalized in their home environment. Various field experiences constitute the “subject matter” of the retreat workshop and take place at a variety of local social agencies that benefit those in need.

Some of the retreatans wrote on their evaluation after their retreats, “Experience Chicago through service to others is a call for each one of us.” Brother John Johnston, F.S.C points out that we have to ‘see’ more vividly and to ‘feel’ more intensely the poverty that exists throughout the world, in our cities and perhaps in our own ‘backyard.’ More than see and feel we have to strive to understand its causes. Awareness of this reality and of our relationship to it is the first step in the process of acquiring the virtue of solidarity. To grow in awareness we all have need of what is frequently called ‘exposure’, direct contact with the poor and with the world that is theirs.

The urban social ministries immersion experience for senior high school and college students is a workshop retreat conducted as an extended weekend (3 days) or longer during breaks in the academic year (1-7 days). Group of up to 18 students reside in an urban setting as a community accompanied by at least one facilitator from the cooperating high school or college. The workshop/retreat employs the hermeneutic or pastoral circle, combining direct service learning experiences in various urban ministries (such as health, shelter, child care and education and urban ecology) with opportunities to develop theoretical understandings and considerations of personal and social options and participation in direct action on behalf of socially marginalized peoples. Daily communal prayers, meal preparation, recreational and educational sessions are designed to reflect on and extend the work and observations conducted at ministry site. The program directors have an established relationship with many of the social agencies that will be used as the sites for the field experiences (such as The Chicago Food Depository, Su Casa Catholic Worker House, The Port, San Miguel Schools, Chicago Public Schools) and continue to develop relationships with other ministries.

The initial immersion experience is a general exposure to various kinds of urban ministries (education, provision of food and shelter, health care, and urban ecology). As a second level, immersion experiences respond to the express interests of the participants. If, for example, a group chooses to focus on criminal justice and the penal system, the participants visit the courts and Cook County Jail and meet with individuals who are engaged in ministry in these setting, dialogue with people who have been incarcerated, reflect on key Scriptures that confront the issue of human imprisonment, consider contemporary documents (such as the U.S. Bishop’s statement on prisons) for social background and develop a personal and social response. Responses could include maintaining correspondence with a prisoner, or working with local and national organizations for penal reform. With an evolving curriculum, it is possible for groups or individuals to participate in immersions for several years and be introduced to different aspects of urban ministry.

A common goal of these retreat workshops is for the group to continue in prayer, reflection and action on behalf of the poor and marginalized when they return to their home institution under the leadership of the facilitators who shared in the experience.

A lot of insights and gifts I can draw from these ministry experiences and I will share some of them as follows:

Being a minister in this site in the beginning was quite difficult for me because I have to adjust and adapt with the environment, situation, system, culture that are different with my own. I am from Indonesia, as a Chinese descendant who was born and raised in Javanese culture (I was born in East Java, Indonesia) and this site is America (the U.S.A) with diverse cultures as well. So, it is really a cross-cultural immersion I ever have in my life beside my previous experience in Indonesia with its own diversity in various aspects.

As a co-minister at David Darst Center, my involvement at this site is being improved little by little as I try to share my experience in conducting the retreats. Some of my active participation I have been doing at this ministry so far are conducting retreatans once to a Sunday Mass at Saint Therese Church in 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, and helping my supervisor in little things at the retreat house.

One thing that makes me glad and proud is that my rope game that has a cross meaning was used by other ministers at retreats while I was not there. This game has a meaningful lesson for retreatans as they immerse in this kind of retreat because it gives them both fun and core meaning of their basic call as Christians. The cross meaning that I give here is drawn from this double rope that they have to figure out how to untie them as two persons trying it. After they give up then I explain how to solve it with asking them to make a cross with their rope, then I ask them the meaning of this cross (two ropes in horizontal and vertical lines). The horizontal line is the relationship between human beings and the vertical one is the relationship between human being and God. I continue to ask, “Who does have first initiative to solve human problems?” According to our faith, the answer definitely is God. So, with the initiative of God first plus cooperation of human action and will, the problem (the tied ropes) is solved easily. It starts with the vertical rope moves and the horizontal one receives cooperatively this movement then enters into one hole of the rope, and finally the ropes untie easily. When I gave it to Skutt High School from Omaha-Nebraska (about 18 people), some of them, namely, a chaperon and a teacher said, “Thank you for your game, it is a very interesting game.
I will use it in other retreats with our students and our faculty.” I replied, “Thank you. It will be great.” I applied this game in a session of retreat process.

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 at this retreat process. Like in the mural at this chapel, may you see Jesus in the middle of us.” I wonder that I could speak like so in front of them and they looked like paying attention to me intently.

Having experiences a couple of times in visiting and volunteering at Hogan soup kitchen at Su Casa Catholic Worker House on 5045 South Laflin, Chicago leads me to a deep meaning in viewing homeless problem in the USA as well as the issue of immigrant from Latin American countries who live at this Catholic Worker House. With the retreatans, I come to know that this house is for hospitality helping some Latinos families to have better life in Chicago. They immigrated to the USA because of terrible experience in their countries such as Guatemala, El Salavador and Mexico. They endured experience being tortured, raped and abused by violent military power both at their own country and the USA. One of the ministers I could see on the pictures hang on the wall is Sister Dianna Ortiz who had horrible long life impact being tortured, raped and mentally destroyed by military soldiers in Guatemala as she was doing a mission service to God’s people. The introduction of Su Casa Catholic Worker House to us especially given by a sister, named Sister Pat who used to minister at this house with Sister Dianna Ortiz post her traumatic experience of torture in Guatemala in 1990’s mentioned about a book entitled Blindfold’s Eyes, My Journey from Torture to Truth, illustrating the real story of Dianna Ortiz that eventually I could borrow and read from CTU library.

I saw some young volunteers who work at this house, some of them are coming from Germany. There are about 6 families who live at this house, complete with their family members including mothers, fathers and children. This Latino hospitality house is provided with a Sunday soup kitchen, community garden (especially for summer), tutoring, and neighborhood kid activities. Cleaning activities and or special projects on the building like painting may be facilitated by Su Casa staffs. It is helpful when Darst students come with activities to play or work with children. If large groups of volunteers, best to split group and have half playing with kids, the other half cleaning.

At Hogan soup kitchen, volunteers join Englewood residents for a Sunday afternoon meal and are encouraged to interact with those at their table. Volunteers then listen to a talk by Freida, an Afro-American lady who is helped by Brother Dennis Murphy, F.S.C from poverty to success as a nursing student and mother of three outstanding sons and she works as CTA bus driver as well. Her spontaneous sharing to us is very helpful to know the struggle and hope of people who are being transformed by this Catholic Social Worker House. Even though she is not Catholic but the light of witness of the minister such as Brother Dennis really a remarkable life witness to people around this area. She is in charge responsibly to the soup kitchen in which mostly Afro-Africans who come to this place are very familiar with this lady. Sitting down together with people who come at the soup kitchen then enjoying together lunch served by other volunteers is not easy for the first time because we have to leave our secure feeling to reach strangers who are very different with us in many aspects. Physically they are not interesting with their smelly and dirty clothes we have to accept them with respect on their dignities as human beings.

It is an activity of transformation for us who are present among these people, not only giving anonymous service without care but we are all invited to intermingling with them. I notice that many volunteers who serve food are not having conversation with these people, so our presence in the midst of people at the soup kitchen or shelter gives a different impression to them. This is one of the intentions of this immersion of social justice retreat that we apply to the retreatans.

Having Mass at Saint Basil Visitation Church or Holy Angel Church and SPRED Chapel is really a cross-cultural immersion and giving a new insight and concern to social justice issue especially those who are different with us in ethnicity and intellectual level both for me and for retreatans. Most of us never came to a Catholic church with Afro-Americans style and for me coming to SPRED chapel, which is held on the first Sunday of the month for Catholics with mental and physical handicaps is struck me. It reminds me on the issue of concern to social justice to the disabled that I never came to my mind seriously. They are also God’s children who have same dignity with us.

I am grateful having this experience in such a ministry that is giving concern to social justice issues in practical levels in the form of retreat with young people in the context of Chicago. Not only theory and statistic knowledge of homeless people and other issues but also involving in some services and being present with others are always implementation of act of justice. All in all, it invites me to continue my concern to these services to others wherever I will be assigned as a minister.

It is always interesting to know impressions of retreatans who have experience of this retreat. Here, all of us hope that their concern is not ending after this retreat but it will continue on their journey as we intent to do this retreat. Some of them write: “My eyes are considerably more open,” “I will seek out similar situations and opportunities to meet and serve people from all walk of life,” “I’ve learned to give,” “I have learned I can love total strangers,” “I am no different than those who require assistance,” “I’ve seen more of the struggles that people face daily and I better understand how grateful I am for all I have,” “I have a greater appreciation of my life,” “I learned a lot about people. Between the service projects, group discussions, and a very interesting worship service, I learned that it takes all of us watching out for each other to make a just environment,” “I have learned to give people a chance.”

Finally, I quote a sharing of Catholic Social Teachings: Challenges and Directions by U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Sadly, our social doctrine is not shared or taught in a consistent and comprehensive way in too many of our schools, seminaries, religious education programs, colleges, and universities. We need to build on the good work already underway to ensure that every Catholic understands how the Gospels and church teaching call us to choose life, to serve the least among us, to hunger and thirst for justice, and to be peacemakers. The sharing of our social tradition is a defining measure of Catholic education and formation…..”

“…I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to visit me” (Matthew 25:31-46).

My respond to the call….


2) Hari Minggu Paskah Ke-7, 08 Mei 2005

Senin, 02 Mei 2005. Sebelum kuliah saya membaca sebuah buku karangan Paul Knitter berjudul Introducing Theologies of Religions, tentang empat model dalam dialog antar agama, yaitu: replacement model, fulfillment model, mutuality model dan acceptance model. Setelah makan malam saya pusing kepala lalu minum obat dan langsung tidur.

Selasa, 03 Mei 2005. Pagi hari saya mengikuti pertemuan kelompok refleksi teologi saya di rumah Claretian. Sore harinya saya memasak untuk komunitas dengan menu: semur babi dan nasi. Dari Internet saya mendapatkan alamat website kelompok katolik Indonesia di Orlando-Florida dan website kelompok Choice Jakarta yaitu: choicersjakarta@yahoogroups.com

Rabu, 04 Mei 2005. Tengah hari saya mengikuti kuliah spiritualitas millennium yang kali ini Cajetan memberikan presentasi tentang Paus Yohanes Paulus II. Malam harinya saya mengerjakan paper tentang Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Kamis, 05 Mei 2005. Setelah makan malam kami mengadakan rapat komunitas membahas dan berdiskusi tentang tema ‘pelayanan kerasulan’.

Jumat, 06 Mei 2005. Pagi hari dari jam 9 hingga 2.15 sore saya mengikuti workshop di CTU yaitu Pearl and Treasures workshop yang kali ini bertema Stewardship and Fundraising. Ini workshop ke-6 dan yang terakhir dari jenis workshop ini yang telah saya ikuti untuk persyaratan lulus program M.Div (Master of Divinity). Waktu yang tersisa hari ini saya gunakan untuk menyelesaikan paper saya dengan penuh konsentrasi yaitu Etika dan Spiritualitas millennium hingga tengah malam saya dapat mencetak semuanya.

Sabtu, 07 Mei 2005. Pagi hari ini saya memulai mengerjakan paper Dialog antaragama untuk kuliahnya Anthony Gittin yaitu kuliah berjudul Development of Mission Theology dan mencuci serta menyeterika baju saya sendiri (acara rutin mingguan). Di sore hari ada latihan koor Kelompok PWKI (Paguyuban Warga Katolik Indonesia di Chicago) di basement rumah kami, Xaverian, Hyde Park. Pukul 6.15 sore kami bersama para tamu yang baru selesai berlatih koor, berdoa sore bersama di kapel kami dan makan malam bersama dengan menu masakan Lebanon sebagai ucapan syukur dan terima kasih kami sebagai komunitas teologi Xaverian di Chicago kepada para anggota PWKI di Chicago atas perhatian dan bantuannya dalam acara tahbisan diakonat Frater Petrus, sx. Kami melanjutkan acara ramah tamah ini dengan berjoged dan menari diiringi musik.

Minggu, 08 Mei 2005. Kami mengikuti misa bahasa Indonesia di Gereja Santa Theresia Chinatown dipimpin oleh Romo Edi, osc dan Frater Diakon Petrus, sx sebagai pengkhotbahnya. Ada sekitar 40 orang yang hadir dalam acara misa yang biasanya diadakan sebulan sekali ini. Dalam khotbahnya Frater Petrus menarik benang merah dari empat peristiwa hari ini yaitu: Hari Ibu (di USA), bulan Mei sebagai bulan Maria, Hari Kenaikan Kristus ke Surga dan Hari Evangelisasi di Keuskupan Agung Chicago, dengan tema pokoknya: PENYERTAAN. Kami melanjutkan acara ramah tamah di basement gereja Santa Theresia ini sementara udara di luar cukup hangat yaitu sekitar 27 derajat Celsius.