On the 1st and 2nd of July, I participated in a meeting of CEVIM for young missionaries, in Castellnovo, Castellon, Spain. About 30 missionaries from different countries in eastern and western Europe were there. The principal focus of my comments was the International Community: Collaboration and Development.
Making use of my visit to this part of Spain, I met with the Daughters of Charity of the Province of Pamplona. I celebrated Eucharist with the Director of the Daughters and one of their chaplains, a confrere from the Barcelona Province.
From the 3rd to the 5th of July, I was present at a meeting of the Leadership Program in Paris, directed by the team from CIF. About 35 confreres participated, many of them visitors or members of provincial councils. The Regional Superior of Cameroon was there, and two of my assistants, Father José Maria Nieto and Gérad Du.
I was in Bathurst, Australia, from the 7th to the 14th, taking part in the meeting of the Vincentian Family before the world youth gathering. About 300 young people from 32 countries were there, from different branches of the Vincentian Family, mostly from the Vincent de Paul Society, but also from Vincentian Marian Youth, Daughters of Charity and confreres from different provinces.
From the 15th to the 21st of July, I visited the community of Daughters of Charity who work in the Cook Islands. This mission was started in 2005. Four Daughters of Charity work on two different islands. The Cook Islands are an archipelago of 15 islands 12 of which are inhabited. There is a total of five priests, and a larger number of Irish Christian Brothers, Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny and Daughters of Charity. Two Daughters work on Cook Island, the principal island, mostly with youth with special needs and with the island’s prisoners. I also visited another island, called Manika, where the other two Daughters work. I flew there with the Visitatrix of the Province of Australia in a little ten-seater plane. The island is small, with only 350 inhabitants, and the work of the Daughters is mostly with the poorest islanders.
When the week in the Cook Islands was over, I went on a long trip: from Cook Island to New Zealand, from New Zealand to Australia, and finally from Australia to Indonesia, to the city of Bali. The next day I left, in two flights, accompanied by a confrere of the Province of Indonesia, to Jakarta and from Jakarta to my main destination which was the Province of West Kalimantan. My objective in visiting this area was to fulfill a promise I had made three years ago when I visited Indonesia for the first time, but didn’t have the time to visit this missionary area, where eight confreres and eight Indonesian members of MISEVI work. I also met with three Daughters who work in a parish, with two confreres, taking care of boarding schools for youth of the remote communities in 38 different locations. I also met with another branch of the Vincentian Family, the community of Alma, founded by our confrere P. Paul Janssen. These sisters work and live with the most poor. I visited three communities in different parts of West Kalimantan. The confreres there have a parish situated on the banks of a river, where one confrere, together with four youths from MISEVI, serve 48 communities, or ‘villages’ as they call them. The main house in West Kalimantan is a center for formation and retreats, where two confreres live with some youths and a member of the MISEVI community. There is a community of other confreres in the principal city of West Kalimantan, Pontianak, where they work in a poor area of the city. Another confrere is the formation director of the diocesan minor seminary in one of the dioceses of West Kalimantan. The eight confreres make up one community and they get together four times a year to deepen their experience of community and for formation. Their biggest challenge is the great distance between them.
After a return to the principal city, I traveled the next day for two or three hours, stopping first at the minor seminary and then at the retreat house.
The following day, with the bishop and two confreres, I took a speed boat on the river for a three and a half hour trip to come to a community of confreres, the Daughters and some members of MISEVI. We celebrated the next day with the bishop; I preached and the Provincial was my translator. We installed the Pastoral Council of the parish, which takes in 38 communities all together. An important part of the apostolate is the formation of the laity. The next day we returned to the river, and an hour later met another confrere, two members of MISEVI and many lay members, leaders of the 48 different communities taken care of in this area. We had lunch there with the people and continued two and a half hours down river until we came to the retreat house again, so we could make a twelve hour return trip by private car. One of the challenges that faces the people in this area is the high cost of food, because they are so isolated. There are also difficulties about getting gasoline both because of the price and the scarcity, and there are large problems with corruption, deforestation and a policy of cultivating African palm for making an oil instead of the traditional Indonesian cultivation of rubber.
After this long bit of travel, I began my trip toward Rome the next day. From the capital of West Kalimantan to Jakarta, from Jakarta to Bangkok and from Bangkok to Rome.
I would like to underline two things. The first refers to the gathering of the Vincentian Family at Bathurst. Many of our people experienced there, and commented on, the way in which many young people and others not so young related to one another peacefully and harmoniously, with a desire on the part of all to get to know one another, relate to one another, laugh and become friends. And many couldn’t speak the other’s language! This was strong evidence to me, because of the behavior of all our family, that the people of the world from many different nations could live in peace and harmony. I give thanks to God that the Vincentian Family is giving witness to this possibility.
The second thing I would like to underline relates to my visit to the Daughters in the Cook Islands and also to the missionaries and to MISEVI in West Kalimantan. One motive for my visit was to encourage and affirm them in their missionary spirit which is so faithful to our Vincentian charism, whether it is the confreres, the brothers, or the Daughters of Charity or the laity in the different branches of the Family. By these visits to distant places and to small groups, even in very difficult situations, I wish to affirm and at the same time encourage others to continue making our mission real in places at the far edges of our provinces, of our countries. It is a call in part for all of us to take hold of the opportunity to leave the center where there are many comforts to go to places on the edge, on the margin, with the marginalized. In this way we can bear true witness to the Vincentian charism.
