REPORT APOSTOLIC CONGRESS 23^RD JANUARY, 2018.

Today, Tuesday 23rd January 2017, marks the 8^th day of the Apostolic Congress held at Salatiga, Roncalli Retreat Centre. As usual, we started the day’s activity with a communal prayer led by  Malawi province at 7:00AM in the Chapel.

Having finished with breakfast, we proceeded to the conference hall. The morning sessions were dedidated to a discussion pannel given by two guest speakers Fr. Bambang, SJ and Sr. Yosephine, CB.

Bro. Guido introduced them one after the other. First Fr. Bambang Triatmako, S.J.,  who is a parish priest in Jakarta and studied economics and financial administration, would handle the topic "Evangelization and Mission" while Sr. Josophine, a professional nurse and member of the sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo, was ready to share her mission experience on "Quality of Our Mission". For over two hours, we listened with keen interest to our guests share their experiences. Fr. Bambang touched on several issues including the Jesuit Mission, the Church as a fundamental mission and creativity and strength based formation. He emphasized on our mission responsibility as Priesthood (True worship), Prophet (High moral standard yet total mercy), and King (Building the community).

Fr. Bambang also indicated that, the survival of any congregation does not necessarily depend on its wealth or property, but the enthusiasm of its members working together. His presentation gave room for questions like: Is our original charism still relevant? Can it still help us achieve our mission? Is there any vision that can emerge from our original mission?

In my ownview, the above questions can help us to align our personal vision with that of our common vision in such a way that, our individual interest will be rooted in the shared common interest.

For our second talk delivered by Sr. Josephine CB, she showed a video clip on how they as CB sisters try to care for the vulnerable. But she added that our world of today has so many challenges and if care is not taken, we may tend to live double lives. According to her the youth of today are people of HI TECH without HI TOUCH. Instead of having the spirit of love for those in distress as a basic value, that it is not so.

As religious our work  can always be traced back to the founders of the congregation and we should be thankful to them for their heritage. Our apostolate should nurture our community life. In spite of all the challenges, we should trust and believe in the first article of the Apostles’ Creed. In doing so, there are three pillars we can rely on in carrying out our apostolic mission namely, the congregation, the hierarchy and dedicated lay people.

As usual, we took lunch at 12:30 pm and observed the afternoon break till 16:00h. We went into our Provincial groups for a discussion on the talk with five formulated questions from the talk and the result was shared in plenary.

The day's proceedings came to an end with the usual Eucharistic celebration in the Chapel at 6:30 pm.

Bro, Patrick Naazie