Meister Eckhart
The call from God to take on a particular way of life or important task can come in many different forms. I have come to integrate listening for the Presence of God into my own life experience after many years of spiritual and Carmelite formation. Like Abraham and Moses, I should pay attention and be ready to respond when I have a sense that God is offering me a personal challenge.
This spiritual awareness prompted me to respond to the invitation of our Lay Carmelite Chaplain, Fr Paul Gurr, to undertake a life-changing visit to Timor Leste , along with several people in our local Parish of Kiama/Jamberoo, not long after the Timorese gained Independence. Even though Timor Leste is our nearest neighbour, and one of the poorest and newest nations in the Asia-Pacific region, most Australians were not fully aware of East Timor’s history until their struggle for Independence began in earnest in the late 1990’s.
I knew very little about the atrocities they had endured and was unprepared for that first visit - for the overwhelming emotions I experienced - seeing the destruction and hearing the stories of persecution, carnage and terror they had faced.
The stories and locations of the violence began in Dili, but as we were guided and transported by the Carmelite friars over the mountainous terrain for a six hour journey to Zumalai, I began to feel their pain. I witnessed the destruction in each of the districts we passed through. Their country had been occupied for over three hundred years - the disempowerment, created by hunger, poverty and death of thousands of their people was a testament to their courage and endurance. The events of 1975 and 1999 were even more traumatic. Names and news items we had all seen on television became a reality as our group stopped at various places of massacre and terror following the majority vote to claim Independence in 1999.
As part of my formation as a Lay Carmelite, and prior to the trip, I had been reading our former Prior General, Fr Joseph Chalmers’ letter “The God of Our Contemplation”. On reflection, this little book helped me to realise that this visit was truly an encounter with God. I felt a deepening sense of anger and sorrow at what I had seen and heard: “through this experience we grow in solidarity with those who live in situations of deprivation and injustice”. It seemed to me that the seeds of social justice were being watered by the tears of love and compassion for the people of Timor Leste and the God of Our Contemplation would place before me the opportunities for these seeds to grow. Following our short visit, it took many months of prayer and contemplation to try to understand the enormity of the injustice we had all been exposed to. The words of Fr Joseph in his book ‘The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor’ threw some light on to my confusion: this experience was a blessing, (even though it appeared to be the opposite) … a free gift to challenge us to commit ourselves to the working out of God’s plan for the world. As we allow ourselves to be challenged by the poor and by the oppressed, we are gradually transformed and we begin to see the world with God’s eyes and to love the world with God’s heart.
It was a mistake to blame others for the situation, because each of us bore some responsibility. As Australians, a sense of shame and guilt was developing in each of us as we gazed on their sad, stricken and traumatised faces and we wondered how we could have allowed our neighbour to suffer in this way, only 500 kms from our own shores.
Since then the fruits of our visit have continued to flourish in many areas of our local community. We were all challenged to communicate the plight of the Timorese people to Australians at home. Our Parish Social Justice Group began raising consciousness of the injustice of previous Australian Government policy. When our Government disputed International maritime boundaries in 2006 to deny the Timorese the right to their own oil and gas in the Timor Sea, we petitioned on their behalf. Today, many Australian local government communities have been encouraged to develop friendships with another village or town in East Timor. This has happened between our own small town of Kiama and Zumalai in East Timor. Because communication from Timor even today faces so many infrastructural and technical difficulties, it is important for us to communicate information to our Australian communities, both secular and religious. I assist in whatever way I can our Mission Coordinator Sr Rosemary Patterson, to distribute regular updated bulletins to Australian and overseas Carmelites. Assistance can be given in many ways. Our Parish Social Justice group is giving assistance to coffee growers in East Timor by selling their organic coffee. All profits are returned to the Carmelite Mission Coordinator for development projects. Since 2005 more than $13,000 (€11,000 Euro) has been raised through the sale of Timorese coffee throughout our Diocese. With the assistance of our Carmelite Mission Coordinator we have raised awareness and sponsorships for education and health through many Catholic schools in our area.
Our local Lay Carmelite Community has consistently assisted the Carmelite Province for many years with financial contributions amounting to $3,000 (2,500 Euro); with sponsorship of Carmelite seminarians in Timor Leste. More recently Sue Stuckey from the Jamberoo Community has been responsible for helping to establish a Library at the Timor Leste Novitiate in Hera, just outside of Dili, with books donated from many supporters throughout Australia and beyond. Lay Carmelites all over Australia have financially contributed more than $ 90,000 (€73,000 Euro) since 2000, when Timor Leste became part of the Australian Carmelite Province.
As Secretary of the Lay Carmelite National Council I was privileged to organise among the Lay Carmelites the sponsorship of two East Timor visitors to World Youth Day in Sydney, July 2008. Many individual Lay Carmelites and Communities were given the opportunity to personally become acquainted with the two young ladies Madalena Ximenes and Idalia Barreto from Dili, as our Lay Carmelites supported them during their month in Australia. It was a privilege to show them Canberra, Sydney, Central Coast of New South Wales, and Brisbane. They were treated to a Mayoral Civic Reception in our little town of Kiama along with the other Timorese Carmelite seminarians and four Hermanas Carmelitas sisters. World Youth Day in Sydney opened up for them a global perspective as they mixed with 150,000 young people from all over the world. They shared stories with many pilgrims from Canada, Britain, Poland and Pacific island nations and came to understand the plight of indigenous people from Australia and other nations.
I have found the most liberating aspects of this apostolate with Timor Leste involves the mutual encounter, mutual growth and mutual transformative gift of love and teaching…we from Australia have received as much, if not more, than we have been given. Their hospitality to us, at a time when they had barely enough for themselves, was overwhelming. Their sense of love and care for their community was a sign to us of what we were losing in our own communities; the joy and fervour in their living faith was inspiring.
The people of Timor Leste are gradually determining their own destiny …. Education has improved with many of their own people now finally trained as teachers, doctors and in trade areas. Health clinics, water, sanitation and infrastructure are slowly improving. Our Carmelite Province has more than 29 Simply Professed Carmelite brothers in seminary training, and the Province has completed a new novitiate for this training at Hera, at present with 9 novices.
I would like to take these words from the 1965 Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity which I think summarises our intent:
“Among the signs of our times, the irresistibly increasing sense of the solidarity of all peoples is especially noteworthy. It is a function of the lay apostolate sedulously to promote this awareness and to transform it into a sincere and genuine love of brotherhood. Furthermore the laity should be aware of the international field and of the questions and solutions, doctrinal as well as practical, which arise in this field, with special reverence to developing nations.”
Spiritual awakenings or calls to any apostolate are never meant for us alone. What happens to us, like an energised wave drawn to the shore, is meant to refresh and reshape the shore as needed. For myself and Lay Carmelites in Australia, our work for justice in Timor Leste has to be grounded in our prayer life and contemplation. Just as the quest for justice and peace are intertwined, prayer and the work for justice and peace belong together. If we attempt this work on our own without the help of God, we may begin to believe that the vision of a just and peaceable kingdom is our own.
Karl Barth, twentieth century Swiss theologian wrote: “To clasp our hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorders of the world.” Praying for Justice and peace forces us to face the disorders of the world and ask ourselves what we can do.
Our apostolate and mission in Timor Leste is continuing !!
