Romo Redempt, CSsR: A Brief Story About Myself and My Mission
Saya selalu mengalami kesulitan kalau diminta untuk menuliskan tentang diri saya karena saya tidak tahu harus memulainya dari mana. Kalau dimulai dari tempat saya dilahirkan, keluarga saya dikenal sebagai pendatang. Kalau mau mulai dari tempat orangtua, saya (dan juga kakak-adik) sampai saat ini tidak tahu dari mana orangtua saya berasal. Nama belakang saya (dan semua anak-anak)—JAWA—diberi oleh ayah saya untuk mengingatkan kami bahwa dia berasal dari Magelang, Jawa Tengah. Namun kami tidak mempunyai cerita yang lebih dari itu.
Dalam kesulitan dan keterbatasan itu, izinkan saya untuk berbagi kisah tentang siapa saya dan keterlibatan saya dalam misi Redemptoris. Kongregasi Redemptoris didirikan oleh St. Alphonsus de Liguori di Scala, Napoli, Italia tahun 1732. Redemptoris masih cukup besar anggotanya (sekitar 5500 orang di 82 negara), dan karya misinya di Amerika dimulai sejak tahun 1832. Biara Redemptoris masuk ke Indonesia untuk menjawab undangan Vatican untuk berkarya misi di Sumba tahun 1957.
My Family
My name is Redemptus Rage Jawa, CSsR (Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptorist, or Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer / Kongregasi Sang Penebus Maha Kudus). I was born in 1981 and grew up in a simple family in Lewograran village on Solor Island, Indonesia. It’s a small volcanic island in the Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) province, just east of Flores Island.
I come from a large family of six brothers and five sisters, and I’m the ninth of eleven siblings. My oldest sibling is 15 years older than me, and the youngest one is 5 years younger. One of my sisters died when she was only five years old. My other siblings have their own family now and mostly live in Flores.
My father came from Jawa with his mother when he was about three years old. Sadly, his mom could not survive in the new place and died when he was still very young. My father was a farmer, but occasionally he would also fish. He died ten years ago in Solor at the age of (about) 70.
My mom, two years younger than my dad, is from Solor, but we’re not certain which part of the island. She is still alive and lives on her own as when my parents moved to where we are now, they lost their siblings and extended families.
I was raised in a Catholic family. My dad came from a Muslim family, but he became a Catholic when he married my mom. My village, just like the rest of Solor, was predominantly Catholic.
Religion and faith were important in my family life because God was the only person that we relied on. Daily prayers and Sunday Mass were activities that we couldn’t escape. They were times we praised God and asked Him to journey with us and to bless our family. This spiritual life formed me to be a person of faith today, believing in Jesus Christ and proclaiming His Gospel.
My Vocation
It began with candy and white habit (jubah putih). When I was little, we only had Mass once a month. When a priest visited our church, he usually spent time with children, telling stories, teaching about Jesus, and singing with us. The thing that children expected was to get lollies from him. Since then, I had been motivated to become a priest so I, too, could wear a white habit and distribute candies.
I attended a public elementary school (SD Negeri) in Lewograran and continued to a public middle school (SMP Negeri) in another village, returning home on weekends whenever possible. It took me 2-3 hours to walk the distance. During my time in middle school, my desire to become a priest grew stronger as I served as an altar server every morning Mass and helped the priests wash their motorbikes.
At the end of the middle school, I told my mom that I had decided to enter the San Dominggo Minor Seminary (Seminari Menengah) in Hokeng, on the nearby Flores Island. (My father was not in Indonesia at the time.) My mom wasn’t entirely taken by surprise as my oldest brother and sister had previously entered religious life though they eventually left before taking their perpetual vows.
For the first time, I was away from home for an extended period. Hokeng was a freezing place, and the minor seminary was very demanding, but fortunately, everything went well. What I cherished most during this period was our visits to different villages, parishes, or outstations, where we performed dramas to entertain people and promote our vocation.
In my fourth year in the seminary, we were asked to choose between joining a particular diocese or a religious order. I was sent home to talk to my parents regarding my choice. In the end, I decided to join the Redemptorists for a simple reason: I came from a poor family, so I thought I could do a mission serving poor people.
I applied and was accepted to the Redemptorist Congregation in the Indonesia Province in August 2001. My formation began in Sumba Island (where I took my first profession or religious vows in June 2003), followed by four years of philosophy and theology study in Yogyakarta, where I earned a Sarjana Sastra degree. After another year of pastoral experience (TOP: Tahun Orientasi Pastoral) in Hokeng and another year of theology study, I earned a Bachelor of Theology. Finally, in December 2009, I had my perpetual vows with my classmates in Sumba.
In January 2010, I was sent to the Redemptorist community in Auckland, New Zealand, to learn English for four months before transferring to Davao, the Philippines, to do priesthood programs. Auckland was a big culture shock for me: new language, new custom, new food. All the Redemptorist priests were white, and I didn’t know a single Indonesian there. Davao was easier. The culture was closer to Indonesia, and by that time I could communicate better in English.
After being ordained deacon in the Philippines in 2011, I did a diaconate program in Sumba till my priesthood ordination on July 14, 2011.
My Ministry
In the same year of my ordination, I was sent back to Auckland to join the Redemptorist mission. As the number of Redemptorists had dropped dramatically in New Zealand, our ministries mainly centered around parishes and ethnic chaplaincies. I began my mission in Auckland Diocese as an associate pastor to the Redemptorist parish serving the Pacific communities (Samoa, Tonga, Cook Island, etc.).
Two years later, I was assigned to another Redemptorist parish and became the chaplain of the Indonesian Catholic Community in the Auckland Diocese. Additionally, I served as the formator to our Redemptorist brothers (frater) from Indonesia.
When Redemptorist New Zealand and Australia merged to establish the Oceania Province in 2016, three Indonesian Redemptorists and I were requested to transfer and become members of the new province. After becoming a full member, I was appointed to lead the Redemptorist community in Auckland.
In April 2018, I got a new assignment to lead Redemptorist Formation (Theologate Stage) in Melbourne, Australia, with brothers from Asia and the Pacific.
During these years of mission, I have been wrestling with one great challenge: what Good News I would share with people in today’s modern and secular world. God has the Good News for us: He has become human and is always with us to save us, but people know about this and can easily find this kind of reflection online.
So, what more may I add to people’s faith journey? I believe it starts with my own relationship with Jesus. Do I experience God’s presence in my daily life before proclaiming it to others?
My Present Mission
Currently, I’m pursuing a Master’s degree in Pastoral Counselling for Ministry at Loyola University in Chicago, a journey that began in August 2021. I expect to complete it and graduate by May this year.
I was interested in that program because during the formation (in my time and now), there was not much space to talk about the human aspect. It connected very much with scandals that badly hit the Church, particularly with the attention to the priesthood formation. I think it is time for the human aspect to be integrated into the priesthood formation process. For this to happen, a Redemptorist should have a formal study in this area. So, I offered myself, and here I am.
By gaining knowledge and skills through this learning process, I hope to better accompany our brothers in their formation, forming them to become Redemptorist missionaries and priests equipped for today’s world. It is not easy, and your support and prayers are invaluable.
Chicago, January 10, 2024
Redempt Jawa, CSsR
