Projeto Educação Jesuíta was inaugurated on January 25, with a number of special guests including Father Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, giving the project their blessing.
Fr Adolfo Nicolás, Superior General of the Society of Jesus visited the Asia Pacific Conference in January, to attend the Major Superiors Assembly, which was held in Timor Leste.
Ten Jesuits recently spent 10 days learning about liturgical music, actually composing pieces as an assignment. They learnt about about the principles of liturgical music and musical composition, teaching music and conducting choirs. They were asked to write songs for liturgical use, which were performed in a recital and used at the Mass at the conclusion of the workshop.
Teachers from Jesuit schools in Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, Timor-Leste and Cambodia, including four Jesuit priests and one scholastic, recently gathered in Sydney, Australia, for an Advanced Ignatian Teaching Programme. The five-day workshop, which began on November 11, was conducted by teachers and staff of St Ignatius College, Riverview.
What is the face of the Apostleship of Prayer in Asia? This was the main question delegates at the 5th Apostleship of Prayer Asian Conference had to address as they gathered to discuss how to re-create the apostolate.
Isaías Caldas knows the value of a good education. The Jesuit scholastic grew up in Timor Leste and was one of a privileged few who attended St Joseph College, a Jesuit-run senior high school. But most of his peers had no such luck: their country’s education system had been rendered broken and ineffective by decades of Indonesian occupation and centuries of Portuguese colonisation; their parents were eking out a living in a country on the cusp of independence – surviving from one day to the next took precedence over planning for their children’s future.
The Jesuit Conference of Asia Pacific recently held its first Formation for Jesuit Formators seminar. Held from August 5 to 16 in the Philippines, the seminar is the first of three modules that will be conducted in three consecutive years. The 22 formators who participated are current and future formation directors and staff of novitiates, scholasticates and seminaries in the Conference. They hail from nine provinces and regions – Indonesia, Korea, China, Australia, Myanmar, Timor-Leste, Malaysia-Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Xavier Catholic College Hervey Bay student Julie-Anne Doan’s face lights up as she talks about the experience of meeting and chatting with the young people she’s encountered on the Timor-Leste Immersion Program.
“We’ve been looking at the history, and seeing how much they’ve gone through,” she says. “Yet they’re able to smile and to give to others just as if we’re part of the family. I don’t really want to leave to be honest.”
Communicators from across the Asia Pacific region had a first-hand look earlier this month at the vital role the Jesuit film production studio, Casa de Produção Audiovisual (CPA), is playing in telling the story of one of the world’s newest nations within the country. Twice a week, CPA produces Tetum language programs that appear on prime time television in the country, each reflecting on East Timorese culture and history.
The Jesuits in Timor-Leste have established a new organisation called Jesuit Social Services to coordinate and expand its work in a country still struggling to establish itself following decades of occupation by Indonesia and centuries of colonisation by the Portuguese. The organisation is a natural successor of Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), which was established in Timor-Leste in 2006 following a period of intense internal conflict and displacement.