Retreat Ministry in Timor-Leste

Thanks Fr. Venâncio Da Costa Pereira. Patience is bliss.

The numerically strong Timor-Leste catholic community is pretty young though Catholicism arrived in the area in the early 16th century through the Portuguese traders, soldiers, administrators, and their soul care providers.

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola were finalized around the year 1524 and eventually published in 1548. It is a long long time that Spain and the rest of Europe did not have the benefits of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. Out there people of goodwill were also busy with the externals like long processions, acrobatics of the preacher in the gorgeous pulpits, and listening to melodious singing accompanied by stunning music.

In your truly honest and beautiful presentation you make mention of the long processions, devotions, and other exterior manifestations of the Timorese men, women and children. Catholic people in the Global North had their share of the external aspects of Catholicism centuries before the hugely young Timorese society.

Your Ignatian Spirituality Center is on good track. Making the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises available to religious communities, to families, to deaneries, to choir members, to spiritual confraternities, to the police force, to politicians, lawyers, advocates, judges, business men and women, medical practitioners, sportspersons, soldiers, and for others should be possible in that predominantly Catholic Timor-Leste.

Take heart. All the best in your retreat ministry. God bless. Saint Ignatius of Loyola – Pray for us.