Service main aim of Jesuits celebrating 150th anniversary in Indonesia

(Aug.06,2009): Jesuits in Indonesia celebrated a 150 years of the arrival of their first missionaries in the country by stressing on the society's service to the nation. The Jesuits began working in Indonesia on July 9, 1859, when two Dutch Jesuit Fathers Martin van den Elzen and John Baptist Pallinckx arrived in then Batavia, now Jakarta. Today, 357 Jesuits carry out their educational, pastoral, spiritual, social and communications work in eight dioceses in Java, Papua, and Sumatra islands. The society's Indonesian province has also sent missionaries to Cambodia, Japan, Micronesia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Italy, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor Leste and Turkey.
More than 100 Jesuit priests, brothers and seminarians, as well as laypeople attended a Mass on July 31 in the Assumption of the Virgin Cathedral in Jakarta to mark the anniversary. It was concelebrated by Jesuit Father Thomas Aquino Deshi Ramadhani and four other Jesuit priests. "We Jesuits see ourselves in our fellowship and our services," Father Ramadhani, a lecturer of biblical studies at the Jakarta-based Driyarkara School of Philosophy, said in his homily. In an earlier July 9 Mass to celebrate the anniversary, Jesuit Superior General Father Adolfo Nicolas said, "God has blessed and assisted Jesuit work in Indonesia over its 150 years in the country.”