No Ordinary Priest Ordination

This past weekend I attended an ordination for Father Andre in Wailili, a village about 35 minutes from Venilale. The truck (which was the same one we rode in here to Venilale) would not start, and 2 sisters and I pushed it backwards out from under the awning and then pushed it forward a little bit to give it a little “head start”. It did the trick! Soon we were on our way. The sisters graciously let me sit in the front seat, which I appreciated. I was a little nervous about the trip because I had been so sick the last time we drove here in East Timor. I tried to focus on the road ahead and not look off too often to the sides. It seemed to be a pretty good strategy. We stopped in Fatumata, a village 15 minutes outside of Wailili, to drop off some supplies at a Don Bosco School. I was surprised it only took us 40 minutes to get to Wailili, because I had never really gotten a clear answer on the exact distance from anyone and was expecting the worst.

When we arrived at the church at 9 a.m., there were already a lot of people standing outside. I knew the ceremony started at 9:30 and I figured the inside of the church must already be full. I had heard it would be a long ceremony so I was not thrilled at the idea of standing outside through the whole thing. Within just a few minutes, we processed down a hill, lead by adult women drummers in colorful tais clothing. We turned right into a large open auditorium-type space. To my surprise (and delight) there were seats right up front designated for the sisters. People really do treat them so well here in East Timor!

The weather was absolutely perfect-overcast and just the right temperature-not hot, not cold, cool enough to be comfortable without sweating or needing a long sleeved shirt. Because it was cloudy you didn’t need sunglasses and didn’t have to squint to see. There were a few light raindrops that fell, but nothing more.

There was a big sign over the altar that I had Sr. Carolina translate for me. It said, “Blessed are they who trust in God.” She was nice enough to translate most of the “unusual” things that happened in mass for me-i.e. things that don’t typically occur. There was a high school band (Don Bosco boys) providing pre-mass entertainment. One of the songs they played was the “Allelulia Chorus”. I had never actually heard this played in anything but movies as a sort of joke, so to hear it played live for the ordination of a priest was a nice, but funny experience to me. 3 different men welcomed everyone to the ceremony. One said he would like to give this day to God, but we must recognize that it is already God’s. The priest who was being ordained lived here in this village before attending seminary school in Dili. He was the first Salesian priest to ever come from this village, so it was definitely cause for celebration. Several speakers mentioned it was a miracle! One of the speakers gave a history of Catholicism in East Timor. He said that Dominicans served as missionaries here first, but everyone thought they were crazy. To get followers, they would set up camp by the village water supply so that everyone would “come to them.” When people came to the water, they would quickly baptize them to “seal the deal.” In 1927 the first Salesian 

missionaries came to East Timor and now in 2010 the first Salesian priest of this village was being ordained!

The soon-to-be ordained priest (Father Andre) was dressed in a white shirt and black dress pants, but was wearing traditional East Timor head gear and a tais garment around his chest. His family was summoned up to remove the traditional clothing as a symbol of him letting go of “this world” and entering the Salesian priesthood. He was then lead back to his home by the drummers and dancers so that he could put on his priestly vestments for mass. Mass started around 10 a.m. There were several priests presiding at the mass and they were lead to the altar by half a dozen altar boys, drummers and dancers. 

Father Andre in his traditional East Timorian gear

The mass itself actually went by pretty quickly. The new priest gave the homily and kept it under 10 minutes (the shortest homily I have heard thus far in East Timor). His extended family brought up the offerings which included the bread and wine, candles, flowers, assorted food items like bread, bananas and papayas and even 2 doves that he set free! One of the altar servers bumped into a flower arrangement, knocking it over and scattering flowers all over the altar. With so many people on the small altar, it was only a matter of time until something like that happened.

The singing at mass was lead by a girl’s choir (also from Don Bosco’s school?) They sounded pretty good on most of the songs, but there were 3 singers who lead the Responsorial song who were very flat. Thankfully all of the songs sounded better after that. There were more songs and singing than usual during mass, but all in all, the mass itself wasn’t much longer than a typical mass. At the end of the service, the newly ordained priest got up and thanked everyone for coming and for all of their support over the years. He thanked many people by name and category (friends, family, parishioners, the choirs, etc). 4 more men got up and essentially did the same thing-thanked everyone for attending. The last man to get up stopped speaking because the electricity stopped working. I didn’t think what he had to say could have been THAT important…couldn’t we just end the mass already? I don’t know what he ended up saying, but everyone in the audience was laughing, so I guess it was good that he got to say it after all. 

Finally, the mass was ended. I thought everyone would leave, but instead, EVERY single person in the congregation came up and kissed the priest’s hands. There were hundreds of people lined up waiting for their turn. The sisters did not participate in this, but they DID wait until everyone had finished before they left to go to the reception. After kissing the priests, many people came and hugged or greeted the sisters. I got to meet Sr. Carolina’s sister, who looks a lot like her. I pulled out my Bible that I had brought in case the ceremony got too boring. I didn’t expect to need it AFTER the ceremony! I read a good 10 pages from Jeremiah before I decided to put it away. By the time the kissing of the hands was done it was 1 p.m.

The reception was in a very large tent and there were about 6 serving stations. There were girls lined up at all of the tables to hand the people their plates and utensils, but primarily to keep people from going through the line until the appointed time. The food was already on the tables, but we all sat down and got to stare at it for 30 minutes while we waited for the priests to enter the tent and for all the announcements and gifts to be awarded. I was not sitting by sister Carolina at this point, so I was frustrated because I did not know what was going on. The sisters on either side of me did not speak English well, so I couldn’t ask them. I knew I just needed to be patient, but at this point I was just feeling frustrated at my lack of understanding. I felt like an impatient little kid again-not mature enough to understand the events happening around me, but able to understand the universal idea of “food.” It’s interesting how you comforting it is to know what is going on. Yes, this whole ceremony and reception would have been long even if it was in English, but at least I would have known what was being said. Maybe they had announced that food would be served at such and such time or after these gifts were handed out. Instead, I sat there not having a clue what was going on and not knowing why they were still talking. How could everyone else be so patient? Wasn’t anyone else hungry? We hadn’t eaten since 7 a.m. and it was now almost 2 p.m. I wasn’t hungry as much as bored, though. I needed something to DO. Eating was something to do. “Please just let us eat soon!” I thought. Couldn’t they make this process any more efficient? Why did they call people up in 3 groups to receive tais scarves? Couldn’t they just call them up all at once? Do we really all have to watch these big wigs drink their wine?

Eventually they called up all the sisters (and I got to go, too) to taste some traditional East Timor food. I was handed a hollowed out bamboo stalk stuffed with meat and rice. I turned to the sister beside me and asked what it (the meat) was. She said, “Meat.” Not too helpful. I decided to try it anyway. It actually tasted almost like steak, but was a little chewier. I didn’t really like it. I asked the other sister what it was and she said she it was goat! I have never eaten goat before. It wasn’t terrible, but it would definitely take me some getting used to. Thankfully I wasn’t required to eat all of the food in my bamboo stalk and I slipped it back onto the table just like all the other sisters did. As sisters, they were first to go through the line, which was a nice treat. Still, though, I felt badly for everyone who still had to wait for food. I thought I had to wait a long time and I was one of the first to go through the line.

 I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was TONS of food on the table. The first thing in the line was rice-3 different kinds of rice, in fact. Plain rice, what looked like Spanish rice and fried rice. I wasn’t sure what I would find further down the table, so I got a pretty big portion of rice, just in case. I found there were a lot of American things served like lasagna  and meatballs (ok, I guess those are Italian, but I eat them IN America), French fries with ketchup, a stromboli with peas and carrots in it, and what looked like an ice cream cone but tasted like a taco with hamburger meat in it. I also tried a shish kebab with meat that I recognized on it. There were a lot of meat dishes, but I passed on most of them because I didn’t know what they were and didn’t want to risk getting sick (especially with the drive back still ahead of us). There were also a lot of vegetables I didn’t recognize, so I avoided those too. Still, I ended up with a big bowl of food. I felt a little embarrassed by all the food I had picked up, but I figured I had to get a lot because I was sure there would be stuff I picked up that I wouldn’t like. I was right in my assessment-while I did like most of it, some of the things did not agree with me.

At the end of the serving line there were sodas or fruit juice to drink and water in a sealed cup. The water was arranged in a semi-sphere structure and looked like a big igloo. It was very cool. After we had eaten our food I was surprised to find there was even dessert!! The dessert wasn’t all that “sweet’ to me, though...I tried one thing that looked like gelatin and another that was some kind of pound cake. I also tried some fruit cocktail that I liked, but It was interesting because it seemed to have a “kick” to it. Shortly after dessert one of the sisters lead me over to where there was dancing. We saw 3 groups perform-2 wore traditional ET clothing, and the other group wore t-shirts and caps-like gangsters! I didn’t understand why, but I thought it was funny. I enjoyed all 3 dances.

Finally, we decided to head out. I said goodbye to the priest I had met before the ceremony who had actually visited Dallas, Texas 13 years ago! He knew some of the Salesian sisters in San Antonio and said one of his former students is there now. He heard that I was going to Com and told me not to worry about the sharks-the crocodiles usually scare them away.

All in all, I had a great time at the ordination, even though I didn’t understand most of what was going on. I COULD understand the excitement of the people in the village and the love they had for their newly ordained priest. I was blown away by the patience these people exhibited throughout the day. I certainly have a lot I can learn from them in this regard.

Fr. Andre in his priest garments