"Pilgrimage" to Flores

 Wayterang Beach, Flores

Last week I took a flight from Malang to Denpasar, Bali, where I was picked up by Fr. Joseph Gerungan, director of the beautiful retreat house up in the mountains of Bali, a region called Bedugul.  Once there, I was joined by a group from all over Java who were heading east to the island of Flores for "Pasca," Easter.  What a trip it was!  After a day spent at the retreat house, we arose early the next morning (3:00 AM Java time!) to catch an early flight to Ende, in the middle of the island of Flores.  Once there, we boarded a bus traveling all day on narrow mountain roads through breath-taking scenery, high mountains on either side, and lush greenness untouched all around.  That long ride got us only to Maumere, where we had a hotel for the night before boarding the bus again to get to Laruntuka, just in time for "White Thursday," or what Christians in the West call "Holy or Maundy Thursday."  Holy Week had begun. 

On the boat before the crowd 

   The traditions of Larentuka are Portuguese Catholic, and most of the people, well over 90% are Catholic, the exact opposite of the situation in Malang, where the population is well over 96% Muslim!  At Larentuka we stayed at the cathedral "guest house," but that is dignifying it a bit too much, since accommodations, designed for visiting priests, were rather primitive.  The next morning, however, we got to the beach, where we boarded a boat that would take us first to a small chapel on a nearby island, where numbers of pilgrims entered, approaching a statue of the crucified Christ on their knees.  After that moment of piety, we were off again on the boat to join dozens of other good-sized boats, each carrying increasing numbers of people, for a boat procession, that would follow a very tiny boat, rowed slowly by a couple of men, and I am told holding an image of the Child Jesus.  (I never found out why that image was the one that 500 years of tradition had employed, but I liked it that we were following an image of life and birth rather than death and suffering.)  The whole experience was fun, relaxing, and extremely scary, as our boat got so overloaded that it kept tipping to one side and the other, taking on water each time, until finally a few people got off onto yet another equally overloaded boat.  Thank God!  There were no life-jackets, and little children, three and four years old, were stationed right along the sides. 

  After the boat procession, we had just enough time to get ready (very hot and sweaty by now) for the afternoon's "Way of the Cross" and donned our second special tee-shirt of the day (both saying "Ave Maria Larentuka") for this ancient ceremony.  As usual, as the "bule," foreigner, I was asked to sit up front, and since my camera was totally out of charge, I borrowed my new friend, Josephine's, who accompanied me at the front (to the protests of the usher because she wasn't bule).  There are fifteen priests at the cathedral, and most of them were up at the altar for the veneration of the cross and Holy Communion ceremony (no Mass on Good Friday).  After our next meal (Indonesian Catholics don't seem to make much of the fasting rule for Good Friday, as snacks kept being passed around throughout the boat ride) we assembled again at church for a symbolic procession where the body of Christ was symbolically carried in a coffin accompanied by wailing lamentations and powerful drumbeats.  Girls carried sticks of bamboo, rice, fruits, and the other produce of this incredibly fertile land.  At the front of the church was the ancient Portuguese "Mater Dolorosa," Mary, Mother of Sorrows, and at Fr. Joseph's invitation, I went up to take a picture of her, seeing her strength and firm gaze on the scene. 

  Numbers of groups of Confraternities and other lay groups were called, and our group waited until finally we were able to join the long, very long candlelight procession wending its way the along the main street, also candlelit on either side, of Larentuka.  And that was only the first day of the Triduum!