"Quiet Saturday" and Easter

My blog would not be complete without finishing the journey through Flores, including what is called "Quiet Saturday," the day between Good Friday and Easter.  On that morning, we left the cathedral grounds in Larentuka, but paid a visit to a shrine dedicated to a Monsignor Mannick, a bishop from Indonesia who ended up serving the Native Americans in Colorado and whose body has been miraculously preserved.  This preservation thing is such a Catholic phenomenon, and in many ways my contact with the Catholic community here has taken me back to the American Catholic Church of about fifty years ago.  Outside the shrine, the sisters who tend it told me that he left Indonesia because of a conflict within his order, and that is the kind of sanctity, a difficult and  messy one, that I can relate to.  We paused for photos with the sisters and their pumpkin produce, and then packed into the bus for the journey westward, pausing at an incredibly beautiful beach, Wayterang Beach, along the way.

As on the other days of riding the bus, we laughed and prayed our way along the steep and narrow highway taking us westward to a Carmelite retreat house at Mauloo.  We arrived in time for a quick "shower," (meaning hand dips with cold water), and went to the church for the Easter Vigil Mass.  What made it poignantly beautiful for me were the young girls dressed in long skirts and sashes, swaying to gentle rhythms of a music not unlike Hawaiian.
  On Sunday after Mass (which I missed having "slept in" till 6:40 AM), we piled into the bus for one last ride to Ende, our starting point for the flight home.  That night we had what seemed luxurious accommodations in a hotel after such primitive, insect-ridden rooms.  The next morning four of us rented a car and drove along another beautiful beach outside Ende, and then up into a "kampung," village, where people of Flores live their lives as they have for hundreds of years, and where everything revolves around the church life.  At the very end of our journey, after the flight home, we arrived back at our retreat house in Bali.  To our surprise, there was a feast waiting for us, complete with whole roast pig.  Then came the Balinese dancers, beautifully attired in off-shoulder (no head-scarves in Bali) flowing dresses with wide capes at the sides.  The Bali dancers finished their dance, and then before I knew what happened, I was invited to go up and dance with them.  I see that invitation and dance as a good metaphor for the end of my time here in Bali and in Indonesia generally.  The hand of the Bali dancer beckons: "Come join the dance."  And I will.  I am ending my time here in a much better place than when I started.  I am ready for the dance.