SURABAYA: 4 August 2010 -- "I'm proud of you!" That about sums
up the feelings and sentiments of Fr Noel Villafuerte, parish priest of
St. Michael, Tanjung Perak Surabaya, during the Confirmation Mass for
some 47 parishioners last Sunday. St Michael's Parish, together with
Blitar, in Surabaya, East Java, is the newest Salesian presence in
Indonesia. On 18 April of this year, the Bishop officially installed Fr
Noel as the parish priest, and St Michael's became the second Salesian
parish in Indonesia, the first being S. John Bosco in Jakarta. From the
solemn Mass, presided over by Bishop Vincent Sutikno, himself a son of
the 49 year old parish and a self-confessed admirer of Don Bosco since
childhood, to the simple but familiar reception in the parish
multi-purpose hall, the well-coordinated activities went smoothly. In
spite of the interrupted catechetical preparations being given by Fr
Noel, as he had to be away for some 20 days to preach the annual
retreat of the confreres in the Delegation of PNG-SI, the remaining
three sessions of instructions were ably handled by some of the senior
parish catechists.
Worth noting was the dialogue and open forum that
the committee organized especially for the Bishop and the confirmands.
Talk-shows in the celebrity world are the in-thing nowadays, and it was
just creative of the organizers to provide this forum for the newly
confirmed parishioners to ask the Bishop about "anything under the
sun!", so from such topics as the practical meaning of being prophet,
priest and king to even curious queries like the difference between our
confirmation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit of the charismatics,
the talk-show - aptly titled, An Hour With Our Bishop -
indeed made the day. _________________ AustraLasia is an
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