St Charles Borromeo
SISTERS OF CHARITY OF
Burning with Compassionate Love
of Jesus Christ Crucified
East Indonesia
Our Congregation was started in Indonesia on October 7th, 1918. When ten of our Dutch CB sisters arrived at Tanjung Priok, Jakarta. It was our first mission outside the Netherlands. As a Congregation we were asked to come to Indonesia in order to run a Catholic hospital and to take care of the sick. Our sisters started this mission with great faith and hope. We do believe that God, who had called us, never ceased to accompany us with His endless blessings. We grew fast and we extended our services to other places outside Jakarta. We opened our hearts and hands in responding to the needs of the Indonesian society. Hense, we perform several kinds of ministries in different parts of Indonesia.
The seed the sisters had sown bore fruit abundantly. In 1933 a group of three young women expressed the desire to join our Congregation. This is when we first began to admit new members into postulancy m and novitiate.
In 1967 Indonesia became a ‘province’ of the Congregation, with a provincial board. The Province consists of 38 communities. In 2002 East Timor becomes an independent state, called Timor Leste. But in administrative respect of our Congregation, Timor Leste becomes under the Province of Indonesia. We are involved in various ministries which cover the 9 Dioceses of Indonesia.
What we do
We are involved in various ministries: health care, education, social and pastoral ministries:
ā
Health Care Ministry
In our service in health care we try towards the wholeness of human beings. We use this approach in all areas of our work whether it be our patients and co-workers (including their families), or in our community and society as a whole.
We are involved in running large and small hospitals in the cities and health care centres in the villages. We also run schools for nurses and the College of Nursing in order to train people to become professional nurses who will work for the benefit of the country. We also provide social/pastoral services in hospitals for patients en co-workers. We look after student nurses and other workers who live in our dormitories.
ā
Education Ministry
Our Foundress started this ministry by admitting poor children in order to lay a solid foundation in their hearts. She taught them catechism and needle work, and how to pray and love God. It was a form of non formal education.
In this spirit we continue to involve ourselves in ministering the ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ education as once needed in Indonesia. Now we run our own schools as well as those from other Foundations in cities, districts and villages. Most of our school compounds consist of Kindergarten, Elementary, Secondary and High School. We also run Colleges for secretaries and social workers. At our schools, students not only study sciences, they also learn about life. They are taught to love their neighbour, to respect human life, to care for those who suffer, to live in simplicity and to be polite.
ā
Our ‘student dormitories’
We dedicate ourselves to this ministry by giving special attention to our students. We help them to develop their personality and dignity as women. We teach them how to live in harmony with others and develop their social responsibility.
Social ministry
In an attempt to observe the spirituality of our Foundress, we have chosen the social field as one of our ministries. We continue to give shape to this by involving ourselves in the reality and struggles of the poor in today’s world.
The social services we render are various e.g. we care for orphans, single mothers, handicapped children, drop-outs, and street children. Besides, we run social rehabilitation programmes, set up social-economic development plans for villages, and encourage social consultation.
ā
Pastoral ministry
The pastoral approach we use is working towards the wholeness of human beings. We believe that, in this way, we can bear witness of our being religious in the spirit of our Foundress in the harsh reality of today’s world. We hope that this pastoral attitude is reflected in all our services: in health care, education and social services.
We are involved in pastoral ministries and in building up basic Christian communities in the parishes, prayer groups in sub parishes, pastoral ministries in schools, some youth organizations, hospitals, homes for the elderly, etc. We also run retreat houses.
Spirituality and prayer are emphasized in all formation programs, both in the formation of young people and in the ongoing formation of perpetually professed sisters. Spirituality and prayer are also encouraged in local communities, while emphasis is also placed on apostolic activities. Formation is an important part of our life as religious. It is a lifelong process on our journey to maturity both as individuals and as members of this Congregation. The decline in the number of members and the expectation of a declining number of candidates in the East Indonesian area means that the sisters in this Region consider “vocation promotion” to be a meaningful activity. Since a formation house was established in Kupang in 2001, the number of candidates from the areas of Indonesia has varied.
What we do
The sisters of this Region are engaged in various apostolic works.
Although small in number, the sisters are active in health care, education, formation, and social-pastoral work. They try to understand the signs of the times and respond to the reality of society through their apostolic activities. They are aware that their service is the key to opening the doors of their hearts.
In the field of healthcare, they run three clinics and one health center in four dioceses. In addition to these clinics (owned by the Congregation), there are two clinics owned by a diocese but run by the sisters. It is clear that this apostolate responds to the needs of the local population and is entirely in keeping with the spirituality of the Congregation.