We opened our day with our morning prayer at 07.40 in the morning. The theme was “There is still one thing lacking”. In his introduction, Lawrence said that we are called to give Jesus Christ practical priority by following the Commandements joyfully. Our focus should be on the need to seek growth in spirit not perfection. He also invited us to pray that God may grant us grace to faithfully live our OASIS Covenant. After morning prayer we continued to have our breakfast in the dining hall.

At nine in the morning we came together at meeting hall to have a simpel celebration of “Profession of covenant”. On this moment we took our reading from Ezekiel 36:24-28. This reading has connection very much with all our weekly theme during the process of our OASIS, such as: I will take you away; I will sprinkle clean water over you...; I will give you a new heart...and a new spirit...; and I will put my spirit within you so that you walk in my statutes. On this moment, Bro. Martin Handoko as our General Superior receives and signs the covenenat of each participant of the OASIS. One by one all the participants profess their own covenant before our General Superior and at the presence of other participants and staaf of the OASIS. One of the song which we sang during the profession of the covenant was “I thank my God each time I think of you”.

At the end of the simpel celebration, Bro. Martin Handoko gave some remarks and encouragements to the participants of the OASIS 2014. He fully support and encourage that we must always dream to grow towards Jesus. We should do this step by step, some time with a lot of strugle, but we have to never give up to be a better person. We should try to make our effort of being good and doing good in our daily life. Our dream as religious is to become like Jesus, like what Saint Paul says: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who is living in me”. He stressed that we had to never give up and by the grace of God we continued our efforts to grow towards Jesus. Furthermore, he remind us to support one another to live out the spirit of our founders for the seek of the Kingdom of God and the happiness of our fellow brothers and people around us.

After taking a coffee or tea break, we continued to have our “evaluation” during the process of our OASIS. Bro. Guido led this session by asking to the participants to express their feelings, remarks and gratitudes. I would like to mention some of them: 1) I experienced a moment of reconciliation with God, myself and others; 2) I learned a lot of creating or making many forms of prayers service; 3) I expericed a kind of cross cultural relationship, it was make me thinking widely and openly; 4) I understand deeper on spirituality and sexuality; 5) I experienced that during this OASIS I could meet with myself in deeper sense; 6) I experienced that during OASIS, we were very seriously to do our own committment, this place was a such kind of sacred place for growth; 7) This OASIS encounter was very helpful to me, I engaged to our founders very much, this encounter support me very much to continue growing as FIC; 8) I have deep feeling of gratitude, being together as Brothers FIC, there is peace-joy-and hope; 9) I experience that this encounter was very intensive to our spiritual journey, I have impression during our pilgrimage to FIC-historical places especially in the Church of Saint Servatius, the former house of Mgr. Rutten family, and in the cemetery of the brothers; 10) To me OASIS is very important place in my journey of life, how big God’s love is.

After lunch we had time to pack the thing we have and also to prepare our closing eucharist and social evening. The theme of our closing eucharist was “Truly human, faithfully FIC”. Bro. Nico led our eucharistic celebration. Some of our brothers in the Netherlands province also attended this moment. To conclude our eucharistic prayer service, we prayed: “Loving God, we are grateful to you for ALL your gifts, especially the gift of each other. Today we thank you in particular for the blessings of this OASIS meeting and for your light and help to choose some valuable goals for our life. We pray that your spirit may continue to guide us to pursue our goals and honour all our commitments in this life. We ask you this, at the intercession of  our Mother Mary and our dear Founders, through Jesus Christ, our Brother and our Lord.”

During our closing eucharist, Bro. Martin Handoko gave his closing remarks. He stressed that: “As religious we believe that consecrated life is in itself a spiritual journey. Only those nurturing spiritual life are able to enjoy it and to be happy with it. During this four weeks’ encounter we have had enough time to nurture our spiritual hunger by reflecting on our lives and journeying into our inner-selves. With the help of facilitators and fellow participants we have discovered or rediscovered a lot of precious treasures in our lives. At the same time we might also have seen things in our lives which need to be improved or be carried out in different ways for the sake of our ideals. OASIS gives us the opportunity to see our lives more clearly and passionately. I hope we are able to take maximum benefit of this exercise for our own growth, so that we will be growing to the fullest as a human person and as a religious”.

We closed our days in Wahlwiller with our “Social Evening” together with the sisters of SSPS who live at Arnold Jansen community house. Bro. Frans Wils was our host in this special ocassion. Participant from each province performed special dances dan songs. The most interesting was when all the participants and staff performed “Human Christmas Crib”. Each of us was satisfied with our social evening including our guests sisters of SSPS.

Our OASIS encounter was end, but the real effort to enrich our spiritual life and apostolate life begins. Let us always pray and support one another. Have a nice trip to your respective province and fraternally greetings to our fellow brothers.

Theodorus Suwariyanto