Report Apostolic Congress 2018 Salatiga, Indonesia 27 January 2018.

The morning prayer this morning centred around reflections on our founders' firm believe in "Love for our Brothers" as the nucleus of our life. Every aspect of our life and work, even apostolate  revolve around "Love" for our fellow human beings. This is the guiding principle of our life as we bring proceedings to a conclusion today.

The first two sessions of the morning were fully spent on the finalization of proposals and evaluation of the congress. The Adhoc Committee had been working hard to compile points of inspiration. They had given a summary of these points the previous day for discussion of the congress. These points were derived from the reflections, input by resource persons, sharing and discussion groups during the congress. Today, we have the task to draw final conclusions to these recommendations and proposals, which came in two thematic areas, namely school and non-school apostolate.  The work on the proposals to the General Chapter 2018 includes issues on gift money, community missions, apostolic projects targeted at the most needy, General Council support for growing provinces and a future apostolic congress on apostolate.  The work was distributed to the provincial groups, and the final results were presented for consideration.

There was deep and serious exchange of ideas during this exercise, but at the end we were rewarded: six proposals to the General Chapter were formulated and a list of recommendations/conclusions were arrived at. The latter is a list of concluding points seen as apostolic guidelines to be implemented by the congregation under the coordination of the General/Provincial Councils.

The next was an oral evaluation of the whole Apostolic Congress. This was given a very positive  appraisal. Participants were very satisfied with the whole process of the congress, the content and conclusion. The services provided at Roncalli Retreat House, namely accommodation, meals, laundry services, cleaning, etc. were excellent. Thanks to the staff! Of special significance was the exposure to YPL facilities, the management and organizational structure of the foundation. The Provincial Council of Indonesia did extremely well by organizing this exposure and also the recreational outings. The exposure provided significant learning experiences for the other provinces.

In his closing address, the General Superior, Bro. Martinus Handoko expressed personal satisfaction with the process and outcome of the congress. He noted that "the two weeks of the encounter was for us a moment of grace, where we had the opportunity to have a real encounter with ourselves, with fellow brothers and surely with God the One who calls us". He expressed his gratitude to the province of Indonesia, the organizing committee and all who played a role to ensure the success of the encounter. There were exchange of gifts at this moment as has been the tradition.

The Apostolic Congress 2018 cannot be considered as fully concluded without the celebration of the Eucharist which has been our source of unity and communion during the entire conference, and so in the same spirit of unity and brotherhood, we gathered to give thanks to God for yet another inspirational congregational encounter. During prayers for the faithful, each province offered a prayer in a dominant local language of the province.

With this we now await the sharing of the fruits with our fellow brothers tomorrow in what we call the "Provincial Day".   

Raphael Besigrinee