Testimonies

Our common home, the earth, is sick. The pain of environmental damage is not a result of the earth’s will to harm itself but a consequence of human mismanagement of creation.

Jesuit killed by paramilitaries with firearms in Tierralta (Colombia). He was a parish priest, rebuilt the church in Tierralta, built a museum and a library for the community and was a human rights defender.

Growing up I learned about the science of how the bay functioned as an ecosystem. I also learned how the bay’s health was damaged by years of pollution, urban and suburban development, and poor environmental policies.

It is a question of working to establish lasting peace in the Congo, founded on democratic values and absolute respect for human dignity, rooted in faith and hope in the Risen Lord, Conqueror of violence and death.

Addressing hope amidst the Palestinian experience is a weighty task, especially when your community is enduring such atrocities.

I ask myself sometime when will this suffering end? When will South Sudanese become one people and work together for their development? The desire to serve God and His people that pushed me to join religious life few years ago is kind of renewed desire every time I get to witness or hear these painful stories.

This is the context in which the Jesuit mission operates in Timor-Leste. We understand the importance of strengthening communities from the ground up. So we persist in reaching out to people in remote and rural areas, where intervention is most needed.

My experiences as a Timorese woman from a country with a long history of struggle for independence have shaped the way I see the world, my community, and my Timorese brothers and sisters.

Although we offer these Masses for the migrants and their intentions, I nevertheless find myself being impacted and changed by it. Most especially, I see the moment when we pray the Our Father differently.

My apostolic experience has been entirely in Latin America. I will first have to learn a lot from many provinces of Africa, in those of Asia Pacific and India, in those of North America, and in those of this Europe in which I must now live.