Students and staff at Dorish Maru College have celebrated the end of the academic year with a Mass and Thanksgiving Party, but rather than head to the beach for the summer, the students are continuing their formation with challenging pastoral work and cultural immersion.
Celebrations to mark the end of the academic year began with Mass, followed by the Thanksgiving Party in which the students expressed their gratitude to all who have helped them with their studies through the year.
“The end of the academic year at Dorish Maru College is always a special occasion and a celebration which is connected with Christmas and New Year,” says Acting Rector and Formation Director, Fr Boni Buahendri SVD (pictured here far left).
“It’s a time to give thanks to those people who in many different ways have helped with the formation in the House. And so the students present these people with small tokens of appreciation and we have an enjoyable gathering together.”
Once the party is over though, the students move straight into their next formation challenge, either taking a Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) placement in a hospital or heading out to the countryside to live with an Aussie family and immerse themselves in farm work and family life.
Fr Boni says the CPE program is a three month supervised placement in a major hospital, such as Sydney’s Royal North Shore Hospital or Melbourne’s Austin or Royal Melbourne Hospitals.
“They go there to do pastoral work with the chaplain, but it is supervised,” he says. “So they are visiting patients but they are also being asked by their supervisor afterwards, ‘how was it?’ and ‘what did you learn?’
“It is intensive and quite demanding, but this type of formation is good for them because they are training to become a priest.
“The students learn a great deal about themselves and other people by visiting the patients. In particular, they are learning the skills of listening and understanding. They do help the patients quite a lot, but at the same time they are learning.”
Other students in formation will spend part of the summer living in with an Anglo-Australian family on a farm in the Gippsland region of Victoria.
“Many of our students come from an Asian culture and so they understand those cultures very well, and so this about helping them to understand the Anglo-Australian culture and to learn about their way of living, particularly living in a family,” Fr Boni says.
“Of course, part of the experience is that they also help the family to work on the farm, so they are milking cows, picking fruit and even hunting rabbits.
“The whole experience is about helping them to feel at home with Australian family culture. They will learn more of the language, including Australian slang, and it strengthens their understanding of professional standards and dealing with the family and the children.”
Fr Boni says the farm-stay program is popular with students because it gives them a sense of family at a time when they are far away from their own family.
“It gives them a bigger family network. As missionaries we often live far away from home and we need this type of extended family here. It’s very nice, because often these families will come to the students’ special occasions, such as ordinations.”
Marianus (Rian) Supardi, pictured here, who has just completed his Bachelor of Theology, will undertake his CPE placement at the Austin Hospital, and says he is looking forward to the experience.
“I am, because it will give me an understanding and a practical idea of what I’m going to do as a priest one day,” he says. “I’m looking forward to doing it.
“This is a new ministry for me. I’m sure I will get something meaningful from pastoral ministry and as well as helping the patients that we go to see, I can learn more of who I am.”