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Blessed harmony
Fourth-generation Catholic: Edmundus Nyoman Parwata points to the Balinese-inspired angel carvings on his Piling church
Fourth-generation Catholic: Edmundus Nyoman Parwata points to the Balinese-inspired angel carvings on his Piling church.
Communion with her gods once meant preparing flowers, fruits, grains and meats, offerings Michaela Dwi Arianti knew would carry her prayers on sandalwood-scented smoke to the heavens. If she was fortunate, the gods would accept kindly her gifts and answer her prayers.
Arianti, raised in the remote village of Piling in Tabanan, slung between rolling hills draped in bands of emerald green rice fields, was a Hindu until she met and married her husband, Edmundus Nyoman Parwata, in 1987.
That romance and the decision to adopt her husband's Catholicism set Arianti on a path of deep questioning and a confusion of faith for the next five years.
'As a Hindu, we prayed with lots of offerings, but as a Catholic, my prayers were coming just from my heart. So I questioned for many years if God could still hear my prayers without the gifts,' says Arianti, sitting on the threshold of Piling village's Santo Mikael church with her husband, son and grandchild on Palm Sunday as they make plans for the Easter celebrations beginning tomorrow, Good Friday.
'Love conquers all,' says Edmundus, laughing as he takes his wife's hand. The crisis of faith Arianti traveled remind him of the hardships his great grandmother faced when she converted to Catholicism in the early 1950s.
'There was no church here in Piling then. My grandmother, Joachim Made Waste and two others from this village went to Denpasar to learn about the religion. They got there on foot,' says Edmundus of the 25-kilometer trek the woman took weekly in her search to understand the religion of which her family have remained stalwarts over four generations.
Why his grandmother felt compelled to convert in the face of criticism from members of her isolated community is, 70 years on, unknown. 'In the past, people were chased from Denpasar due to their [Catholic] religion and they moved far west and built Bali's first church in Palasari. Here in Piling during the 1950s, people were not happy with a new religion and my grandmother faced some problems, such as threats of being banned from the village and her rice fields destroyed. But my grandmother was tough and held on. Today Piling is model of religious harmony,' says Edmundus.
Hanging from the church walls is a giant poster wishing the people of Piling a happy Nyepi, the Balinese New Year, as evidence of that harmony, which once attracted staff from Jakarta's religion ministry.
'They came to see how we all live together in peace,' says Edmundus adding today there are 43 Catholic families in the Hindu predominated village.
All have benefitted from the arrival of Piling's first priest, Josep Kristian, a Dutch missionary who established the village's first church in 1956.
'It was of bamboo and stood until 1976 when Priest Joseph Sebegar took over the parish and this church was built,' says Edmundus of the red brick building with its beams, doors and windows richly carved in religious symbols with a Balinese aesthetic.
The 50-year-old explains that due to Piling's remoteness from large towns, its population was often ill due to a lack of medical treatment. 'Priest Josep Kristian set up a clinic and the health of the people improved. These days we have a lot of midwives and no one really gets sick.'
Priest Kristian's support and care for anyone in the village, regardless of religion, must have gone a long way in building the community interreligious ties that today has Catholics calling out 'happy Nyepi' and Hindus wishing their neighbors happy Easter; at Christmas and Galungan pork meat is shared among all.
Tomorrow, Good Friday, the Santo Mikael congregation will come together for the beginning of the Easter mass. The story of Christ's journey to the cross, from Pontius Pilate's demanding the death penalty through crucifixion for the man, through to his resurrection, is written around the walls of the church in a series of Balinese styled paintings of the stations of the cross.
On Sunday, village children will hunt out the boiled eggs they have decorated on Saturday in a tradition celebrating new life as old as time. But mostly, the people of Piling village will give thanks for the warm blanket of harmony that blesses all who live there. Michaela Dwi Arianti's prayers have been answered.
' Photos by JB Djwan
