Dimas Kusuma Wijaya is a young seminarian from Indonesia who is in Pamplona studying at the University of Navarra. University of Navarra and resides and is trained at the International Seminar of Bidasoa. He welcomes us with a smile as we have an interview about his life, his family and his call to vocation.
"Indonesia is one of the countries in the world with the largest number of Muslims. My mother comes from a large Muslim family, her parents and thirteen siblings. When she met my father, she felt a call to convert to Christianity."says Dimas.
During their courtship, her father explained to her how Christians live the Catholic faith. "My mother was clearly very excited. On the other hand, when my mother talked to her father, my grandfather, he told her something very nice: if you have met another religion that is good, you have to go deeper into it. My grandfather supported and respected my mom."says this Indonesian seminarian.
In 2000, eight years after marrying her father, her mother converted to Christianity. "It was a great moment, a great impact on her life because from that moment on, now a Catholic, she made an effort to live as a good Christian. She was very happy and content. And he truly felt that this religion is the true. Because in the end, the encounter with Jesus, the Son of God, was changing his life and his way of seeing life and the family."says Dimas.
He also explains that it took him eight years to convert because his parents worked from one place to another, and did not have a fixed home. This made it difficult for him to settle in a parish so that his mother could receive catechism classes and doctrinal formation.
Dimas says that his mother's faith taught him everything. "Her way of life in a country like Indonesiaand her example in how she professed her faith, were the seed that ignited my vocation to the priesthood. She taught me to pray every morning and every night. She took me to church, and has always shown me how a Christian should live and how to face challenges. My mom's faith has been everything to me. A faith so alive and real that it has taught me everything."
Now, his mother is very happy to have a son on the road to the priesthood. In addition, his mother's entire Muslim family, with great respect for one another, supports him in his vocation as a Catholic priest.
But he also went through a somewhat rebellious pre-adolescence. "As a teenager, I wanted to change my life. I didn't want to study, I just wanted to have fun. In short, I did whatever I wanted. And to change all that, I thought the best way was to enter the minor seminary, a place where they would help me to be better. But, of course, in the end, God not only changed my life but also my vocation."he says, impressed.
He recalls the most intense moment of his call, a day when, in front of the Blessed Sacrament, he felt an enormous peace, a great joy in experiencing that God was asking him to give himself to others. At the end, he heard how God called him.
"I heard a voice telling me: 'Dimas, there are people who need you and there will be more people who will need you. From that moment of prayer and feeling that I could help others, I wanted to be a priest. I want to be with God and I want to help people in need in all their desires.
Thus, at the age of 15, Dimas entered the minor seminary. At 18, he entered the propaedeutic seminary. And, when he was 20, his bishop sent him to Spain, to the Bidasoa International Seminary to be trained to become a priest in the ecclesiastical faculties of the University of Navarra.
"I have just finished my first course of formation. What my bishop wants is to build up the faculty of theology in Surabaya, my diocese, and so every two years he tries to send seminarians to study in Bidasoa," he explains.
Dimas has another younger brother who is a Dominican Ordo Predicatorum seminarian studying philosophy in Manila, Philippines. He also has two older sisters, one married and living in Tokyo and the second sister is a professor of psychology at a university in Jakarta.
How do Catholics live in Indonesia, a country with a large number of Muslims? Is there respect between the confessions? Dimas answers: "I have to say that right now there is more tolerance among us, but it depends on where the Christians live. There are cities where it is very difficult to build a parish or a church. We also have to take into account that Indonesia is very pluralistic. There are Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of Confucianism and Protestant Christians. Six major religions coexist in Indonesia.
He is aware that when he returns to his country, one of the challenges he has to face will be tolerance and respect between religions. And in this journey he has just begun towards the priesthood, he considers that one of the main characteristics that a young priest must have is humility.
"A young priest is like a baby that has just been born.. He has to learn a lot in his priestly vocation. He has to know how to listen to others and above all to listen to God. With humility, one can have a good life, because his ego and his ambition will not direct him, but it will be God himself who will direct and accompany him in his life. Only with humility, a priest can live his priestly vocation very well because then one will experience that in reality God's strength will accompany him in all his pastoral work," concludes this young seminarian from Indonesia.
Marta SantínJournalist specializing in religious information.
