Music forms a great part of Timorese life

t is eight years since my first visit to our Secondary School NOSSEF at the Jesuit Mission in Railaco, and twelve years since St Canice’s built the first concrete-block classroom. At that time, shy students would often walk up to two hours every day to get to school.

Music may have been in the children’s blood, but the only thing on their minds then was to get an education and to rise above the life that their parents had to endure under Indonesian occupation.

M

usic forms a great part of Timorese life, as does the Liturgy. But nothing prepared me for the ceremony, and standard of singing by today’s talented students that I so enjoyed at this Opening Mass of the new Railaco parish church dedicated to Our Lady of Fatima, and at the Confirmation Mass for 700 candidates outdoors the following day.

I share below a three-minute video of the Opening Procession.

Imagine: This is a community in a remote setting in the mountains outside Dili, East Timor.

Sr Rina sings while conducting the choir