Members of Holy Trinity Community combine contemplative and charismatic ways to pray

The B.C. Catholic



A group of Catholics is combining the silence of contemplative prayer with the energetic worship and gifts of the charismatic.

Holy Trinity Community, founded in Indonesia in 1987, connects the two seemingly opposite ways to worship.

“This community is unique because the charism of the community is a blend of Carmelite spirituality and life in the Spirit,” said Euphemia Renata, who serves the western Canada region of HTC.

Renata and a few others brought the lay community to Vancouver in 2010. It began as one small group, called a cell, whose members gathered every week or two in someone’s home to pray, sing, read teachings, and talk about their spiritual lives.

“This is our time to be together, to put behind us everything that happened to us back home or at work, and unite. We want to come to the meeting, to be with Jesus, and to learn about Him.”

HTC has grown to three cells of about a dozen members each. Father Yohanes Indrakusuma, HTC’s Carmelite founder, said cells have a limit of 16 members to keep meetings intimate.

“The community has been like a family for me,” said Andre Sidharta, a member of St. Mary’s Parish in Vancouver. He was drawn to HTC’s unique approach three years ago.

“There are times when I just want to be silent and pray, and be in the silence of God without noise surrounding me, but there are other times that it is good to worship God in songs and jump around and clap,” said Sidharta. “It’s a good combination.”

All three cells in the Vancouver area meet as one community every three months. St. Mary’s Parish hosted their most recent meeting April 2, on the eve of Divine Mercy Sunday.

“Christianity that is not contagious is not real Christianity,” said Father Gabriel de Chadarevian, OP, the pastor of St. Mary’s as well as their chaplain and spiritual director.

He spoke about the power of Divine Mercy, encouraging members to be like “little tabernacles,” bringing Christ to others.

Though it has been around in Vancouver for six years, HTC is still fairly unknown. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, only officially recognized it one year ago, writing April 23 that he was “very pleased” to do so.

“May this group bring others in the archdiocese to the loving and saving presence of God!”

Meda Joseph, who joined HTC in Indonesia, has been a member of the Vancouver branch for four years. She said their type of worship appeals to young people.

“For me, if it’s too Carmelite – they contemplate a lot, and they do silent prayers a lot – it’s hard to get into that, but because there’s this charism of the Holy Spirit part, we get a balance,” she said. “In daily life, it feels like it fits every situation.”

The lay community has many cells across Indonesia, as well as a few in Canada, U.S.A., Holland, Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia. The North America district has about 300 members.

More information is available at www.htcna.org.