“You are lucky to live in Flores, a place full of convents and monasteries where nuns or brothers are there to pray for you every single day”. Said David (AUS) during his pilgrimage tour in Flores before Christmas 2025.
I had David and Shui, a couple from Australia who spent a three-day pilgrimage tour in Flores. David himself has been to Flores two years ago in October when the catholic Christians were having Rosary prayer starting from one to another house within a community of a parish church for a full 30 days, twice a year in May and October. He joined the prayer for three nights in a row that he saw with his own eyes the locals from kids to adults sitting side by side praying five mysteries while holding crucifixes in their hands (you can read the full story here).
This time David invited his wife, Shui, to explore Flores to do an intense wellness tour to take her to see churches, monasteries, convents, and the seminary school in the island of Flores where Catholicism has been introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century.
The tour was done before Christmas 2025 from Ruteng, a mountainous town in Flores which was once well-known for a city with a “thousand churches” in Indonesia. This city is part of Keuskupan Ruteng (Dioecesis Rutengensis) which was the largest catholic population in Indonesia of nearly a million people before Labuan Bajo became its own diocese separated from Ruteng in June 2024.
In Ruteng, we visited two of the three St. Arnoldus Jansen’s missionary congregations at missionary sister servants of the Holy Spirits or locals recognize them as SSpS (Servarum Spiritus Sancti) located on the foot of Mount Mandosawu (2.370 mbl), 15 minutes drive to the northwest from the city center of Ruteng. We met four nuns there who liked to practice their English as one of the ways to prepare themselves before going to Europe or South America for missionary services. From them, we were introduced to their “youngest sister” Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters or locals recognize them as SSpSAP or Servarum Spiritus Sancti de Adoratione Perpetua. In here, we visited the chapel and spent a few minutes praying in front of the sacrament of holy spirit together with the nuns who wore pink outfits to differ them from other nuns or congregations. We were told by the nuns that the SSpSAP nuns spent 24 hours a day praying inside the church.
“I am so overwhelmed when knowing the fact that there are still people in the silent room praying for the whole world without us realizing it”, David expressed his gratitude.
From here, we continued our pilgrimage journey to the city center of Ruteng and stopped at the New Cathedral Church that standing like an icon of the city sets beautifully in the large park fulfilled with green grass growing around the church. As we arrived here, we saw some people from a community inside the parish church were busy cleaning up as part of their responsibility to prepare for the mass on Sunday.
In Flores, each catholic basis community members consisting of 20-30 families are demanded by the parish board to take the opportunity to serve during the mass on Sunday to perform choir and become altar servers to help the priest during the mass. The members are also required to prepare the mass one or two days before the mass by cleaning up, putting new flowers on the altar, and other technical things so that the mass will run as expected.
We planned to see the oldest cathedral church in Ruteng that was built in 1929 but because there was still a mass taking place, we skipped it and paid a visit to Golo Curu Hill, located on the north part of the city center, a ten minute drive by car.
Golo Curu Hill is a must visit place if travelers want to do a pilgrimage tour in Flores or Ruteng. This is a place where Saint Francis of Assisi Parish Church members do cross procession during Easter as there are 14 cross stations here and people walk from the foot of the hill till the top just like Golgotha Hill where Jesus was crucified.
There is also a Mother Mary statue standing firm on the peak of the hill where people could come to pray and contemplate and afterwards enjoy the breathtaking view of the sea rice terrace on the north part of the hill and a view of the city with its beautiful Moudosawu mountains as the background on its south part.
Seminary St. Yohanes Berkhmans Toda-Belu Mataloko
The oldest seminary school in East Indonesia is situated in a small town on the outskirt of Bajawa in Mataloko located face to face with Rumah Ret Ret (retreat house) Kemah Tabor belongs to SVD congregation as part of the Archidioecesis Endehena.
We met Father Anton Waget, SVD, the Principle of the junior high school who shared a glimpse of the seminary which was built firstly in the south part of Maumere in Sikka February 2 1926 and moved to Bajawa two years later and became officially used as a seminary school in September 15 1929.
He allowed us to explore the classrooms and the huge school backyard. The backyard is used by the students and the community to plant corn, cassava, and various vegetables. The seminary community can survive independently from the crops they plant, just like what the founding fathers planned when they made the concept of the building.
“There are hundreds of priests produced from this school. All of them are working all over the world. Many of them serve people in Indonesia and some across the country in Africa, Australia, Europe, America, and some countries in Asia”, Father Anton explained
Peaceful Moni
The last part of this journey is a short drive from Moni to Maumere, the city in the east part where oldest churches of Flores are found including the highest Mary Statue of Mother Mary of All Nations in Nilo can be visited.
Before reaching Maumere, David asked me to include Moni as the main stop during this journey as he had great time spending here back in 2023 when he came to Flores for the first time. He had a pleasant stay at Shilla Bungalow owned by locals whose age is around 50’s. The owner welcomed them really warmly and the lady owner still remembers the name of his guest really well.
After meeting the owners, they went to Kolorongo natural hot spring located hidden in the rice field where they found a relaxing treatment just a five-minute drive from the accommodation. It is natural, no artificial at all, walking through the small path in between tomato plants and other colourful vegetables set under the blessfull Mount Kelimutu.
The main purpose of the stop in Moni is simply to see the amazing Kelimutu three crater lakes which we could see their stunning views after sunrise around 8 am.
We were lucky we could see the view of the lakes after being worried with the weather which was full of fog. The travelers who were there before us could not see the view because of the bad weather. Somehow, it did not happen to us as we were able to see the perfect view thankfully without any sorts of bad weather till we got back to the car. The rain dropped just a few seconds when we were about to get in the car to take us to Maumere.
As we reached down Moni, we made another stop to see the Mary statue beside the parish church of Moni. Here, we met Father Ipindoke, Pr, a young priest who was inaugurated in October 2025. He is responsible for serving the people in Moni and in the surrounding area who mostly live on the foot of Mount Kelimutu.
He said that plenty of people come to pray everyday at the church but instead of celebrating the eucharist during mass, they mostly come to pray Rosario in the Mary Statue that local people believe is the mother of all the clan Lio in Moni. Before continuing the trip, we received the blessing and grace from the Priest to keep the rest of our trip safe.
We paid a last visit to the mother Mary statue before leaving. The statue is decorated with the traditional scarf of the Lionese clan surrounded by the roots of banyan tree (ficus benjamina).
“Moni is the highlight of our three day trip in Flores. The people here live side by side peacefully with nature and preserve their traditions really well. I love to see the people go to church with their sarongs as their outfit. The combination of the local custom and catholic tradition is so beautiful to see. The fact that Moni is so rich with its nature makes it so interesting for geologists to come and visit Moni and Flores, said David who is a geologist.
Yulianus Irwan
