austraLasia
1435
Frog in the
milk-pail: there's hope yet! YM delegates thrashing the question
around.
No acrimony but plenty of
acrynomy
CHEUNG CHAU: 7th February 2006 --
Whatever else is happening inside Cheung Chau island, one of HK's outlier
islands, the 'frog and the boiling water' story has caught readers'
imagination; one who, for example, writes that he has always liked frog stories,
and offers an excellent YM resource (though the author of the resource might not
know anything about YM, SEPP,
EPC, OPP and the rest) in Andrew Matthews. Google it up and you'll
see. Use 'Happiness in a nutshell', or even 'Being a happy teen' as your
google-point, sorry, search term.
Instead, a perusal of
the Cheung Chau meeting Day Two's minutes suggests the
frog in the milk-pail. He had to thrash around a bit, but the thrashing
did the trick, and he climbed onto solid butter in the end, his survival
ensured.
As suggested in the last write-up, the meeting
took a serious turn, grappling with acronyms like SEPP (but in reality with the
way the acronym distills Salesian planning and presence), EPC and planning. All this
was skilfully guided by Fr Dominic Sequeira from the RMG Team; a steady hand in
the churned up pail. They launched into SEPP for starters: too
complicated, too difficult to grasp for lay people, too taxing, way-out!
Dominic: 'yes, indeed, planning can easily hide lack of pastoral charity
and zeal. EPCs have to own the plan - they are the person, the community
behind the plan'.
A reminder that the RM had made
something of planning - or better, the Team Visit as a whole had made something
of planning - in Hua Hin, as one of the keys to our future. This evoked some
steady thinking: planning is a 'deeply felt need', it offers possibilities for
consistency and continuity. Put aside the thoughts of complication and look at
something practical. As China put it - we need practical
models.
The inevitable unanswered questions: 'our
environment is parish (Catholics), school (non-Catholics even non-Christians),
so how to reach a unified model in that mix?', 'in our complex settings with say
parish, technical school and aspirantate all together, what's the integrating
factor?' Dominic: SEPP. A SEPP for each work, a community SEPP,
indeed a Provincial SEPP. Still more questions: 'Our EPC has never heard
about planning sessions!', 'our OPP got sent back -
didn't fit Rome's thinking!' Dominic: No, no, nothing to do with
Rome, maybe it wasn't helpful to you.
In the end -
and the 'butter' is beginning to form, one sees - the SEPP becomes an ideal way
of planning if it is seen as an ongoing process, involving a Provincial vision
with guidelines for sectors and a local vision holding complex works
together.
The FIS delegate, Fr Brodie Segovia, has six or
seven years experience in the role, something of an anomaly in the group as
presently constituted, so he was able to show the process gradually coming
together, first no SEPP focus, then, in 2002 SEPP, followed by a Provincial plan
in 2004. He was able to demonstrate the difference from before, without a
planning mentality to after, with one. 'There's no perfect model', Brodie says,
'but we stuck to it'. 'And once it starts to work, it give you focus and
helps integrate all the other stuff coming in from Church or
Congregation'.
Ah, butter at last! In the afternoon,
some rich exchange on the values of various SEPP approaches - top-down or
bottom-up? Bringing in the Strenna, and what's a good model for the YM
delegate? Interesting. Dominic points out that in India, all
YM delegates are not only on the Council - they are Vice
Provincials!
Tomorrow, the region's provincials enter the
fray. Look forward to the next report.
VOCABULARY
YM: youth ministry, what Italian calls pastorale
giovanile
SEPP: Salesian educative and
pastoral plan, Italian progetto educativo-pastorale salesiano or
PEPS
EPC: Educative and pastoral community,
Italian Comunità educativa pastorale CEP
OPP: Overall pastoral plan, what in Italian gets called a
progetto organico pastorale or
POP
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