austraLasia
1442
Turin to Hong Kong,
Taiwan, Macao and more: "It's much more important to have the
fire"
HONG KONG: 11th February
2006: If you were watching the opening of the Turin Winter Olympics
last night, you would have noted the way the exciting pageantry represented
passion, dynamism and Italianism. Almost in real time, fiery passion and
dynamism (and if we can give 'Italianism' a more universal twist according to
Don Bosco) were being played out in the East, under the Angel of Arphaxad!
"We are sons of a dreamer", the Rector Major told the provincial and his
councillors, and later, to Rectors who joined the group, he told them to 'do in
Mirabello what you see in Valdocco', Don Bosco's answer to the bemused 23 year
old Rua who wondered how on earth he as supposed to be rector at that age.
"Well", the Rector Major told them in Hong Kong this morning: "May all of our
communities, your houses, be a replica of Valdocco". In that sense then,
the coincidence, or divine serendipity of events in
Turin and those in Hong Kong this February 10-11 was hard to
miss.
In the first part of his meeting with the key
leaders-animators of the Salesian community, the Provincial Council offered an
overview of the province, highlighting the important gains and occasional
difficulties. There have been important strategic changes in the mission,
a sense of greater vitality in schools, parishes and youth centres, even if the
schools face new and not easy challenges - finding and paying lay principals
being one of these. The Salesian Family is much more united, thinking and
acting more as one. They speak of "19 Salesian Family schools", for
example, in Hong Kong. And there are many good lay people who love Don
Bosco, many of them Past Pupils. Vocations are slowly moving, but there is
great hope. In response the Rector Major made two main points: his great
happiness in being part of these celebrations, which he acknowledged were
joyfully noisy, but far more than firecrackers! He noted that it was about
- and that he was about - firing up the hearts of the confreres, with the fire
and passion of Da Mihi Animas. He also commented that he was happy to see
their renewal, their striving for holiness and their deeper sharing in
community. "It's much more important to have the fire. Motivation is
the most important", he insisted, as he heard of their many significant efforts
despite age, burnout and daunting challenges ahead.
That's
why he expanded this thinking to Rectors, later in the morning. "Your
first task", he told them "is to maintain well-motivated confreres.
Vocation-wise, spiritual-wise, pastoral-wise, keep them motivated". For
this reason it is important to maintain family spirit, to reproduce the
fatherliness and friendliness of Don Bosco, so every confrere feels at
home. And it all has one purpose - to set up a meaningful presence for
youngsters. He asked them again to recreate Don Bosco in themselves, by
giving God primacy in life, by having Don Bosco's convictions about the
importance of young people and their education. He said much more to
Rectors than we can really comment on here in a 'brief' news item, but clearly
the Rector Major's magisterium is often contained within precious moments like
this.
Later in the day - probably just as this item is
going out - he is meeting with all CIN confreres and a number of other invited
guests, Bishop Zen included.
More this
evening.
GLOSSARY
serendipity: finding
something unexpected and useful while searching for something else.
Strange coincidences.
______________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of
Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.
For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml