austraLasia
1563
Fiji-Samoa
animation visit: juggling with dates
SUVA:
17th May 2006 -- These days find Fr Klement, Regional Councillor for
East Asia-Oceania, astride the international dateline, pretty much
literally! Other than some parts of the Kamchatka Peninsula and Eastern
Russia there is nowhere else on the globe that you can stand astride the
dateline - except in Fiji! Fortunately they push the actual 'date' a
little East on sea rather than land, so people don't have to spend their day
walking backwards into the future! But tomorrow Fr Klement will have the
odd experience of an hour and bit flight to Samoa where he will arrive
yesterday, only to find himself in some sort of tomorrow three days later again,
having lost a day out of his life - confused? Then you'll know why most
international visitors to Fiji and Samoa often arrive too early or too late,
including not a few important Salesian visitors.
However,
with the assiduous attention of the Australian province, to which these two
entities belong (only Salesianwise, they are independent nations), Fr Klement is
guaranteed to be arriving on the right day, so long as Air Fiji and Air Pacific
have their act together, and, well, that is another story.
In speaking with the nine brothers in formation in the community - all nine of
them in preparation for priesthood at various stages - immediate postnovitiate
to their final year of theology - Fr Klement has taken pains to describe the
wider EAO Region to these young men, and has opened up vistas of the
Congregation's missionary dimension for them. Three of those in their
final year spent their practical training years in Papua New Guinea, while a
fourth spent his time in Australia.
Tomorrow, Fr Klement
moves on to Apia, Samoa and from there will come through Australia (Melbourne)
before heading back to Rome - though in reality he will only be in Rome a few
brief hours before moving out to Jerusalem with the General Council who will be
making their annual Retreat in the Holy Land.
austraLasia
hopes to keep up some kind of service over the next week or so, but its
coordinator is in the African continent engaged in communications
meetings. That means he should be 'connected' of course, but you will
understand if the odd day passes without something coming your
way.
And one final note - today is the Name Day of Fr
Pascual. He also keeps a birthday but as he has often told people at the
Casa Generalizia, his birthday falls too close to Christmas! Anyway,
austraLasia offers him greetings in the name of its readers, but it's never too
late to follow that up personally if you wish.
________________
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