austraLasia

7th EAO Salesian Brother Congress Book released

Parañaque, Philippines, 22 August 2019 -- One year after the K'Long (Vietnam) Pentecost event of the 7th EAO Salesian Brothers' Congress the EAO Salesians - both Priests and Brothers are getting a beautiful gift and tool, a 280 page book with the Proceedings of the 2018 Brothers' Congress. The Proceedings of the Congress are already available for any interested Salesian in digital format on Boscolink, and the hard copy distribution has begun through the recent Paranaque (FIN) Curatorium on 22 August 2019.

1,000 copies of the book have been printed by Don Bosco Press, Inc (Makati, Manila - Philippines) thanks to the hard work of Br. Carmelo Martinez (FIN) and his lay mission partners. The publication was officially launched by Fr. Ivo Coelho during the Parañaque Curatorium meeting (22 August) and is being distributed immediately, mostly to the EAO and South Asia provinces.

The publication is structured in chronological order:

Before (journey to the Congress 2017-2018)
During (sharing among the 200 Congress participants in Vietnam)
After (follow up of the 7th EAO Salesian Brothers' Congress)

In order to continue the five-fold path of fostering the Salesian consecrated vocation in two forms, you can easily find the five main aspects of the shared reflection framework of the Congress. The Province level resolutions produced during the Congress (p. 182-194) for next 6 years (2018-2024) are structured in the following way:

Understading of Salesian consecration
Community and complementarity (Brother & Priest)
Effective ongoing formation (life long)
Vocation promotion (within the Church and Salesian Family)
Vocational discernment in two forms (candidates)

Probably the most immediate move for a good number of EAO provinces will be the reading, study and especially partial translation into our languages (already started!). Readers will especially appreciate the wealth contained in the Salesian Brother and consecrated life narrative: Youtube Brothers' interview online (p. 77-78 and p.195-196) or the wider collection of interviews (Boscolink and hard copy publication: p. 74-76 and p. 227-276). Indeed, in many EAO communities these interviews are used during spiritual reading time.

The distribution of the 1000 copies (200 for the South Asia region!) is almost complete, with only 50 copies left in the Sandor community deposit: AUL (30), CIN (30), FIN (100), FIS (15), GIA (15), INA (20), KOR (20), MYM (20), PGS (30), THA (50), TLS (50), VIE (100), Paranaque communities (80) and 30 copies for the General House.

We pray that this valubale tool for Salesian consecrated vocational animation will place many fruits in the hands of EAO Salesians! For the Salesian Brothers this publication offers a smart tool for their formation and province-wide animation until the next EAO Salesian Brother Congress in 2024 (Indonesia vice province).

The digital version: '7th EAO Salesian Brothers' Congress book is available: