austraLasia
1214
Sisters
Announcers of the Lord: when SAL really means Salesian.
ROME:
28 July 2005 -- The Salesian Family has grown by one more, though
for many who know the Sisters Announcers of the Lord in China
Province, they have always been members of the Salesian Family.
After all they were the result of the Spirit moving through the
saintly Bishop Versiglia, who asked Fr Iganzio Canazei to draft a set
of Constitutions which would reflect Don Bosco, on the one hand and
St. Therese Lisieuz, patroness of the Missions, on the other.
Today,
in Rome, the usual path to formal recognition as members of the
Salesian Family came to fruition. The General Council, according to
guidelines set out in ASC 305 in 1982 and finally established in ACG
363 in 1989 as norms, recognised not only the various aspects of
ecclesial
recognition, lived experience of the Salesian vocation, growth both
internal and in terms of spread, autonomy, but also the significance
of this moment as the Salesian presence prepares to celebrate its
centenary.
By
no means a large group (the Sisters number 23, most in Hong Kong but
one community in Calgary, Canada), it is also a fact that they have
shown a steady growth since being incardinated in Hong Kong in 1958.
They are always part of the Salesian Family activity and mission in
Hong Kong, especially in education, have an ecclesial assistant who
is a Salesian, and have had since the beginning - to which we can add
the fact that their charismatic founder is a recognised Saint in the
universal Church. There just was never any doubt that SAL meant
'Salesian'
for these Sisters! Artcile 4 of their Regulations reads: "In
every circumstance the members must serve the Lord in holy joy,
proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom with words and actions, and so
tend to the ends established by the Founder: 'They will be
distinguished for
their
zeal in the salvation of souls and in giving greater glory to God'."
It is all so redolent of St. John Bosco.The Spirit has made one
final move, it seems, on behalf of the Salesian Family and the SAL,
by way of a special gift for the centenary of the arrival of Bishop
Versiglia in Macau.