Salesian Mission Day in Timor Leste

By Fr. Manuel Fraile, SDB

Dili, Timor Leste, 24 February 2018 -- Organized by our Dili, Comoro Post-Novitiate’s Missionary Group, a Seminar on Saint Francis Xavier SJ and Venerable Fr Vincent Cimatti SDB was held and well attended on February 24, the eve of our Salesian proto-martyrs Versiglia-Caravario’s liturgical feastday. This year the Salesian Mission Day event aimed at raising the participants’ missionary culture, presenting two great missionaries of our EAO Region, Xavier-Cimatti (the Salesian Xavier of Japan), both high calibre and exemplary evangelical workers, glories of the universal Church (Saint Francis Xavier) and of our Congregation (Venerable Vincent Cimatti).

To share their knowledge with the audience, competent speakers were invited from the local Jesuits and an SDB from Japan. As both were unable to help on the given date, our team prepared good materials from available sources and delivered them through electronic media, translated into our local language, to the delight of our viewers and listeners.

Guest of honor was our Provincial, Fr. Apolinario Neto and, as participants responding to our invitation, we had our formators, our 30 SDB Postnovices and 20 Senior Aspirants from Dili, some FMA Sisters with a number of their formandae and a good group of our youth leaders, some 100 participants in all. The help of our Japanese Past Pupil and Salesian Cooperator Ms. Teresa Tsujimura was just providential in translating the film on Don Cimatti produced in Japan into Tetun.

The presentation of the biography and the heroic missionary spirit of both outstanding missionary figures made a deep impression on the audience, and hopes are high that our young Timorese Salesians will continue to respond to the Lord’s call for more laborers for his vineyard.

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