austraLasia 886
Don Bosco has become Korean - and now the RM's dream for the centenary!
SEOUL: 20th September '04 -- The final complete day of the Rector Major's Korean 50th anniversary visit has focused on the future. He gave this day over to Salesian confreres gathered in Seoul. It was a busy day: young Salesians in formation presented an 'academy' on Don Bosco's dream for Korea; this followed by a conference for confreres on his expectations of Salesians in Korea and for Korea; Celebration of the Eucharist concluded with a blessing of the ground prepared for the new provincial house (to be built 2005); meeting with 12 rectors of local communities followed by a meeting with the provincial council, then a visit to the hospital where Fr Jack Trisolini is recovering after an operation. The Rector Major's 'dream' for Salesian Korea, as outlined in the conference to the assembled confreres, included the following:
(1) A unified Korea - Salesians need to work for peace, effect changes in small but crucial ways, work for young North Koreans.
(2) Salesians need to be a leaven in Korean culture, accepting authentic values and purifying the culture to remove values which damage the lives of the young, since no culture is perfect. The Crucifixion tells us that each culture must be broken open upon the Cross.
(3) A Korea where Korean Salesians show themselves capable of nurturing Don Bosco's charism, since there will be no more missionaries coming to Korea, instead Korea will be a missionary resource for other parts of Asia. For this to occur, Salesians must find Don Bosco...in the Constitutions which contain his spirituality and his spirit, and they must come to know their own culture well, for example in study at postnovitiate level, to appreciate which are the authentic values, which are those which detract from integral humanity, and to know how to distinguish the culturual elements which best express Don Bosco's charism from those which lose sight of it.
The Rector Major departs early Tuesday morning.
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'austraLasia' is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia-Pacific. It functions also as an agency for ANS, based in Rome. Try also www.bosconet.aust.com. Did you know that Swahili is one language other than Italian which has contributed a word to Salesian discourse? The word is harambée. For its meaning and further comment cf Lexisdb.
