austraLasia 1615
Middle East Report - both sides of the border
JERUSALEM: 25th July 2006 -- Feast of St James the Apostle. While James the Apostle is not the James considered to be the first bishop of Jerusalem, he is the only one of the apostles whose death is actually noted in the New Testament (Acts 12 - 'He beheaded James, brother of John...') and the first of the apostles to die. He was also one of those whose reaction to lack of hospitality in Samaria provoked the reaction of wanting to call down fire from heaven on the ungrateful! All sufficient context to offer some information, thanks to Fr Francis Preston in Jerusalem, on how the various Salesian works in the area of conflict are managing at the moment.
First of all Nazareth: Fr Mario Morru is the Rector there. He confirms that the confreres are safe and coping well with a difficult situation. The school and community stand overlooking the town of Nazareth. Around from there, on the same ridge really but looking away from the city towards the coast, is the home of one of our Palestinian Salesians. On Wednesday evening two missiles landed less than a kilometre from the community residence. They exploded on two streets often used by members of the community and the youngsters who attend the school and Oratory. Sadly one of the missiles killed two young boys who were playing outside at the time. But for the fact that it was Wednesday and stores were closed, the death toll would have been higher. The summer programme at the Oratory has been cancelled by order of the Government.
Jerusalem is quieter, since it is out of range of missiles, but Haifa is not - there is no Salesian House there but it is where Mount Carmel is located (nearby) and the scene of many missile attacks. A Retreat House and a hospital in that zone, both used by the Salesian Community at times (including recently) have been near misses. However, Fr Preston reports that a number of visitors, including two Australian Salesians, have been through Jerusalem and stayed with the remnant of the Ratisbonne Community - remnant because it is holiday time and besides they are doing renovations, the which are suffering from increased security and inability of workers to report for work. The COmmunity at Ratisbonne normally hosts a number of Salesian students from the EAO Region, especially from ITM. Recently several of our EAO students there were ordained priest or deacon.
ANS reports separately on the situation in Lebanon, especially for the Salesian works north of Beirut. As well as the constant danger of 'fire from heaven', they face the added demands of a serious refugee crisis. The Community in Lebanon politely but firmly declined a request to house Lebanese troops.
One imagines that the politics of the Our Father are one thing in peacetime and quite another in war. Let's pray for them all.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world
Middle East Report - both sides of the border
JERUSALEM: 25th July 2006 -- Feast of St James the Apostle. While James the Apostle is not the James considered to be the first bishop of Jerusalem, he is the only one of the apostles whose death is actually noted in the New Testament (Acts 12 - 'He beheaded James, brother of John...') and the first of the apostles to die. He was also one of those whose reaction to lack of hospitality in Samaria provoked the reaction of wanting to call down fire from heaven on the ungrateful! All sufficient context to offer some information, thanks to Fr Francis Preston in Jerusalem, on how the various Salesian works in the area of conflict are managing at the moment.
First of all Nazareth: Fr Mario Morru is the Rector there. He confirms that the confreres are safe and coping well with a difficult situation. The school and community stand overlooking the town of Nazareth. Around from there, on the same ridge really but looking away from the city towards the coast, is the home of one of our Palestinian Salesians. On Wednesday evening two missiles landed less than a kilometre from the community residence. They exploded on two streets often used by members of the community and the youngsters who attend the school and Oratory. Sadly one of the missiles killed two young boys who were playing outside at the time. But for the fact that it was Wednesday and stores were closed, the death toll would have been higher. The summer programme at the Oratory has been cancelled by order of the Government.
Jerusalem is quieter, since it is out of range of missiles, but Haifa is not - there is no Salesian House there but it is where Mount Carmel is located (nearby) and the scene of many missile attacks. A Retreat House and a hospital in that zone, both used by the Salesian Community at times (including recently) have been near misses. However, Fr Preston reports that a number of visitors, including two Australian Salesians, have been through Jerusalem and stayed with the remnant of the Ratisbonne Community - remnant because it is holiday time and besides they are doing renovations, the which are suffering from increased security and inability of workers to report for work. The COmmunity at Ratisbonne normally hosts a number of Salesian students from the EAO Region, especially from ITM. Recently several of our EAO students there were ordained priest or deacon.
ANS reports separately on the situation in Lebanon, especially for the Salesian works north of Beirut. As well as the constant danger of 'fire from heaven', they face the added demands of a serious refugee crisis. The Community in Lebanon politely but firmly declined a request to house Lebanese troops.
One imagines that the politics of the Our Father are one thing in peacetime and quite another in war. Let's pray for them all.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world
