3481 Inserito scidulam ...
austraLasia #3481

 

Inserito scidulam ...
 
August 1, 2014 --  Yes it's true! Go into Vatican City and it is possible to find an ATM touchscreen which tells you "Inserito scidulam quaeso ut faciundam cognoscas rationem" (Please insert your card and enter the PIN), a reminder of the importance of language and its translation in just about every human endeavour one can think of! The three 'August' novelties (RM on Facebook, Pope Francis in Korea and the Bicentenary which kicks off on August 16) are all language-translation demanding events, so it seemed useful to link them together here.
You will notice another novelty in this edition: 4 reminders, instead of the usual one, in coloured text above.
- The Bicentenary hashtag
- RM on Facebook
- This month's mission intention
- EAO Prayer intentions.
In the last case, don't panic - 31 days can cover every little (and big) part of our Region, and probably by now most provinces have received their 'prayer card' pic. The first four days of the month are for the southeasternmost part of the Region.

RM on Facebook
The Rector Major, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, has decided to become a 'public person' on Facebook. He began in Spanish, then given his rapidly improving Italian, began including a 'Good morning' piece in that language. Now he has decided that he needs to reach people like ourselves who share a different lingua franca, English. So with a little help from his friends, so to speak, in FB language, there is now a 'good morning' in English. The link you are given (click on the FB pic above) will take you to the en-gb version of his es-es page. In other words, you could replace en-gb at the beginning of the link and see his original. To find the English 'good morning' you just need to scroll down till you come to it.

Fr Angel has explained his reasons in an article printed in ANS a week or so back.

His latest stats tell him he is just short of 10,000 people who pop in and take a look (and the other stats you can see for yourself on his page). Maybe if his latest 'good morning' gets a few responses from our area, he can pass that 10,000 mark!

Pope's visit to Korea
If you click on the icon being employed for the upcoming papal visit to Korea, you can follow the various events in due course in an English translation, at least for some things. There is a very uplifting video available on the page, showing young Koreans preparing liturgically. The visit will include the 6th Asian Youth Day, the Beatification of 124 Korean Martyrs, and a Mass for Peace and Reconciliation.


Bicentenary of Don Bosco's Birth
We have had ample preparation! If Italian is not a language you manage all that well, then you will need to pick up whatever has been sent out to Provinces in English. There are some small items of help on sdb.org pages: a timetable of events. logos and whatnot, no great detail as yet on what will take place at Colle Don Bosco on August 16. If you haven't already visited it, the Monferrato region has a website (in Italian but they make a Google translate option visible). It is a touristy type site but if you click on the Bicentenary logo further down on their main page it takes you to some interesting info.
It looks like the main Bicentenary site is neither Valdocco nor Colle but the Salesians Piedmont site. It is all in Italian however. You can always go for the 'Google' option and get some of it in a language of your choice.

Ah yes, languages. Stop w(h)ining!
I guess it's easy to complain when you find something in a language you can't understand and when everything seems so monolingual (oddly enough, Ethnologue lists only one country in the world as monolingual - North Korea). Since we began with ATMs let's end with something different - another foreign language called wine labels. Can you tell me what on earth I'd be drinking if I only had the following to go by?

Pale gold in colour, this wine smells of white flowers and lemon curd, with a hint of sweet oak. It offers an explosion of crushed wet rocks in the mouth. The tender and beautifully filigreed flavours of tart unripe apples and lemon curd vie for attention. Beautifully bright acidity zips the wine along the palate, leaving a waxy parchment quality in the lingering finish.

Some things just sound better in French!