3352 The Salesian Spirit - the voice of a Saint
austraLasia #3352

 

The Salesian Spirit - the voice of a Saint
CHOFU: 20 January 2013 --  Thanks to the keen efforts of the Vice Postulator for  the Cimatti Cause, Fr Gaetano Compri, and also the Postulator General back in Rome, with some help from Bro Ephrem Santos, we can now offer interested readers access to the tapes of the 10 'instructions' which Fr Cimatti gave in July 1955 in Japan on the Salesian Spirit.

Apart from the thrill of being able to hear the voice of a man who has been described as one of the most typical embodiments of Don Bosco's spirituality and spirit, and whom we believe will be a canonised saint within our lifetime, God-willing, there is the content of this material in a final year of preparation for 2015 which is focusing on Don Bosco's spirituality.

So what is the situation?  We have put 10 recordings in mp3 format on SDL in the Cimatti collection (click on images above for the link).  Well, 11 actually - but the 11th one (or rather the first one) is a brief explanation from Fr Compri of the circumstances of this material - taped unobtrusively in 1955 by a Salesian then missionary in Japan and only handed over in 2005 to Fr Compri.  But only in November 2013 was this amterial successfully transferred to WAV format. this format, while enabling one to very clearly listen to Cimatti, runs into Megabytes - and altogether close to a Gigabyte, so quite impossible for upload/download possibilities.  We have transferred them isnted to mp3 - while certainly not perfect, if you listen with headphones, you'll be able to follow without difficulty.

Of course, and this would be a problem for many - all this material is in Italian. Can't do much about that.  we are working on a translation of volume 1 of his life (by Fr Compri, but it is called an 'auitobiography, since it is largely drawn from Cimatti's correspondence), but this is in excess of 400 paes and still some time off before completion.

There are other retreat notes from a much earlier period available on SDL in transciption, so readable as a Word document. There is also an index of topics for other retreats he gave.

There is currently not a great deal available in English on Cimatti. Pity, that. he is such an impressive figure from our region.  Thre is an Indian published (Kristu Jyoti, Bangalore) brief work, Don Vincent Cimatti, the Don Bosco of Japan. If readers know of other material in English, perhaps they could forward this information.

But back to the tapes once more. The topics of the ten talks cover the following:
Following Don Bosco, Unity of spirit, Confession, Rendiconto, Missionary, Obedience, Poverty, Chastity, Prayer, Charity.
They draw from Don Bosco and from Cimatti's own experience.