austraLasia #2056

Thai Province Day at Suratthani

SURATTHANI: 9th February 2008 -- With 8 confreres, and an ex-provincial Bishop not far away, Suratthani happens to be the Thai Province's largest community and an ideal location for this year's Province Day.  Certainly that is how our correspondent, Fr Suphot saw it.  The Day, with its 'Da Mihi Animas' theme, was a nice prelude to the forthcoming General Chapter.
    Bishop Josepth Prathan Sridarunsil sdb was the main celebrant for the Mass and essentially made three points to encourage confreres with: the importance of Lectio Divina, imitating Don Bosco, and give Strenna 2008 and its commentary a very careful reading.  And as February 9th (apart from being what yesterday's austraLasia was all about!*) is also Bishop Prathan's birthday, the day was very much a fraternal celebration in his honour.
    Province Day being Province Day, it also tends to focus ont he person and role of the Provincial - in this case Fr John Bosco Dheparat Pitisant, who amongst other things declared that what made him happy in life was to be who he was, not pretending to be any other person than that.
    The three Houses of Formation were present (Hua Hin, Banpong and Sampran), and a fraternal and family spirit was well evident.  The day also included sports involving confreres and aspirants - our correspondent does not tell us who won!
    The Suratthani community is a multi-faceted community, which can really only come together twice a month from various out stations, once for community day and once for monthly recollection. There are nine parishes involved in the community ministry, and at least two schools (Don Bosco Surat Technical School and Uppatham Vithaya Phanom School).
    This is the very first time that a Province Day has been celebrated in Suratthani.

* I would like to offer an important correction to yesterday's item - It was actually Eric Raymond (of 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' fame) who launched the OSI with Bruce Perens. Richard Stallman was supportive, though pushing more for the 'Free Software' tag than the 'Open Source' one, something which had the potential of dividing the movement if anything but fortunately has not, in the long run. Stallman had been on the scene earlier than ten years ago and invented 'GNU' and the GPL license - all of which forms part of the overall open source movement, but it was technically a Perens-Raymond effort ten years ago.  Just to ensure the record is straight!
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Title: australasia 2056
Subject and key words: EAO Provinces THA Thailand
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2056