HUA HIN: 8th August 2007 -- With just two days to go - the
gathering concludes on 10th August - the very successful gathering of
60 plus people involved in the Rectors Formation event for 2007 at Hua
Hin, Thailand, is beginning to bring things together. A clear
indication of this are the results (available from Bosconet homepage
under 'Rectors Formation') of a survey of the Rectors present on
the wide range of practical issues involved in day-to-day animation of
a community.
The days continue along the pattern established
earlier of input, group discussion, Question and Answer time, mutual
sharing, time for personal reflection and time for community building
exercises. Given the presence of at least one province with a history
of
martyrdom, and drawing on the story and example of people like
Versiglia and Caravario, the homilist for 7th August also offered
Rectors the example of some famous 'first' Rectors in the Region -
names such as Fr Acquistapace, Braga.
Fr Michael Winstanley characterised Tuesday 7th
August as 'Holy Ground', his
Salesian-seen-through-the-eyes-of-Scripture input for the day. This
gave him an opportunity to take the Exodus event which the phrase 'holy
ground' refers to and tie it to the core value of Salesian oratorian
joy, where everything on 'holy ground' takes on great significance. Our
problem can be that we 'forget to take off our sandals', forget to cast
that contemplative eye of Salesian life on things, and people.
The day continued with input which looked at the
Rector's role as spiritual father, promoter, along with Don Bosco, of
the Preventive System. it included handout of large sections of
the now out-of-print Rectors Manual. even if this item really
does need revision, it happens to be the only thing of its kind around
and much of it is still valid. The document will soon be made available
for reading and download on Salesian Digital Library (and,
incidentally, this library is now being added to daily in a variety of
languages - it would be worth taking a look - see the link below).
The sharing that followed the input on the
Preventive System highlighted key aspects in a Rector's task: our
presence among the young, punishment in our works, explaining the
preventive system to lay helpers, teaching Christian values on our
schools, the whole challenge of inculturation where these matters are
concerned.
An on-the-run summary of each of the days has been
put together by one of those present - it would need refashioning,
rewriting but it contains a blow-by-blow description of everything that
has happened over these days. All this material can be viewed
from the Bosconet 'Rectors Formation' link indicated earlier.
When appropriately prepared formal materials are available, these will
replace the current items, but at least those not present at the event
have a chance to gain some appreciation of the wealth of materials
offered to Rectors at this formatiion gathering.
austraLasia will be offline for several days -
resumes on Tuesday 14th. _________________ 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
.
Use BoscoWiki
to be interactive. RSS feeds - subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xml Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital
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at at http://sdl.sdb.org
