One year on - fruits of the August 2006 EAO Brothers
Seminar
EAO: 21st August 2007 -- It comes as a shock to realise
that one year has already passed since the Brothers' Seminar in
Cambodia last year, arguably one of the best formation gatherings in
EAO's short six year history. The fruits, at least at a general
level, have become obvious if we take as our starting point the four
major elements offered by Fr Cereda, Councillor for Formation, in AGC
382: Visibility: By this stage it so happens that
most provincial councils in the EAO region have a Brother as a
councillor. The only province in the region with the right to send two
delegates as well as the provincial to GC26 (VIE) has chosen a Brother
as one of the delegates. Those mission territories in the region
without a single Brother in their midst are to receive or have already
received a Brother in missionary capacity. And thanks to the
generosity and hard work of the former THA provincial secretary, Fr
John Lissandrin, the EAO Regional Directory of 202 Brothers has been
compiled, printed and distributed - 300 copies - throughout the region.
Finally, at the level of literature and general publicity, one notes
the more frequent articles in the Salesian Bulletin, and the vocational
promotion literature from various provinces in the region highlighting
the Brother and his role. In all, the Salesian Brother is much
more visible now than a year ago. Recruitment: even within the relatively
small number of novices represented across EAO it is notable that the
discernment process has resulted in an increased number of choices for
the Brother. Evidence for this comes from VIE, KOR, ITM, FIN - their
one novice, a Brother, GIA likewise. In one case, after a serious
discernment, a clerical candidate switched. More Brothers are now
involved as provincial vocation directors or joining a priest-brother
team. Awareness: a renewed effort has ensued on
the part of provinces to ensure annual or semester meetings of Brothers
in the province. Some provinces have even created a 'Brothers
Week' around the celebrations for Blessed Artemides Zatti (KOR for
instance). This entails an awareness campaign in all communities or
high profile celebrations at province level around events such as the
Silver Jubilee of Profession of Brothers in the province. An additional
aid around the region - and for that matter around the Congregation and
rapidly growing in popularity as a consultation point has been the
Bosconet collection of digital material on the Brother, in
English. Provincial newsletters often use this material, and
translate it into local languages for their purposes. Along these
lines the new SDL or Salesian Digital Library will include this
material in any local language. Finally, in this area of awareness,
more Brothers have been assigned around the region to formation
communities (e.g. a temporary professed Brother assigned as assistant
to Lawaan (FIS) and four elderly Brothers to the formation community at
Chofu (GIA). Quality formation: the largest difficulty
here has been the availability of prepared formators but we can say
that all EAO renewed Provincial Directories mirror the growing
sensitivity and attention to the integral and ongoing quality formation
of the Brother (specialisation, specific formation, vocation
discernment are amongst the important headings).
It is a start - but as Fr Cereda says, we need to
look ahead twenty years in the Congregation to see th real
fruits. That leaves just nineteen years of patient work! _________________ 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
Library
at at http://sdl.sdb.org
