SEOUL: 12 July
2012 --
Archbishop Savio Hon, Secretary of the Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples, who is visiting South Korea, met
with the
Salesian Family at the provincial house in Seoul, 12 July. As
he has
been in Korea four times during his period as provincial of
the nearby
China Province, he is very familiar with the Salesian Family
in Korea.
He also briefly passed through earlier this month on his way
to
Mongolia for celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the
Church there.
Although the main purpose of the trip to Far East was visiting
its
newest Church, his three day stay-over in Seoul has been a
busy one,
meeting Church officials and visiting various institutions.
But he did
not forget to make the Salesian Family happy by meeting with
them and
and sharing. More than 150 people from the Salesian Family
groups in
Seoul came to meet him: SDB, FMA, SCG, VDB, SSCC.
"One time you were our neighbour in the Hong Kong province,
now, your Excellency, you have responsibility for the
missionary aspect of the
Universal Church. We are very grateful for your visit and ask
you to
share the joy you have found in working to build the Kingdom
throughout
the whole Church”, Fr Stephen Nam, the provincial, said while
introducing the Archbishop to everyone present.
The Archbishop spent an hour speaking with gratitude about his
own
vocational story, the graces received from the Salesian
Family,
interspersing his account with humour. In particular, he spoke
of his
mission to bring the Lord's love to people, as Don Bosco did
so
passionately. "I received
three Fs
from the Salesian Congregation. The first is Faith. I was
not a
Catholic when I first went as a child to a Salesian School.
My
education there gave me the faith and baptism. And
Formation: the
Salesian system not only enabled me to achieve academic
success,
gaining my doctorate in Dogmatics, but it also taught me
about true
happiness in life, showed me the way to sanctity. And
finally Fervour,
by teaching me about passion. According to the Salesian
Constitutions,
we are the signs and bearers of God's love to our young
people. Now I'm
doing this for the world, to all peoples in the way my
Salesian
upbringing taught me." With these words he expressed
his
appreciation for the Salesian Family, and encouraged all
participants
to be proud of belonging to one or other group of the Salesian
Family.
Speaking of the Chinese Church, Archbishop Hon asked his
listeners to
pray that right relationships may be restored between the Holy
See and
China. He also asked them to pray for Bishop Ma, recently
ordained in
Shanghai and suffering for the Church.
The Nuncio for Korea and Mongolia, Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla
was
present, and revealed his affection for the Salesian Family.
He spoke
of his own vocational story of the fact that h had once
considered
becoming an SDB when he was a student in the Philippines but
his mother
wanted him be a parish priest, and, well, his mother won out!
Despite
this, he confessed, he makes a point of visiting Salesian
houses
wherever he goes as Nuncio, and that list is now quite long:
Panama,
Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Costa Rica and now, Korea.
