austraLasia 804
India:
Cooperators' plan for
centenary
NEW
DELHI:
5 February '04 -- The
leaders of the Association of Salesian Cooperators from the nine Indian
provinces met with their SDB and FMA Delegates at Don Bosco Provincial House,
Kolkata, on 25 January to plan for the celebration of the centenary of their
presence in India.
The
Association of Salesian Cooperators in
India
will complete 100 years in 2006. It was launched in the ancient town of
Thanjavur
in South
India
on 4
February 1906,
just three weeks after the first group of Salesian missionaries to
India
arrived there. That day, forty ‘heads of families’ were enrolled during a
special service conducted by Fr. George Tomatis, the first Salesian Superior in
India.
Fr. Tomatis spoke to the 40 elders about Don Bosco, the Salesian Congregation
and the meaning and objectives of the pious Association of Salesian Cooperators.
His talk, in French, was translated into Tamil by Fr. Xavier Coelho, the local
parish priest.
Today
there are some 2500 Cooperators distributed in nearly 120 centres spread over
the nine Indian Provinces. Plans are afoot to make the centenary an occasion of
renewal for the Cooperators. There will be animation programmes and celebrations
in every Province to mark the 100 years of the Cooperators’ presence in the
country. The two-year-long celebrations will conclude with a grand
national-level centenary Congress at Thanjavur on 14-16 January 2006 and a
pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Vailankanni, the
Lourdes
of the East.
_______________________
'austraLasia'
is an email service for the Salesian Family of
Asia-Pacific
