"Build the 'ban' with heart"! Thai Province
2006 slogan
HUA HIN: 4th February 2006 -- A word of explanation:
'ban' or perhaps more accurately in transliteration, 'baan' means
'home'. Fr Theparat Pitisant, Thai provincial marking his first
year in office yesterday at Province Day celebrations in Hua Hin, well
south of Bangkok, drew together in neat synthesis a number of
inspirations which would nurture the slogan in the province for 2006:
Benedict XVI's new 'ode to love', but especially the ten Saints
he quoted, Don Bosco included, showing us how to love at the social
level; the saints themselves who learned in prayer how to love God;
Mamma Margaret, as Don Bosco's teacher of love; The Rector Major's most
recent invitation to young people (cf www.sdb.org SYM message) 'to love
is your vocation'. Fr Theparat brought all this together in a
plea to confreres for 2006 to 'be a year for generating life,
forgiveness, building community; a year of service; a year for loving
our brothers and the young'.
The event was attended by 30 priests, 10 brothers, 7
young Salesians in formation, 5 postulants and 60 aspirants from Ban
Nazareth and Hua Hin (including 10 diocesan minor seminarians from
Surat Thani). That's about half of the province, and included
several confreres from Cambodia. It included a special moment
when the Hua Hin students and aspirants presented a moving drama of
Mamma Margaret's ten years in Valdocco, from her 'call' at the Becchi,
to her moment of irrevocable decision to stay despite the garden
incident. The day also included some tangible signs of provincial
solidarity as 'better off' communities offered material support for
formation communities and the missionary outreach in the North - about
which more later. Then the older Salesians took on the younger
mob in a football match, and lost!
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