austraLasia 1430
Tiruchy, India: Salesians should preserve their own
vocations first
TIRUCHY: 5th February 2006 -- On 4th
February the Rector Major moved from Chennai to the South Tamil Nadu
region and, precisely, to the city of Tiruchy, centre of the Salesian
Province that was established in 1999. It is in this province
that we
find Thanjavur, which is the beginning of Salesian work in this nation
100 years ago, and the high point of the visit which takes place today.
But back to Tiruchy where the Rector Major yesterday
addressed the
perpetually professed Salesians of the province. Building on the
notion he presented in Chennai, that we are not mere social workers but
apostles, he focused his comments on the importance Salesians must give
to who they are as consecrated persons. He made the point that if any
Salesian was in crisis he was offering to be their spiritual
director!
What he then said would undoubtedly be the content of that
direction.
It can be presented as five challenges:
1. Know Don Bosco - if you (in India) are
assuming greater
responsibility in the Congregation you will need to know and love him
as the first Salesians knew and loved him.
2. Be far-sighted and available. With a
100 million tribal people
to be reached......there is no room for narrow vision.
3. Be flexible. The Congregation's
structures can be limiting.
Our mission requires us to be out there with people, as when the
Salesians landed in Patagonia.
4. Continue to increase. If youth
ministry is alive, we increase.
5. Share the vision of the Indian government
to conquer poverty,
illiteracy and injustice, but not as apostles, not as social
revolutionaries.
Thanjavur today, was the closing act of the centenary, just as one
hundred years ago it was India's Salesian 'Becchi' and the
beginnings.
But this deserves separate treatment. Later today, then.
___________________________
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