austraLasia 1665

First Asian Mission Congress about to commence

CHIANG MAI: 16th October 2006 -- All is in readiness for the opening of the first ever Asian Mission Congress at Chiang Mai, Thailand, on 18th October.  The event will run for five days. 'Telling the story of Jesus in Asia' is a long-awaited follow-up to Ecclesia in Asia (1999) which resulted from the Asian Synod.
    As far as we know at this stage, Salesian participants include 7 Salesians from Thailand, 1 from Cambodia (along with a number of lay helpers), 1 from Mongolia (part of a 15 strong delegation from the Apostolic Prefecture), and Fr Savio Hon from China.  This latter is a resource person and will be offering a 30 minute input at some stage in the proceedings.  Other members of the Salesian Family will also be present - at least some from Thailand and Japan. The FMA General Councillor for the Missions, Sr Ciri Hernandez will be participating.  Undoubtedly there will be Salesians and Salesian Family members from the South Asia Region too.
    Asked for his thoughts on this important Congress, the EAO Regional, Fr Vaclav Klement, pointed out that the particular Asian story has potential to shed light on our common spiritual journey, including that of other faith traditions.  He noted the long list of storytellers in our own Christian and Salesian tradition: Jesus, often challenging people as storyteller, Peter telling his story of his encounter with Cornelius, Paul telling of his various encounters and ways that the Gentiles received the faith, St. Francis Xavier, Don Bosco...
    Ecclesia in Asia notes that narrative methods akin to Asian cultural forms are to be preferred.  John Paul II, its author, says that 'the proclamation of Jesus Christ can most effectively be made by narrating his story, as the Gospels do'.
    After a period of moving around Salesian provinces and communities in East Asia and Oceania, Fr Klement observes that there are two basic conditions to becoming better story-tellers for those of the EAO Region: a friend who will listen to my story, and a deeper relationship with Jesus which enables me to tell a story of Jesus, being with Jesus in my life.  This second condition, he says, appears to be the more difficult.  Confreres sometimes admit that they either do not have stories of Jesus or with Jesus to tell, or that they have not been trained to express them.
    Click here to comment on this item.
___________________
 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.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world.  To contact austraLasia by voice on Skype, the Skype name is austraLasia.