austraLasia 1695

Closing celebrations to centenary commit China province to continuing the dream

HONG KONG: 23 November 2006 -- Over the past week, a series of events in various parts of the China province have brought a year-long celebration of 100 years of Salesian presence to a close - but launching it forward to the next centenary!  Earlier on in the celebrations it was the Rector Major who presided over events - this time it was his Vicar, Fr Adrian Bregolin.  Fr Bregolin swept through central locations in the Province, particularly Hong Kong and Macau, to bring the celebrations to a close.
    On 17th November, Fr Bregolin took part in 'The Dream Continues' celebration at Ocean Park, Hong Kong.  He encouraged the large numbers in attendance to be joyful in the Lord and spoke of their responsibility for continuing Don Bosco's dream for China.  A day later he met and shared with the Salesian Family in Hong Kong, speaking especially of the meaning and the blessing that is Don Bosco's Salesian Family.  Later that day the formal closing ceremony to the Centenary celebrations took place at a Mass presided over by Cardinal Zen, attended by a crowd conservatively estimated at around 1,000 people.  The Mass was followed by a dinner.
    On 19th a similar closing celebration took place in Macau.
    One of the events that formed part of the closing ceremony in Hong Kong on the 18th was the formal sending of Fr Paul Leung Kon-Chiu on his mission to Mongolia. Cardinal Zen presented Fr Paul with a lectionary symbolising his duty to carry the Gospel to his place of mission. There are a number of Chinese Salesians throughout the world working especially amongst Chinese emigrants to nations such as Canada, Australia, the US, but Fr Paul is now setting out to be a missionary amongst Mongolians in a particularly demanding situation in Darkhan, near the border with Russia.  He will bring the total number of Salesian missionaries to ten in that country - and almost as many nations represented amongst those ten!  The Salesian mission in Mongolia belongs in fact to the Vietnam province, so Fr Leung has been transferred definitively to that province.
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