austraLasia #2026

One year later - Salesianity Sampran Course fruits?

SAMPRAN: 12th January 2008 --  A year has passed since The story behind the stories concluded in Sampran, Thailand, on 6th January 2007.  The question now: where are we now with all this?  Nearly one hundred members of the Salesian Family from across the Region took home a fresh breath of Don Bosco's spirit from deep insights into the Memoirs of the Oratory and the biographies of three of Don Bosco's youngsters, written by himself.  Fr Aldo Giraudo led this study.
    A small group of formators and teachers from the provinces at the time, put together five simple action directions. We follow these up with some possible results. Any others to add??
    1. Each province to adopt the 'Guidelines' as the model for Salesian studies
    Indication of possible results: these Guidelines are now known int he provinces, though the main challenge seems to be, still, the lack of local translations.  In this regard THA has one confrere assigned full time to this kind of translation. On entering the Bangkok Provincial House you find an area offering more than 30 titles in Thai of Salesian Studies material. Just a handful of years ago that was not the case.
    2. Each province will take steps, over a period of 5-10 years, to adopt the model, beginning from the prenovitiate stage of formation
    Indication of possible results: At the Formation Delegates' meeting in Jakarta in October last, the first exchange of such programmes for the prenovitiate took place. Given the difficulty of preparing a solid curriculum in each province, the EAO Mobile Team said it would develop a complete curriculum before the end of the first semester 2008 - 15 courses in all (prenov-3, nov-4, postnov-4, specific formation-4) with a view to producing 15 'textbooks' for each subject.  This will involve some other experts in Salesian Studies.
    3. Each province will, over time, prepare a critical translation of all essential Salesian sources (cf. the Guidelines, 2005)
    Indication of possible results: One of the interesting discoveries from last year was a simple statement: the primary sources (ie DB himself) are not easily accessible in local languages and are far outnumbered by secondary texts. This meant that confreres did not have the possibility of being in direct touch with DB.  The translations that confreres had (have?) have been based on the 'second hand' (or other) versions.  A typical example has been the Life of Dominic Savio in English. At the moment CIN and KOR are making efforts to publish a new critical edition of the Memoirs of the Oratory and other basic sources.  Outside of the region work is going on with a revised English edition of the Memoirs of the Oratory.
    4. Each province will draw up and circulate internally as well as within the region, a bibliography of all books on Salesian topics produced or translated into local languages.
    Indication of possible results: This seems to be a weak point.  So far not a great deal of such circulation is going on! The AUL and CIN curricula excepted.
    5. Each province will take adequate steps to motivate Salesians to appreciate the value of serious study of Don Bosco.
    Indication of possible results: One of the ways of doing this is to ensure that a number of individuals have had the opportunity to take up this kind of seriosu study.  At  present 3 confreres are completing an MA in Salesian Studies at the UPS: Fr Orly Borres (FIS), Fr Naoki Tsujie (GIA), Fr John Chong (KOR). And the first graduates from this recently established MA Programme at the UPS are already at work in the region (they come from GIA, KOR and THA) helping with input to retreats and recoolections, courses to formandi, writing for their province newsletter. 5 people who took part in the July symposium on 'Da Mihi Animas' in the States returned with enthusiasm.  At least 3 provinces re-echoed the Giraudi input from January in the annual retreats or in the form of a seminar for young Salesians.
    We have to add that the valuable Lenti material is now available from several sources, and most cheaply from Bangalore, India.
    This could also be a good time to revisit links (which have changed since Bosconet upgraded, so follow these ones here, not others) to materials available through Bosconet: a general link to Salesian Studies material, and the (new) link to the January 2007 Giraudi material.
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 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 Bosconet-wiki to be interactive. RSS feeds - just go to Bosconet, click on austraLasia 2008 in the sidebar. You will see the RSS orange icon in your browser address bar - add it from there.  Avail yourself of the Salesian Digital Library at at http://sdl.sdb.org

Title: australasia 2026
Subject and key words: EAO General THA Salesian Studies
Date (year): 2008
ID: 2000-2099|2026