22
August
2013 -- We celebrated the jubilee of several
SDB’s, FMA’s and SAL’s during the yearly birthday celebration
of Don
Bosco. Also, we took this opportunity to celebrate the 100th
birthday
of Fr. Ernesto Rescalli with the Salesian family members.
A Salesian Family gathering was arranged in which Fr. Matthew
Chan
delivered a talk on the reflection on the faith of the new
generation
and a guest speaker, Mrs. Yuen shared with us the problems and
challenges of today’s Oratory. Fr. Matthew said that the youth
now only
focused on “ME”. They did not know how to connect with
external
entities such aemonstrates features
of Don Bosco's
pedagogy over a
more or less thirty year period.s
people, society, world,
etc. Education should include the formation on the spiritual
and the
supernatural dimensions, and should not only concern itself
with how to
be successful and to raise the quality of life, but should
take care to
mould persons to become honest citizens and good Christians.
Parents
were also contributing to the ignorance of their children by
neglecting
the value of holy mass and focusing on their academic results
only. The
commitment of the teachers was very important. They can
introduce
religious and ethical issues into their teaching even when
they were
not teaching religion. Accepting the witness to the gospel,
our
Christian identity, the witness of our community and Jesus as
our
teacher were the true forces to motivate the society and the
world.
Mrs. Yuen shared her experience with the South Asian youths,
depicting
their distrust of other people and their difference religious
practices. Her youth centre was trying its best to solve these
problem
and they had around 300 members now. They also used different
group
activities to help young people grow in the centre.
The Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Joseph Zen. Fr. Lanfranco
Fedrigotti, Provincial of China Province said in his sermon
that we
appreciated that the charism of Don Bosco was given by God and
we were
sharing this charism in different ways, as Don Bosco
Salesians, FMA
Salesians and Co-operator Salesians, etc. Don Bosco gives joy
to those
who know him. Children and youth possess the greatest value in
the
world, Don Bosco offered his life for them and this is one of
his
charisms. This is the second year for preparing the
Bicentenary of Don
Bosco’s birth and the theme for this year is Preventive
System. Nature
religious possesses rationality as its basic element. Atheism
is not
rational and denies rationality. It does not have educative
dignity and
value but is damaging to education. Don Bosco talked about the
Christian and supernatural religion. The way to proceed is by
loving-kindness, which is also pastoral charity.
Loving-kindness is
shown to the individual. God loves each one of us with the
same love.
We should have the greatest confidence in this
loving-kindness. We must
believe that the love of God is stronger than any hatred.
During dinner, Fr. Ernesto Rescalli shared with us his joy and
sang a
song for us. This brought a joyful Salesian family atmosphere
to the
whole gathering. Salesians also joined in to sing an Italian
song,
whereas an action song was sung by Salesian youths and young
Salesians.
Afterwards, the Don Bosco Prize was presented to the
outstanding
students to award their academic performance and community
service. At
the end, all were encouraged to imitate Don Bosco’s love for
the young
through their work in the Salesian Family.
