Nashik, India/Apia, Samoa: 31
January
2013
-- With
the Australia-Pacific Province sitting right 'this side' of
the IDL,
that gives us the right, I think, to wish the rest of the
Salesian
world a very happy Feast Day of St John Bosco! Don't believe
any old
maps you have, by the way - Samoa (but not American Samoa)
saw the way
the wind was blowing, so to speak, and jumped West in 2011.
Their
'American' neighbour stayed put. Great if you want to
celebrate a Feast
Day twice and stay in the same island chain! But we're not
in American
Samoa. Anyway - Happy Feast Day from the centre of the world
where you
calendar day begins (or ends, depending where you are!).
For the Feast Day, here is a little gift (attached) from the
young
Salesians at Divyadaan house of philosophy, Nashik in Mumbai
Province.
They prepared it before the novena, but it only arrived in our
hands at
the end. Still and all, it will be a useful resource to use
especially
with GC27 about to start and the 10 Diamond Dream taking
centre stage.
As they explain in the set of reflections on the attached PDF
the
sources are the dream text itself and the well-known AGC 300
commentary
(1981) by Fr Viganò, but the fact that they have
put this together as
a very usable set of brief reflections makes the dream much
more
accessible and treats it as an appropriate resource for
personal and
community meditation.
So you can get a feel of what's on offer here, and sense its
simplicity and relevance, here is a brief extract on WORK.
Work
What is work? The Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates
that by
work man participates in the Divine work of creation. When
united to
Christ, work is redemptive. (CCC, 2427)
As we noted earlier Art 18 reminds us that our work is a
participation
in God’s creative work in the universe and is a cooperation
with Christ
in building the kingdom.
Art 78 tells us that “Unremitting and self-sacrificing work is
a
characteristic left us by Don Bosco, and is a concrete
expression of
our poverty. In our daily labours we are at one with the poor
who live
by the sweat of their brow, and we bear witness to the human
and
christian value of work.
In Art 95 we are reminded that our work is made holy by prayer
and union with God.
Reflection questions:
1. Do I experience joy in my work?
2. Can I say that I am a hardworking person?
