4374(I)_Salesian Vocation Day 2017 in CIN

May 9, 2017

By Fr. Carlos Cheung, SDB
Vocation Director, CIN

Hong Kong, 8 May 2017 -- The feast day of Saint Dominic Savio is the day which is taken by the China province as the Vocation Day. It was a great joy in the Salesian House of Studies (Shaukiwan, Hong Kong) to see more than 100 enthusiastic young people from 7 Salesian schools in HK and Macao together with more than 10 SDBs to celebrate the joy of being a Salesian. This activity was preceded by a week of prayers for Salesian vocations and culminated in the celebration of the Vocation Day.

The theme of the celebration is "to imitate the model of Dominic Savio and be a youth leader". This theme is inspired by the story of the Sodality of Mary Immaculate Conception established by St. Dominic Savio. After the ice-breaking games, a drama was performed by the boarders at Aberdeen Technical School. The drama highlighted the fight between two boys who had got into an argument and challenged each other to a rock duel. Dominic Savio learned about the fight and successfully caught up with the boys and tried to talk them out of it. Aside from the main feature of the drama on how Savio guided and minstered to the boys, there is also a sharing session for all participants to set up some rules to animate the sodalities in their schools nowadays.

The drama was conculded by a Vocation Film. Every year the Vocation Director would invite an SDB to share his vocation story and produce a short film for Vocation promotion. This year we have invited Bro. Paul Li to share his motiviation for and reflection on being a Salesian Lay Brother. During his sharing, Bro. Li asked all participants to consider their future to find out whether the Lord is calling them to dedicate their life to serving and guiding the youth. After the sharing, gifts were presented to Bro. Paul Li and Fr. Francis Che, the parish priest at Mary Help of Christians Parish, Tokwawan. Both of them will celebrate their golden jubilee of profession in August.

To make the vocation celebration complete, we had a Holy Mass and a football competition Savio Cup. In his homily, the Delegate of Youth Ministry Fr. Antonio Leong reminded all young people to imitate Dominic Savio to avoid speaking bad words, be respectful to the others and not to surf the Internet for pornographic material or share such material with the others. Furthermore, young people should be good company by setting good examples to their peers. This simple act of modesty will be one of the good ways to listen to the voice of God and Fr Leong stressed, "The voice of God may call you to be a Salesian brother or a priest for the salvation of the souls of young people."

Let us pray for more Salesian vocations by asking the Lord through the intercession of St. Dominic Savio, to call more young people to join our Salesian congregation for the salvation of the young.

For the Vocation Movie, please go to https://youtu.be/wUKy_LBYo0w