austraLasia #2722 EAO part of the Missions department's effort in drawing up its
framework
ROME: 29 September 2010: They have come in from all over the
globe, including missionaries of fifty plus years of experience along
the Amazon and its tributaries from Ecuador to Venezuela to Brazil.....
from the deserts of the Middle East, the sub-continent and from the
Pacific in all its EAO extension! The Missions Department, following in
the footsteps of Youth Ministry and Social Communications (and
involving them closely) is drawing up its Framework of Reference during
these final days of September.
There are two representatives from Oceania
(including one from the
SC Department), two from Asia proper. The group is being
directed,
other than by Fr Klement as Missions Councillor, by Fr Alfred
Maravilla, long-time missionary in Papua New Guinea and now assigned to
the Missions Department especially to assist in the preparatory courses
now being run annually for new missionaries - and long-standing
ones.
The Salesian Sisters and the Cooperators (from a group actively
involved in mission and development in Spain) are also represented.
All in all, then, the breadth of experience and the
degree of
enthusiasm in the group bodes well for the framework which will still
take a year or more of hammering in the anvil of day-to-day practice,
to emerge. Despite the inevitable deluge of doctrinal reflection,
essential in an area that is at the heart of the Church's activity and
re-thinking in today's world, the very depth of this reflection, coming
as it is from skilled practitioners like Fr José Bortoli from
Isla de
Ratón, or Mouse Island for the rest of us, on the Orinoco (who
claim
wryly that he's probably still alive because of FARC, not despite
them!), who did most of his reflections while on his interminable boat
trips down the River.
In the discussion just about everything is 'up for
grabs', meaning
that nothing, other than a few immutable verities of the faith, of
course, is set in concrete, not even the hallowed name of the
Department, whose title 'Mission/s' often leads to not a little
confusion.
And there are revelations too. Fr Pozzo, who left
Italy in the 50s
for the Middle East, and has taught Arabic to the Arabs, has been one
of the most tireless workers on draft versions of the 'Framework',
bringing his enormous, common-sense but deeply reflective experience to
the task. He couldn't quite get his head around 'inter gentes'. 'Ad
gentes' is one thing but where did this other thing come from! And how
does it fit into the ups and downs of what goes for Christian-Muslim
dialogue these days! From the combined wisdom of the FABC in
Asia, Fr
Alfred pointed out with a smile, tracking the term back to its
inception as the bishops wrestled with "being with the people,
responding to their needs, with sensitiveness to the presence of God in
cultures and other religious traditions, and witnessing to the values
of God's kingdom through presence, solidarity, sharing and word". (FABC
5th Plenary Session 2001). Inb fact something of this idea had been
echoed already in the discussions before Fr Pozzo raised it. A bearded
Patagonian missionary was already claiming that indeed we have to be
'evangelized' by local cultures too - it's a two-way process if we
really listen to what the Church says. And the Church does say it. Just
read Aetatis Novae on evangelizing communication today!
So there has been plenty of opportunity for
Communications to offer
a point of view, help with terminology, and be enthused in turn by the
wisdom of missionary elders!
The work continues, two more days of it.
Spare a prayer, too for the new missionaries, many
of them from our
region, who are heading out to Recife or God knows where, trying to
negotiate the world's airports with little knowledge, at this stage, of
any language that might help them while airlines change departure gates
at whim, and with little real idea of what might await them on arrival,
other than a warm and long-expected welcome! _________________ AustraLasia is an
email
service
for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions
as an
agency for ANS based in
Rome.
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