austraLasia #1725

Sampran, Fount of Grace

SAMPRAN (Thailand): 3rd January 2007 -- On the 75th anniversary of the FMA arrival in Thailand, in the second year of the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, in the 60th year of the ascension to the throne of King Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty, and more precisely on the 11th November 2006. the Salesian Sisters opened their Ban Phan Phraphorn (Fount of Grace) Retreat House.  It happens to have had its first use this January, thanks to the Salesianity Workshop now under way.
    The Workshop has begun with a sharing of local (as in Regional) experiences of teaching Salesianity - all of this material will be available and uploaded to Bosconet within the next 24 hours.  There are actually 60 SDB and 30 members of other Salesian Family groups in attendance - plus a handful of others helping out. All provinces are represented except ITM. 7 groups of the Salesian Family are present. The youngest participant belongs to the DB-CLAY (Southern Philippines) group of lay people who teach Salesianity for both laity and young Salesians in Cebu. The oldest is a member of the Thai-Cambodia province. Simultaneous translation has been available in English, since Fr Giraudo is delivering his material in Italian.
    Thai Provincial, Fr Thepharat, put the purpose of the Workshop in typically narrative terms (the workshop is dealing with Don Bosco's narrative approach) in the following story:
    A man went to make a five day retreat.  On checking in, he was asked what he hoped to gain from it. 'I just want to find out who God is and who I am', he said. When asked at the end if he had found the answers to his questions he said: 'Oh yes, now I know that Jesus is God and I'm not'!  Similarly, Fr Thepharat said, participants by Saturday should at least know who Don Bosco is and who they are in association with that.
    Fr Giraudo placed some interesting information before his listeners: why did Don Bosco introduce himself, first time in Rome, as the editor of the Catholic Readings and not as the Director of the Valdocco Oratory?  Communications networks already in that time made it certain that DB was known for the former, rather than the latter (in 1858 he had just 300 boys at the Oratory).  Fr Giraudo also left two other questions hanging - why should we use the sixth and last edition of the Life of Dominic Savio if we want to understand what Don Bosco was doing with this? And why is he using basically the same scheme to accompany three quite different personal histories and family background?
    Keep tuned for the next exciting episode!  There have been moments of general joy and excitement during the session so far - real 'workshopping' on synoptic readings of excerpts from 'the lives', a good night from the lay director of DB-CLAY, Ms Lori Rago, and a viewing of the 2007 Strenna video, now being widely acclaimed in the Salesian world as the best video production of its kind -ever.
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