austraLasia #1726

Ready for 150th anniversary of Dominic's death in April?

SAMPRAN: 4th January 2007 -- Day Two of the Salesianity Workshop at the Salesian Sisters' Retreat House in Sampran, Thailand, gathering a hundred or so members of the Salesian Family from around the EAO region, has been a particularly rich one, showing the results of a 'workshop' approach where discoveries are made and questions asked - and answered.  With the 150th anniversary of Dominic's death due this April 2007, the serious study over these days comes at an opportune time.
    The day began with a number of questions arising from the workshop practical exercises: Why did DB write the third life (Besucco) several years after the other ones? What was the impact of these biographies on the Salesian world, small as it was, at the time? What was the meaning of the 'crisis' in the context of each of these written lives? Was the Oratory really the ideal paradise it seems to have been presented as? Is accompaniment of young people even more difficult today? How could one actually use these lives effectively today? Too many to give all the answers in the context of a news item. Follow them up, however, through the daily uploads to Bosconet.
    Fr Giraudo offered some selected readings with comment on passages from both the Magone and Savio 'lives', introducing Don Bosco's model in terms of formation and education: participants found it an eye-opener, as he demonstrated DB's gradual development of a human-spiritual journey. He pointed to the masterpiece that are the first four chapters of the Magone 'life', where each sentence wastes not a word and would compete with other literary masterpieces of substance and compressed thought. Here DB exemplified his 'study to make yourselves loved', as well as developing a theological vision in practice of the constant dialogue of 'call' between God and a young person. Fr Giraudo also demonstrated DB's personal growth through it all, as shown by the difference between these 'lives' and the Giovane provveduto (the Italian text now available as a download from Bosconet). DB learned from his own presentation of these models - and there are six more of them yet to be studied!
    Particiapnts also learned about their surroundings at Sampran and especially the FMA presence there: K-12 school with 1,700 girls, a rehab and vocational training centre for the sight-challenged (women), a family home with 17 girls from broken families, formation community with 7 aspirants and postulants, and a novitiate with 5 novices. Sr Maria Sompong SIHM (Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) gave the Good Night with an insight into their 'story behind the story' of 70 years in Thailand and Cambodia.
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