austraLasia #1767

A growth experience worth sharing: Talisay-Lawaan Formation Centre

TALISAY-LAWAAN: 21st February 2007 -- With 8 confreres, 5 novices and 27 in the aspirantate and pre-novitiate phases, the Don Bosco Missionary Seminary is the Philippines South Province formation centre - but for more than just one province and nation It has been a service to places like PNG, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and even currently has a novitiate representing FIN, FIS, China, Japan provinces.  DBMS wasn't just there all the time - or rather, the buildings and some of the elements were there, but a period of rapid transition, and physical translocation over the past several years has seen a focusing of formation elements on Lawaan and a clarification of processes - including some clarification of terminology still ongoing.
    In fact DBMS is a good example of how this latter (the question of terminology) has been developing and clarifying itself in a number of areas around the region. The Salesian Ratio is clear enough: there are aspirants, pre-novices and novices, groups which include candidates for both priesthood and lay consecrated life as a brother. Hence terms like 'postulant' or 'pre-postulant' have no constitutional base within the Salesian SDB context, and 'seminarian' is both inaccurate and restrictive at this stage of formation.  Things do not change simply by decree, however, and the important thing is that the reality is what we know and believe it should be.  This has been the focus of the transition at the centre at Talisay-Lawaan to what it is today - a true centre of formation involving the wider Salesian Family as well.
    DBCLAY, a lay-based Salesian formation group with strong guidance by Salesians, has been open for some time to the novitiate.  The interaction and enrichment gained has been widely recognised, even in other parts of the region. The Salesian Communications Office is now also based at the centre, currently with a focus less on production and more on formation and helping the various provincial commissions develop their expertise. An active Salesian Cooperators group also interacts with the novitiate in particular. A quick look at the listing in the Salesian Year Book (Annuario) also indicates the presence of a Retreat Centre which involves some 6,000 participants in a year. A Volunteer of Don Bosco is in charge.
    From what was, just a few years ago, mainly a High School, Lawaan has now clearly become the province's formation centre - a 'value-added' centre with the additional features already noted above plus others - past pupils of the former High School, chaplaincy to the nearby Salesian Sisters' School, and a regular youth ministry at the Pasil Youth Centre, in school catechetics, with other pastoral opportunities as well for liturgical animation and oratory work.
    And 'missionary'? As one who grew up in a 1950's aspirantate called 'Archbishop Mannix Missionary College', this writer still recognises the value of that word for implanting a strong missionary vocation - but today the understanding of the missionary dimension is a developing one too: mission, missions, mission ad gentes..... and certainly with a significant presence now of Pakistani candidates at prenovitiate and novitiate level, the word has important resonance in this outstanding Salesian formation centre.
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