austraLasia #1768

Year of the Pig - a call to another kind of 'baby boom'?

EAO: 22nd February 2007 -- While the Church Universal looks to St Peter (or to his chair, at any rate) on 22nd February, and while Jesus himself did not do a great deal to enhance the role of the pig, other than perhaps raising the price of pork in the Decapolis area (Mk 5:12-13), much of Asia is keeping a firm eye on the Year of the Pig, for this one is special: every 60 years, the Year of the Golden Pig comes around, and 2007, in western terms, is that year.  But can we take a thought which might link the auspicious year to holier thoughts? The clue may lie in the hoped for 'baby boom' in this 60 year cycle.
    At the commencement of this year in EAO two novitiates have opened (or re-opened). In Kumgi, PNG, Fr Ariel, newly appointed novice master for the Delegation, is directing a brand new novitiate with three candidates.  In Fiji, Fr Moses is novice master for four Pacific Island candidates - the novitiate has returned to Fiji from Samoa, where it was for the past five years.
    Meanwhile in Korea, after the first profession of the 2006 group on 24th January, another 10 new candidates began their novitiate.  And while it is not a good idea to count one's chickens before they are hatched (please excuse the mixed metaphors here), Japan is hoping to begin a novitiate with 2 and maybe even 3 candidates within the next two months, and in Southern Philippines /Cebu), the hope is that there will be 7 ready for novitiate when it begins in May. Thailand is another Province in the region which begins its novitiate in May - there is a possibility of several candidates there too. As I write I do not have precise figures for Vietnam and ITM but the former is usually in the vicinity of 30 and the latter (between Indonesia and East Timor) in the mid teens.
    Baby boom?  Perhaps not the best way to put it, but why leave the Year of the Golden Pig to mere human thoughts of increase when we have other much deeper and hopeful concerns!
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