CHOFU: 20 January
2013
-- Thanks
to the keen efforts of the Vice Postulator for the
Cimatti Cause, Fr
Gaetano Compri, and also the Postulator General back in Rome,
with some
help from Bro Ephrem Santos, we can now offer interested
readers access
to the tapes of the 10 'instructions' which Fr Cimatti gave in
July
1955 in Japan on the Salesian Spirit.
Apart
from the thrill of being able to hear the voice of a man who
has been
described as one of the most typical embodiments of Don
Bosco's
spirituality and spirit, and whom we believe will be a
canonised saint
within our lifetime, God-willing, there is the content of this
material
in a final year of preparation for 2015 which is focusing on
Don
Bosco's spirituality.
So what is the
situation? We have put 10 recordings in mp3 format on
SDL in the
Cimatti collection (click on images above for the link).
Well, 11
actually - but the 11th one (or rather the first one) is a
brief
explanation from Fr Compri of the circumstances of this
material -
taped unobtrusively in 1955 by a Salesian then missionary in
Japan and
only handed over in 2005 to Fr Compri. But only in
November 2013 was
this amterial successfully transferred to WAV format. this
format,
while enabling one to very clearly listen to Cimatti, runs
into
Megabytes - and altogether close to a Gigabyte, so quite
impossible for
upload/download possibilities. We have transferred them
isnted to mp3
- while certainly not perfect, if you listen with headphones,
you'll be
able to follow without difficulty.
Of course,
and this would be a problem for many - all this material is in
Italian.
Can't do much about that. we are working on a
translation of volume 1
of his life (by Fr Compri, but it is called an
'auitobiography, since
it is largely drawn from Cimatti's correspondence), but this
is in
excess of 400 paes and still some time off before completion.
There
is currently not a great deal available in English on Cimatti.
Pity,
that. he is such an impressive figure from our region.
Thre is an
Indian published (Kristu Jyoti, Bangalore) brief work, Don
Vincent
Cimatti, the Don Bosco of Japan. If readers know of other
material in
English, perhaps they could forward this information.
But back to the tapes once more. The topics of the ten talks
cover the following:
Following Don Bosco, Unity of spirit, Confession, Rendiconto,
Missionary, Obedience, Poverty, Chastity, Prayer, Charity.
They draw from Don Bosco and from Cimatti's own experience.
