austraLasia #2658 Fans and faithful alike: "...to listen, enlighten, guide"
JOHANNESBURG: 10 June 2010 -- Most readers will have little
difficulty identifying part of the headline source, GC26, and for
Salesian communications enthusiasts, the most-quoted line in that
Chapter other than maybe 'Da mihi animas'! It speaks of "The
'playground' where we need to be...".
With World Cup fever running high, and not just in
South Africa where it is being hosted, it may came as a pleasant
surprise to hear the as yet untold story of deep Salesian involvement,
an excellent example of GC26's exhortation.
A good starting point is the website that you have
possibly already visited, "Church on the ball",
(http://www.churchontheball.com/index.php for
anyone for whom the inserted link is not working), a site promoted by
the South African Bishops Conference. Now here's a little useful
background to that.
Some twenty months ago, the Bishops Conference
approached the Salesians in the country asking them to take charge of
the pastoral outreach for the World Cup. That was some demand, and not
an easy one to meet with limited resources, but it was enthusiastically
taken up by Fr Francois Dufour, Superior of the Southern Africa vice
province (note the distinction - the vice province takes in more than
the Republic of South Africa, including independent Swaziland and
Lesotho as well, both of which have Salesian presences).
With a small committee led by Fr Dufour,
preparations got under way for the Church to be in action "in the
most cost-effective way at the coal face" as Fr Dufour puts it, adding
wryly that he wasn't exactly provided with a budget at the time!
The first decision of the Committee was to ask the
Bishops to declare a World Cup Sunday, which was duly proclaimed, and
they provided the liturgical ideas for every parish to celebrate it. It
happens this coming Sunday, 13 June.
Then they edited a handy pocket prayer book which
includes information about the Church, and is being distributed already
to fans and faithful alike for free.
And the third key and concrete decision was that Fr
Dufour agreed to assist the media-dedsk of the Bishops Conference to
help set up the 'church on the ball' website indicated above.
Apart from that the various Salesian Houses and
communities have organised football events and teams. Just
yesterday there was a visit from Giovane Elber, the renowned Bayern
Munich player, along with three film crews, one of which has an average
audience of 13 million. That took place at the Salesian Education
Project, Finetown, near Jo'burg. austraLasia
has already received a number of recommendations to go to the 'church
on the ball' website. Now the 'recommenders' know where it really
comes from!
SDB Southern Africa, it seems, has already kicked a
goal and the game has hardly begun! _________________ AustraLasia is an
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