M28 October


M28 October

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OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE MISSIONS ANIMATION FIN
ISSUE # 9 - VOLUME 3 OCTOBER 2010
Ad Gentes, Ad Extra, Ad Voluntarius
Ad Gentes, Ad Extra, Ad Vitam ... 1
We receive messages ................ 2
Haiti Relief Operations ............... 3
World Mission Sunday ........... 4 - 5
All About Fr. Carlo Braga ....... 6 - 7
Rector Major Visit ................. 8
The concluded Mission Animation
Seminar held last November 2009 at
Tuloy sa Don Bosco, Muntinlupa City,
Philippines which was attended by several
Mission Animation delagates from the East
Asia Oceania Region have agreed upon
that true mission work and experience
consists of a commitment which is for life.
As such, missionaries serve in mission
stations with the calling answering to the
Church’s Ad Gentes, Ad Extra, Ad Vitam.
Statistics from studies indicate
that a number of lay people, who are
experienced professionals, volunteer too.
Although less trained, they have been
trading successful practices and tenure for
missionary stipends and uncertain futures.
The prevalence of volunteerism among
this group are intent on spreading the
message of hope across the globe seemingly
prepared to the sacrifices a life dedicated
to mission is demanded. While adventure,
travel and gaining cultural experience
might make a list of plausible reasons
for volunteering, these lay volunteers are
fundamentally motivated by an “extreme
love of serving God.” This “tremendous”
call is between a church member and God.
More and more missionaries from
developing countries, from places
like South America, Inter-America
and the Philippines, began to take
over missions in the last decades.
However, sometimes the picture we
see is one of imbalance, the work is
hardly finished. And yet when we send
short-term missionaries to volunteer,
they go to places to countries where the
work is already established and strong.
It is sometimes called lopsided mission
work. There is a need to better educate
volunteers to go to areas of acute need,
especially in the region of largely
unentered territory spanning from West
Africa across Asia. Mission groups can
consider the countries of Sri Lanka, Nepal,
and even Muslim countries. These are
blind spots where there is little mission.
It takes a gift to be a missionary. Not
everybody has the chemistry, the endurance
or the tolerance to be a missionary. Not
everyone can tolerate sitting outside all day
in a place without air conditioning, internet
connection, and all comfortable amenities.
To be a missionary is a direct response to
God’s call. That call comes to them, and they
say, “I would rather do this than anything
else in the world.” You cannot begin to
describe their enthusiasm for mission. We
re-echo the Church’s invitation to spread the
Gospel Ad Gentes, Ad Extra, Ad Vitam .

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WE RECIEVE MESSAGES ...
to let you know you’re on my Boxbe
Guest List.
Email from you will be delivered right
to my Inbox.
Thank you,
M28 and staff,
Congratulations for your work! Keep it
up! God bless you.
We would like to share the following
messages we have received over the
past years. They came in trickles but
the simple hi and hello were enough
for us to continue providing mission
animation news the best way we could.
- Editor
Dear editor,
Good on you co-missionaries.. let the
light shine...
more power to you and your
magazine...
peace and love.
thanks for the m28 news.. it always
inspires me to go on...
fr. jojo sdb
timor leste
Fr. Gio SDB
Many thanks for these. I’ll put them into
SDL under Regions-EAO-Missions.
Fr Julian
In behalf of my community, I thank you
and your staff for always, without a miss
(except one, hehehe) sending us copies
of M28:19. your publication keeps
us ever aware of our FIN missionary
works, makes us updated about our
missionary confreres and volunteers,
and reminds us that our congregation is
indeed missionary from the beginning.
we truly appreciate your untiring zeal
in this apostolate! kudos to all of you!
may Don Bosco make you ever healthy
to labor in this God-given ministry!
Huwag susuko! Mabuhay! Assurance
of our support and prayer....
dear moderator,
thanks for this. we appreciate all the
articles. could you please add the
ff. emails of our fma missionaries
in mongolia and also of papua new
guinea?
In unity and prayers for the people of
Haiti. GBU
thanks and God bless. sr. vena FMA
Grazie e ciao
Don Francesco Cereda
Hi M28 staff,
You all are doing a wonderful job for
providing “mission-awareness.”
I’m sure the Good God of this Mission
(missio Dei) will not forget you hic et
nunc and later. After all it’s HIS work!
Blessings,
fr.ronnie urbano,sdb
don bosco san jose
Dear Friends,
Fr Gigi
Hello auxilliaries mission,
Thanks for the message about “M28
September Issue 2010 Newsletter”. This
is a one-time automatic confirmation
Thank you for the news edition that
place the “Cambodia” connection and
mission to the mission readers.
All the best from all of us in the Don
Bosco Children Fund, Cambodia,
With Don Bosco and the young,
Fr. Leo, staff and children
We welcome contributions from the
different schools and parishes who
have set up the missionary animation
desk. The best practices you do will be
a lot of help for others to follow and
imitate. Thank you very much.

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Haiti Relief Operations
Seven months after the Jan. 12 earthquake, a large
part of Haiti continues to reel in the aftermath of the disaster.
Haitians are praying and hoping that relief comes their way
soon and that summer tropical storms bypass their country.
All Haiti relief operations from different countries have been
pouring in. In the spirit of solidarity, come World Mission Day,
we remember to pray for the plight of the people of Haiti where
it will still take some time to fully recover to where it had stood
before.
Most people who lost their homes live in a tent community
near the international airport. Unfortunately, the situation at
present is confusing, even worse than in the days following
the earthquake. The tents do not last long since rain and sun
tear them apart and break them. Moreover, hunger is the worst
experience of all. People do not care about others now.
The Archbishop Bernardito Auza, papal nuncio to Haiti,
wrote that life is hardly any better in the hundreds of tent camps
that sprouted in the broad earthquake zone in the days after
the disaster. There is impossibility of finding alternatives of
livelihood left alone with aid distribution and an ever increasing
camp population.
Efforts by agencies such as Catholic Relief Services to provide
transitional housing has helped some homeless Haitians, but
the overwhelming majority of displaced people remain under
improvised shelter. It is one solution to depopulate the tent
camps and make sure that house is built on properties verified by
owners. There are some NGOs (nongovernment organizations)
that prefer to build permanent housing. But the situation as
it may shows that we are light years away from fulfilling the
demands. The archbishop said 250,000 homes are needed to
house the 1.5 million people who remain in the camps. The
situation is still far from that.
In a more positive note, the youth of Haiti are going back to
school in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. Thanks to
the work of Salesian Missions and the support of donors, much
progress has been made although more has still to be done.
The unique, effective approach of Salesian Missions can
be seen in recent photos from schools in Haiti. Older youth in
trade schools are learning carpentry skills by making desks for
classrooms. Students are learning tailoring skills by making
school uniforms for children who would not have a school to
go to if not for the presence of Salesian Missions.
In Haiti, youth are the long-term promise for rebuilding
their country. They are eager to become nurses, teachers and
construction workers, as well as to develop the skills needed
to be the country’s
new leaders. At many
schools, youth are
back in classes even
as debris continues
to be cleared and
construction begins.
Progress is being
made, and hope is
alive.
Please consider
making a donation to
provide opportunities
for youth in Haiti.

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Building Ecclesial Communion
The unity of the whole church of Christ depends, in no small part, on the Roman Catholic Church’s active engagement and involvement in the affairs of ecumenical
theology. The Second Vatican Council asserts that division “openly contradicts the will of Christ, provides a stumbling block to the world, and inflicts damage on the most
holy cause of proclaiming the Good News to every creature.” Every Catholic faithful is exhorted to “participate actively in the work of ecumenism. The task of ecumenism
is not secondary to the mission of the church but “stands at the very heart of Christ’s mission.”
The Catholic Church’s commitment to unity must start with an openness to the Holy Spirit at work in non-Catholic communities. Openness coupled with a posture of
humility creates a space for healthy dialogue with other Christian communities. Furthermore, if the hope for unity is grounded in the belief that Christ is the true head of
the whole Church, reconciling all of humanity to himself, openness and humility will flow from the heart of Catholicism.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The month of October, with the celebration of World Mission Sunday, offers to diocesan and parish communities, institutes
of consecrated life, ecclesial movements and the entire People of God an opportunity to renew the commitment to proclaim
the Gospel and to give pastoral activities greater missionary perspective. This annual event invites us to live intensely the
liturgical and catechetical, charitable and cultural processes through which Jesus Christ summons us to the banquet of his
word and of the Eucharist, to taste the gift of his presence, to be formed at his school and to live ever more closely united
to him, our teacher and Lord. He himself tells us, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and
manifest myself to him” (Jn 14: 21). Only on the basis of this encounter with the Love of God that changes life can we live
in communion with him and with one another and offer our brothers and sisters a credible witness, accounting for the hope
that is in us (cf. 1 Pt 3: 15). An adult faith, capable of entrusting itself totally to God with a filial attitude fostered by prayer,
meditation on the word of God and study of the truth of the faith, is a prerequisite for furthering a new humanism founded
on the Gospel of Jesus.
Furthermore, in many countries the various ecclesial activities are resumed in October, after the summer break, and the
Church invites us to learn from Mary, by praying the Holy Rosary, to contemplate the Father’s plan of love for humanity, to
love her as he loves her. Is not this also the meaning of mission?
Indeed, the Father calls us to be sons and daughters loved in the beloved Son, and to recognize that we are all brothers
and sisters in him who is the gift of salvation for humanity divided by discord and sin, and the revealer of the true face of
God who “so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(Jn 3: 16).
“We wish to see Jesus” (Jn 12: 21), is the request in John’s Gospel that some Greeks, who had arrived in Jerusalem for
the paschal pilgrimage, address to the Apostle Philip. It also resonates in our hearts during this month of October which
reminds us that the commitment to, and task of, Gospel proclamation is a duty of the whole Church, “by her very nature
missionary” (Ad gentes, n. 2), and invites us to become champions of the newness of life made up of authentic relationships
in communities founded on the Gospel. In a multiethnic society that is experiencing increasingly disturbing forms of loneliness
and indifference, Christians must learn to offer signs of hope and to become universal brethren, cultivating the great ideals
that transform history and, without false illusions or useless fears, must strive to make the planet a home for all peoples.
Like the Greek pilgrims of two thousand years ago, the people of our time too, even perhaps unbeknown to them, ask
believers not only to “speak” of Jesus, but to “make Jesus seen”, to make the face of the Redeemer shine out in every
corner of the earth before the generations of the new millennium and especially before the young people of every continent,
the privileged ones to whom the Gospel proclamation is intended. They must perceive that Christians bring Christ’s word
because he is the truth, because they have found in him the meaning and the truth for their own lives.

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is the Key to the Mission
These considerations refer to the missionary mandate that all the baptized and the entire Church have received but that
cannot be fulfilled without a profound personal, community and pastoral conversion. In fact, awareness of the call to proclaim
the Gospel not only encourages every individual member of the faithful but also all diocesan and parish communities to
integral renewal and ever greater openness to missionary cooperation among the Churches, to promote the proclamation
of the Gospel in the heart of every person, of every people, culture, race and nationality in every place. This awareness is
nourished through the work of Fidei Donum priests, consecrated people, catechists and lay missionaries in the constant
endeavour to encourage ecclesial communion so that even the phenomenon of “interculturality” may be integrated in a
model of unity in which the Gospel is a leaven of freedom and progress, a source of brotherhood, humility and peace (cf. Ad
gentes, n. 8). The Church in fact “is in the nature of sacrament a sign and instrument, that is, of communion with God and
of unity among all men” (Lumen gentium, n. 1).
Ecclesial communion is born from the encounter with the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who, through the Church’s proclamation
reaches out to human beings and creates fellowship with himself and hence with the Father and the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Jn 1:
3). Christ establishes the new relationship between man and God. “He reveals to us that “God is love’ (1 Jn 4: 8) and at the
same time teaches us that the fundamental law of human perfection, and consequently of the transformation of the world,
is the new commandment of love. He assures those who trust in the charity of God that the way of love is open to all men
and that the effort to establish a universal brotherhood will not be in vain” (Gaudium et spes, n. 38).
The Church becomes “communion” on the basis of the Eucharist in which Christ, present in bread and in wine with his
sacrifice of love builds the Church as his Body, uniting us with the Triune God and with one another (cf. 1 Cor 10: 16ff.).
In the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis I wrote, “The love that we celebrate in the sacrament is not something
we can keep to ourselves. By its very nature it demands to be shared with everyone. What the world needs is God’s love;
it needs to encounter Christ and to believe in him” (n. 84). For this reason the Eucharist is not only the source and summit
of the Church’s life, but also of her mission: “an authentically Eucharistic Church is a missionary Church” (ibid.), which can
bring all to communion with God, proclaiming with conviction “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you,
so that you may have fellowship with us” (1 Jn 1: 3).
Dear friends, on this World Mission Sunday in which the heart’s gaze extends to the immense spaces of mission, let us
all be protagonists of the Church’s commitment to proclaim the Gospel. The missionary impulse has always been a sign of
vitality for our Churches (cf. Encyclical Letter, Redemptoris missio, n. 2), with their cooperation and their unique witness of
unity, brotherhood and solidarity that gives credibility to heralds of the Love that saves!
I therefore renew to everyone the invitation to pray and, despite financial difficulties, to offer fraternal and concrete help to
support the young Churches. This act of love and sharing, which the precious service of the Pontifical Missionary Societies
to which I express my gratitude will see to allocating, will support the formation of priests, seminarians and catechists in the
most distant mission lands and will encourage the young ecclesial communities.
At the end of this annual Message for World Mission Sunday, I would like with special affection to express my gratitude to
missionaries who bear witness to the coming of the Kingdom of God in the most remote and challenging places, often with
their lives. To them, who are in the vanguard of the Gospel’s proclamation, every believer offers friendship, closeness and
support. May God who loves a cheerful giver (cf. 2 Cor 9: 7) fill them with spiritual fervour and deep joy.
As with the “Yes” of Mary, every generous response of the ecclesial community to the Divine invitation to love our brothers
and sisters, will raise up a new Apostolic and ecclesial motherhood (cf. Gal 4: 4, 19, 26), leaving us struck by the mystery
of the God of love who “when the time had fully come... sent forth his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4: 4) to give faith and
boldness to the new Apostles. Such a response will make everyone capable “rejoicing in hope” (Rom 12: 12) by realizing
the project of God, who wills “that the whole human race form one people of God, be united in the one body of Christ, and
be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit” (Ad gentes, n. 7).
From the Vatican, 6 February 2010
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

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All About Don Carlo Braga
Born in Tirano, Italy on
May 23, 1889. He died
in Bacolor, Pampanga on
January 3, 1971 at the age
of 82, after 65 years of
religious life and 57 years of
priesthood. He was Rector
for 14 years, Provincial for
23 Visitator for 5 years.
his way. At Shiuchow, in Southern China, immediately sensing the
calibre of a man like Fr. Braga in the field of education, appointed
him Director of a mission school at Ho Sai. Bubbling with youthful
enthusiasm and missionary zeal, his talents as a sportsman and
musician went a long way towards transforming the mission
school into a veritable hub of activity. With conversions on the
increase, it became necessary to open a center for the formation of
teachers who would be sent to the various schools attached to the
other mission-outposts.
It was the 3rd of January,
Feast of the Epiphany,
Fr. Braga was up as usual
preparing to leave for
Guagua town where he
was wont to celebrate his
Mass every Sunday. Passing
through the corridor he was
heard coughing and struggling
to clear his throat. He seemed to find great difficulty in breathing.
The other confreres heard him; so they came out and helped him
back to his bed. While he lay resting, a priest was at his side
holding his hand, praying and assuring him that the doctor had
been summoned. “Don’t worry; it’s all over” he said and closed
eyes as though to sleep; and peacefully he did sleep, never to open
them again. The doctor pronounced Fr. Braga’s demise as a case of
coronary thrombosis.
Born in Tirano, Italy on the 23rd of May 1889, Charles was
bereaved of his mother at a tender age and his upbringing was
entrusted to the Salesians at Sondrio, in Italy. The atmosphere that
enveloped him in his house of Don Bosco was so homely, that he
acquired a liking for it and decided never to leave this Salesian
Family. He made it his home, and from it he began to learn the joy
and experience that would one day be his in far away China where
he himself would have to house so many orphans, assure them of
his love, prepare them in a Christian and Salesian spirit to face life
and provide them with a means of gaining their livelihood just as
Don Bosco had done!
He was barely sixteen when he entered the Salesian Society. His
academic and philosophical courses were undertaken at Valsalice
under the patronage of the first Salesians and contemporaries of St.
John Bosco. At the outbreak of the First World War he was recruited
into the Army and remained in service for three years enduring
every kind of hardship in the thick and thin of military warfare.
When the war had ended he returned with the rank of ‘Sergeant’,
feeling more than ever attached to his Salesian Vocation.
After his priestly ordination, the desire of dedicating himself
to God with greater service directed his thoughts towards the Far
East: deep within his apostolic heart there was a soft spot for China
and thither he found his way. At Shiuchow, in Southern China, he
met Msgr. Versiglia, whose sanctity was already well-known. This
saintly Salesian, later to be martyred in China and thither he found
In 1930, Fr. Braga, who had, by now, very skillfully acquired a
keen insight into the character and customs of the Chinese people,
was appointed Provincial. Impelled by a profound love for them,
he literally launched into a Salesian conquest of China.
Through the incentive of such a dynamic Provincial, the
orphanage at Macau and the mission school flourished. In Hong
Kong too, under the able guidance of our beloved Fr. Braga,
the Salesians organized five big and very modern institutions
comprising about 10,000 pupils.
Very soon all this was disrupted by the outbreak of World War II.
Many of the confreres were interned in one of our Houses in Hong
Kong. Fr. Braga, however, was able to arranged for the aspirants,
novices, philosophers and theologians to be transfered to Shanghai’s
Chinatown. It was a desolate place, but he knew how to transform
it into a flourishing house of formation for 160 Chinese aspirants
to the priesthoo, 400 boardes, mostly orphans, who in those days,
roamed the streets of that immense city by the thousands. They
were either dying of starvation or were abandoned along the streets
of that immense city by the thousands. They were either dying of
starvation or were abandoned along the streets. There was only one
Salesian institute in Shanghai at the time. Fr. Braga soon brought
into existence a second one; he multiplied the personnel and as if
the bitter conditions of the merciless war between the Chinese and
the Japanese didn’t exist at all, he went up as far North as Shiu
Chow to found another work and finally opened a Salesian school
in Peking, thus bringing to reality a dream of Don Bosco.
He had already started a big school in Kunning near the border
of Burma; and by now, Salesian centers had been established in
all the chief cities of the vast yellow continent. He was already
dreaming of a new Salesian Province in the North of China when
the bitter wave of communism struck again to put an end to every
Christian, educational and charitable enterprise.
To witness the gradual destruction of these undertakings after
being Provincial for 20 years would have been enough to paralyze
all his initiatives; undaunted, however, this man of God and perfect
imitator ofDon Bosco, continued his work a superior of the Chinese
Salesian Province for three years more, without ceasing to cast his
glance over the horizon for other fields of apostolic labor. At the
instigation of Fr. Peter Ricaldone, the Rector Major of the Society,
Fr. Braga turned his gaze towards the Philippines and Indo-china
(Vietnam) with the opening of a Salesian school in Tarlac and

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another in Hanoi respectively. Pretty well advanced in years,
he was 62, the Superiors from Turin thought it best to allow Fr.
Braga a little rest. A few months later, however, he appeared in the
Philippines like a simple confrere.
The numerous testimonies received by way of condolences
on the occasion of his death help to complete the picture of this
genuine son of Don Bosco and intrepid missionary. Just to mention
a few of the most notable ones:
He was appointed as first Rector of Don Bosco Victorias and
later of Don Bosco Makati. In 1955 he was designated as Superior
of the new Philippine Province. Despite his advanced age he was
able to give such an impetus to our works in the Philippines as
to arouse the admiration of many who had witnessed the humble
beginnings of Don Bosco in Manila, Bacolor, Tarlac, Cebu,
Victorias and Canlubang.
In 1963, he celebrated the Golden Jubilee of his priestly
ordination amidst the rejoicing of so many spiritual sons in China
and in the Philippines. In 1965 he took part in the General Chapter
of the Salesian Congregation for the seventh time- a rare privilege
of any Salesian.
One would not understand how Fr. Braga was able to accomplish
so much in all his apostolic missionary enterprises and with such a
tremendous success unless one were to grasp his profound Salesian
spirituality. A missionary, fired with apostolic zeal and animated
like Christ by a deep spirit of love and compassion towards the
countless youthful souls lost in the darkness of paganism, Fr.
Braga spent his long life working for all his undertakings in the
spirit of our Father, St. John Bosco-always paternal and full of
sympathy for his confreres. He fostered cheerfulness and human
goodness wherever he went. He cherished a holy friendship for all
the families of his confreres, the families of his benefactors and
his pupils.
Throughout his long apostolate bringing into existence so many
institutions, he always remained poor, but was gifted by God in
surrounding himself with a circle of friends and benefactors both in
China as well as in the Philippines, who willingly and generously
disposed of what the Lord had blessed them with. He enchanted
everybody with his large-hearted goodness and super-abounding
gratitude; overflowing with charity and magnanimity, he found his
way into the intimacy of homes and families turning them into
providential instruments and means where with to provide the
necessary education for many poor and abandoned youths. With
these good benefactors he was extremely delicate, a perfect gentle
man and a faithful imitator of Don Bosco.
At the foot of all these extraordinary qualities and the numerous
undertakings of his multi-faceted life, there was one side, unseen,
perhaps hidden from our eyes but undoubtedly the unique force
that made him the good Father we all have known; his intimate
union with God, his love for Jesus, a secret longing to give himself
to the Lord as a holocaust of an unconditional surrender.
His childlike love for Mary Help of Christians and Don bosco
assuming so many forms, was manifested so enthusiastically and
youthfully in every environment of our Salesian schools both
in China and in the Philippines, as a testimony of his being the
humble instrument of their salvific love for the immense mass of
boys in this enchanting extremity of Asia.
The Rector Major (Aloysius Ricceri) cabling fraternal
participation through sorrowful prayer at our loss, remembers “Fr.
Braga as a model of generous missionary dedication burning with
a jovial Salesian spirit.”
Fr. Alvin Fedrigotti “exhorts Fr. Braga’s survivors to cull from
the garden of such a resourceful life the splendid example of total
surrender to Don Bosco and the Congregation which only a few
loved more than he.”
Fr. Modesto Bellido, one-time Counsellor for the Missions,
has this to say: “He was, in truth, the Patriarch of the Far Eastern
Provinces. The Lord has certainly granted him the reward reserved
for our great missionaries.”
One of our missionary bishops of Thailand, Msgr. Peter Carretto
attests: “Indeed, the Salesian Family of the Far East has lost a
confrere that was simply marvellous. China, Japan, Thailand and
Vietnam, to say nothing of the Philippines where he spent h is last
years, have been enriched in one way or another by his profound
Salesian and missionary spirit, by his paternal goodness and his
contagious enthusiasm.”
Fr. Luigi Fiora was shocked at the news of Fr. Braga’s sudden
death “since he was such a popular figure with an unmistakable
optimism all his own. These are the dynamic celebrities that have
really kept the Salesian Congregation going.”
To wind up, Fr. Fancis Laconi, who had preached three courses
of Retreats in the Philippines with Fr. Braga close to him as
Retreat-Director, describes him these words: “Living a life of
unique generosity and dedication without reserve and possessing a
soul so simple and crystal clear, his whole being was one unbroken
visualization of a magnificent landscape. A man of goodness, a
kind-hearted man of unsurpassable optimism, he remained till the
very last in the forefront, fighting the good fight. For me, Fr. Braga
is one of those Salesians who can never be forgotten. Like a might
one hat has fallen in the heat of the day’s labor, he is one of those
Salesians before whom we ought to bow in reverence filled with
admiration.”
Our beloved Fr. Braga did not expect to end so soon, but the
Lord willed that his death should leave upon our minds the same
impression that he had always reflected in our midst-ever cheerful,
every ready for anything, observant in his religious life and always
punctual on the spot where duty called. So it was, when at 5:30
a.m., on the 3rd of January, Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating
the missionary to the Nations, this dynamic missionary most
peacefully lay down and gave up his soul to God.
By Fr. Luigi Ferrari, SDB
March 30, 1971

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Fr. Pascual Chavez, Don Bosco Rector Major,
visits Manila from Oct. 18 to 22
Fr. Pascual Chavez, rector major of more than 16,000 looming figure of the Salesian work in China before
Don Bosco (Salesian) fathers and
his expulsion to the Philippines during the
brothers in over 130 countries, is
communist revolution. Cardinal Joseph
coming to visit his confreres in the
Zen, a Salesian prelate from Hong Kong,
Philippines from Oct. 18 to 22. Fr.
will also be in town to give his testimony
Chavez will meet all the Salesians in
on the virtues of Fr. Braga, along with
the country, particularly the leaders
Salesian Bishop Leo Drona of San Pablo,
of the Salesian houses, to strengthen
Laguna, Salesian Bishop Patrick Buzon
them in their mission for the education
of Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, and
and evangelization of young people,
Bishop Paciano Aniceto of San Fernando,
not only in the Philippines, but also
Pampanga whose confessor was Fr. Braga
in the missions of Solomon Islands,
during his seminary years.
Guam, Pakistan, and Papua, New
Fr. Chavez will also meet in Manila with
Guinea, entrusted to his Filipino
the younger Salesians coming from 10
confreres.
different countries in Asia and the Pacific
The Rector Major will spend a day
studying for priesthood or preparing
in Don Bosco Academy, Mabalacat,
for their final vows. He will then spend
Pampanga to introduce the process
time with the Tuloy sa Don Bosco Street
for the sainthood of Fr. Charles Braga, a pioneer in the Children Village in Alabang among 300 street kids
Don Bosco work in the Philippines. Fr. Braga was a close to his heart.
Missionary Animation visit to Salesian Settings
both Schools and Parishes
Once again, we would like to make our rounds of visit in the different Salesian Settings to monitor the missionary
animation desk we have begun last year.
For this year’s agenda, we would like to present the following:
• Feedback on EAO Regional Missionary Animation Meeting of November 2009.
• The celebration of the DOMISAL with the theme
“The Salesians of Don Bosco walking together with young
Gypsies” (2010)
o Poster Making Contest for Elementary and High School level
o Essay writing contest regarding the DOMISAL theme
•
Missionary Animation Symposium
•
Lay Missionary Volunteerism Ad Gentes Ad Extra
•
Volunteers proclaiming the Gospel (2011)
•
Missionary Animation Desk
Thank you very much.
Note: We request the communities to set aside a particular day to celebrate
the Domisal 2010 according to your most convenient time.