austraLasia #2978
Trisolini Memorial Album - Inspiration for
Future Generations
SEOUL: 29
December 2011 --
A rather remarkable album has landed up on my desk.
Red-leather bound,
with Fr Jack Trisolini's signature in gold on the front cover
in
Korean, and in English on the back cover. 443 pages of
colour, black
and white, and sepia photos of Jack since he was a baby, but
with a
major focus on his 50 plus years as a Salesian missionary in
Korea,
working amongst the workers. This wonderful account of the
life of a
faithful missionary and apostle amongst the poor is the work
of the
Seoul Archdiocese and in particular the Labor Pastoral
Commission which
Jack headed up for many years.
The Album was
produced for the first anniversary of Fr Trisolini's death, on
November
22, 201. The Vicar General of the Archdiocese, Bishop Andrew
Yeom
Soo-jung has this to say in his opening commendation:
"Fr Trsiolini,
like the Founder of the Salesian Society, St John Bosco, gave
his life
as a missionary to poor youth, migrant workers, women and
multicultural
families, never forgetting to seek out those who were lost. He
sought
to determine the cause of the troubles he met, and judged the
best
methods to alleviate the situation. He didn't stop there - he
helped
people make the changes in their lives they needed to make,
and stood
by their sides while they did so". The bishop first met Jack
40 yeas
ago when he (the bishop) was a deacon.
In his
own comments, a little further on in the opening pages, Fr
Stephen Nam,
Salesian Provincial of KOR, points out that "Fr Trisolini was
the
founder of many of our local Salesian communities in Korea: he
served
the community as treasurer at times, and was the local
superior of
communities where he served as a loving father...Most
especially he
lived as a poor man....Had he lived another year, he would
have
returned to our Salesian community". Jack had needed
time to organise
a smooth transition to another leader of the Labor Pastoral
Commission.
But the Lord intervened, anyway!
The retired Archbishop of Gwangiu is another who writes in the
Album:
"It is difficult to communicate the life of a happy priest in
a brief
biography, but through this effort I think that the reader
will be able
to feel how one priest, spending his life in this country
spreading the
love of God, lived and died in God's service".
All in all a fitting tribute to a great man.