“That Mount Calvary Is the True School of Love”.

By Fr. Lanfranco M. Fedrigotti, SDB

Hong Kong -- The 21st August 2017 is the 450th Anniversary of the premature birth of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Titular and Patron of the Society of Saint Francis de Sales. In preparation for this great day, a group of 18 Far East “Salesians” devoted one whole week to study and meditation of this great Saint’s “Doctrine of Love”. These Far East “Salesians” hailed from the Land of the Rising Sun, from our Great Motherland, and from the Outlying Islands and Semi-Islands of Hong Kong and Macau.

The place chosen for this week-long preparation was the Hong Kong Retreat House closest to the Great Motherland, namely, the St. Paul’s House of Prayer in Kam Tsin Village, Sheung Shui, New Territories. The time of preparation stretched from Saturday 12 August, Liturgical Memorial of St. Frances de Chantal, the spiritual daughter, sister, and friend of St. Francis de Sales, to 18 August, Friday, week-day dedicated to the memory of Jesus’ loving passion and death on the cross, matching the last chapter of the Theotimus, entitled: “That Mount Calvary Is the True School of Love”.

Fittingly enough for an activity in honour of the Patron Saints of Journalists, the leader of this group was the CIN Social Communication Delegate, Fr. Pedro Leong Chi Choi. The week-long meditation was made through two daily encounters that covered 12 distinct themes of the “Love Doctrine” of St. Francis. Would you like to know what themes were covered? Here they are:

1. “Salesian”, What Does It Mean?
2. Give me souls! (Take the rest!)
3. (Give me souls!) Take the rest!
4. (God’s Love in Himself) = Charity
5. (God’s Love in Our Hearts) = Charity
6. Devotion: Love of a Heart on Fire
7. Purification, Conversion from Sin, Conversion to Devotion
8. Prayer, Meditation, Recollection, Short Sharp Prayers
9. Mary: Our Mother, Sister, Companion on the Way to Perfect Love
10. The Sacred Heart of Jesus, Source of Perfect Love
11. Love of Concupiscence, Love of Complacence, Love of Benevelonce
12. Ecstasy of Intellect, Ecstasy of Will, Ecstasy of Action.

Interested? Please, get a copy of St. Francis’s Philothea (Introduction to the Devout Life) and the Theotimus (Treatise on the Love of God). God bless!

The links for download of both main books mentioned above

• Introduction to the Devout Life
• Treatise on God's Love

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