By ALA Correspondent

CIN, Hong Kong – Cheung Chau, March 2-7: Six days annual regional meeting of the ten EAO Provincial and four superiors of the EAO Delegations (Indonesia, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea – Solomon Islands and Cambodia) with their respective Economers is hosted this year by China province in the Don Bosco Retreat house in Cheung Chau, Hong Kong. First two days is program is run in two parallel groups of Superiors and Economers, Day 3 and 4 all join together and the last two days is only for the Provincials and their Delegates. On March 5 there is cultural experience of Buddhist temple in the nearby Lantau Island. Moments of prayers, Eucharist, Rosary and meals are shared together.

Thanks to the animation presence of Fr. Francesco Cereda (Vicar of the RM), Fr. Ivo Coelho (Councilor for Formation), Br. Jean Paul Muller (Economer general) and some of their staff from the General house all 40 participants are having quite intense working time the whole day.

With the Vicar of the Rector Major there was a in depth reflection about the deepening of religious life, religious discipline, sense of the Congregation and especially about animation and government at the provincial level. Each province shared their own situation, good practices and open questions about the working of each provincial council, animation of the delegations, role of the provincial Vicar, functioning of the provincial commissions.

Being the first meeting after the GC27, many of the deliberations are reflected together in common dialogue of each group, triggered by prepared questions. Here are the Formation related questions shared this afternoon in the encounter moderated by Fr. Ivo Coelho and Br. Raymond Callo, regional coordinator of Formation team.

What is the dominant methodology of formation? Are the formators able to reach the heart of the person, his motivations, convictions, attitudes? Are they able to listen and engage in dialogue? What about the friendly talk and spiritual accompaniment? Do you have long term plan for the qualification of personnel? Does it include specific formation of formators, and core areas of the charism – like Salesian studies? Do you have a short term plan for the ongoing formation of formators? Looking at the requests for dispensation or for secularization, we could say that the weaknesses are:    Faith -   Affectivity and sexuality -  Lack of clarity regarding identity: Salesian consecrated priests / brothers: which are the most challenging in your province?

At the side of the main program happen many other events, like ‘Curatorium of the Clifton Hill formation house (specific formation of Salesian priest) in Melbourne, with the participation of the provincials of AUL, ITM, KOR and THA who have their students there. Also a new book of Fr. Chrys Saldanha about formation was shared with all Provincials. Vibrant sharing of Card. Joseph Zen Ze-kiun about the recent history of the China Church was an important contribution to the meeting.

On the side of Economy and administration Br. Jean Paul Muller with his team shared about ‘The shared responsibility of the Provincial economer for the strategic implementation of the provincial strategic plan’ and other GC27 items. Together with the Provincials and Economers in next two days some concrete topic about provincial budget, reporting, transparency, financial commission, Planning and Development office and other matters are at the agenda.

The presence of five new provincials gives to this meeting a fresh air of important learning experience in the family atmosphere of mutual enrichment, sharing, supporting each other. From the first Team Visit in 2005 our region grew a lot, especially in terms of establishing deep fraternal relationship of trust, mutual help in many areas and sharing of human and material resources.