Araimiri Parish of Mary Help of Christians
Araimiri, PNG, 20 October 2018 -- We often we see a picture of Don Bosco in our Salesian schools, and it immediately reminds us that he is a father, teacher and friend of the young. However, if the picture of Don Bosco is seen in the middle of a poor village in a remote area like the Araimiri mission parish, what would Don Bosco mean to people?
Will he be another Francis of Assisi or Vincent de Paul or Fr Damien, or Martin de Porres, who had great love and care for the poor? Certainly not. He is always Don Bosco. Don Bosco for poor young people. He himself experienced and tasted poverty in his very own poor family in a poor village.
For Don Bosco, perhaps we can say that youth occupied the largest part in his heart, and for those poor and abandoned youth he would have given his heart completely. For Don Bosco, no one is too poor to have hope and joy. He taught that even in a day when we are in a situation which is not at all happy, we will still be able to offer our love to others through a simple prayer, a smile, a little act of kindness or just being there among them and for them.
Don Bosco is always there to intercede for the poor and help them. We reach them by small boat, by motorcycle, by walking.
In our humble parish with a few hundred Catholics in the bush in Kerema diocese, Papua New Guinea, we celebrate World Mission Sunday with simplicity: building the faith of our scattered parish population, caring for the children in our three small kindergartens in the villages and at the centre of the parish with our SDB community and Don Bosco Technical School.
Happy Mission Sunday 2018!
