austraLasia

Whispering the Gospel in Asia

EAO, 27 December 2018 -- One full year of 'Whispering the Gospel' in the Asian Salesian context is coming to an end. The theme of the 2018 Salesian Mission Day (SMD) featured 6 Asia countries in particular where the majority of non-Christian youth are starting out on a new life in Don Bosco Centres: Laos, Thailand, Vietnam from the EAO region and Sri Lanka, Nepal and India from the South Asia Region. The videos produced by 'Missioni Don Bosco' Turin, are available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwCHyeyjGX4 (Salesian professional formation in Laos).

Some EAO provinces during their 2018 Salesian Mission Day (or Week or Month) also conducted a simple campaign for the SMD 2018 Project - 'Myitkyina Vocation Training Centre' in Myanmar. Myitkyina was also recently established as a canonical community, now with four perpetually professed confreres - two Salesian Priests and two Brothers (Rector Fr Bosco Win). Every small contribution for Myitkyina VTC is appreciated even after the new year 2019!

The 'paradigm' of whispering the Gospel, a wonderful and inspirational image used first by Salesian Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil during the 'Bishops Synod on Asia' in 1998 has slowly entered the Salesian congregation's vocabulary. The Rector Major, Fr Ángel Artime, used this term for this December Message in the Salesian Bulletin (full text available on Boscolink): "...The young must feel that we are whispering God to them. Perhaps we will not be able to reason out extraordinary orthodoxy or orthopraxis, but they must feel through our little educative mediations that Jesus loves them and always welcomes them. Then, just like Don Bosco in his last Masses in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, we will understand that it was all worth it."

Indeed our humble 'whispering' Salesian presence among young people was highlighted during the past twelve months on many occasions - during the Vatican Synod 2018 with the presence of 18 Salesians, during our EAO Salesian Brother Congress in K'Long. But most of all the powerful whispering we experience through our close and attentive presence among the young and among the confreres.