By Andrew Fung
The China (CIN) Province usually celebrates the annual Salesian Missionary Week in the week of 25th Feb just because of the feast of the two first Salesian Martyrs in China, St. Versiglia and St. Caravario. However this significant feast falls in the holidays of the Chinese Lunar Year in this liturgical year. For the sake of the convenience of celebrating such a good occasion in missionary animation for the youth in the schools, the CIN Province has decided to move the annual Salesian Missionary Week to the week between the 5th Sunday of Lent and the Palm Sunday. Such a move is due to the reason that there is the great feast of Annunciation of Angel to Mary. In this feast, we can meditate deeply the good attitude of Mary in listening and responding to the invitation of God which is the good example for each missionary.
The Salesian Youth Ministry Delegate and the Missionary Animation Delegate work hand in hand with their offices staff to provide a lot of rich materials for the missionary animation, such as the Chinese translation of all material coming from the Mission Department, the lesson plans of catechesis for different categories of people, the proposed ways of missionary animation in different settings, and especially some useful proposed initiatives for the confreres in the communities.
Since the theme "Lord! Send me!" of 2015 Missionary Week talks about many important elements of the Salesian Vocation - Mission, we emphasize very much the follow up.
After this week (March 22-29) the ordinary regular ‘activity’ are highly appreciated - such as the constant prayers for missionaries on every 11th of the month (Cagliero11 is translated in Chinese from 2009, available on the web), the ‘Re-reading of GC27 from the aspect of mission’ as a kind of preparation to Provincial Chapter 2016, the missionary spirit in every kind of Salesian Work and others.
In fact, missionary animation relates deeply with vocation animation. At present the China province has one missionary ad gentes in Mongolia, Darkhan – Fr. Paul Leung, and another young confrere is ready to leave for Africa – Ghana in few month time.
Note
China province does invest a lot into the translation of the missionary animation materials. Five Salesians and four lay mission partners of the provincial commission.
On the provincial website you can find all possible GMS (Giornata Missionaria Salesiana – Salesian Mission Day) 2015 materials in Chinese version: 慈幼傳教週 2015 (formation booklet, poster, prayer card and all six videos produced by Eurofilm, Torino – Missioni Don Bosco).
Morever the province printed those animation materials in chinese (3000 copies) for the use in all 18 schools (Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan), 5 parishes and SDB communities during this week.
Invitation of this 2015 Salesian Mission Week is about listening to the living experience of our Salesian missionaries – through their talk, interview or dialogue in Salesian community or youth works. Indeed the radical witness of Christian life is contagious and need to be shared.
