English
SAFCAM Communique #43
13/03/2021
SAFCAM Communique #43 13/03/2021
Dear Subscribers
Today is the 8th anniversary of that memorable day on which Jorge Bergolio became Francis!
We are also already more than halfway through Lent and Laetare Sunday invites to rejoice as Easter approaches. We also have the great feast of St Joseph coming up as a special celebration in this ‘Joseph Year’!
On the 19th March, Fr Guillermo Basanes will be installed in Lubumbashi as provincial of AFC. We wish him and his confreres all God’s blessings! At that same date too the Year of the Family will be launched by Pope Francis, who will close it on June 26, 2022, on the occasion of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome.
This is a chance for us to reinforce our pastoral efforts in supporting family and striving to promote a family vision to young people who too often unfortunately have lost it. We used to say there can be no youth ministry without HIV/AIDS prevention education. We now need to affirm that there can be no youth ministry without marriage and family formation!
There are five main objectives to this 15-month year of the family: (For us especially #4)
“1. To spread the content of the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia,” to have people experience that the Gospel of the family is a joy that fills the heart and our whole life” (AL 200). A family that discovers and experiences the joy of having a gift and of being a gift to the Church and the society, “can become a light in the darkness of the world” (AL 66). And today the world is in need of that light!
“2. To proclaim that the Sacrament of Marriage is a gift and that it has in itself a transforming power of human love. To this end, it is necessary that Pastors and families walk together in pastoral co-responsibility and complementarity between the different vocations in the Church (cf. AL 203).
“3. To make families protagonists in the Family Pastoral. To this end, “an effort of evangelization and of catechesis directed to the heart of the family” (AL 200) is necessary because a disciple family also becomes a missionary family.
“4. To sensitize young people to the importance of being formed in the truth of love and in the gift of oneself with initiatives dedicated to them.
“5. To broaden the gaze and action of the family pastoral so that it becomes transversal to the family, to include the spouses, the children, the young people, the elderly and situations of family fragility.”
Here in Nairobi this week we have been shocked and saddened at the loss of a great ‘International’ confrere – Fr Julien Jackers from the BEN province – but who spent most of his last 15 years at least, as visiting philosophy professor in Post-novitiates around Africa and Asia, where he was greatly appreciated.
He had been in Moshi since last October, as was on the point of preaching the retreat for AFE confreres this week when he fell gravely ill and returned to our heavenly homeland on Thursday. May he rest in peace.
Digital Resources
For an incredibly useful resource of Salesian materials, keep this URL somewhere for easy reference.
It’s a collection of documents and Salesian songs and A/V links etc, by Fr Peter Goncalves, professor at UPS,
https://sites.google.com/site/dbway2010/resources
The seventh SEED (10-part series on initial formation) was posted a few days ago… as well as the “Cagliero Live” (the monthly 1-minute video clip produced by the Mission Department).
And while you’re at it, why not subscribe to the ANS channel on YouTube?! Just use the search function and find many useful clips there. Just a caution – Big Tech likes to bait you with other irrelevant clips which they intersperse among our salesian material, but scroll on down when you think that after the first few you have seen all there is from ANS… There is an abundance of salesian videos and it is a pity they receive so few views and not enough ‘likes’. It costs you nothing to click ‘LIKE’ and it helps promote our salesian good news, not to say ‘brand’!
Don Angel Artime celebrated the first anniversary of his re-election on the 11th. If you have not yet seen his 4-minute clip on YouTube about the second line of action resulting from GC28, here is the link: https://youtu.be/bm1si2SpFGo
March 11 - 19, we are in the novena which prepares us for the feast of Saint Joseph.
The discretion with which Joseph fulfilled the role entrusted to him by God further highlights his faith, which consisted in always listening to the Lord, seeking to understand his will, in order to obey it, with all his heart and with all his strength. This is why the Gospel defines him as a "righteous" man (Mt 1,19). “The righteous is a person who prays, who lives by faith and who seeks to accomplish good in every concrete circumstance of life. » - John Paul II, Angelus of March 17, 2002.
So we turn to Saint Joseph for nine days. On the one hand to meditate on his virtues and grow in them, on the other hand to ask for his powerful intercession. May these nine days in the company of Saint Joseph bring us comfort and help us find the solutions to our queries and all our questions.
Wishing you a blessed second half of Lent,Top of Form
Camiel and François
