The Christmas Ten Commandments

The Christmas Ten Commandments re-written to suit us today…

 1.      You shall not leave "Christ" out of Christmas, making it "Xmas."  To some, "X" stands for the unknown. Christ is the reason for the season!

2.      You shall prepare your soul for Christmas.  Spend not so much on gifts that your soul is forgotten (a good confession is a nice way to prepare your heart for Christmas).

3.      You shall not let Santa Claus replace Christ, thus robbing the day of its spiritual reality (Prepare yourself with prayer and the Word of God).

4.      You shall not neglect your church.  Its services highlight the true meaning of the season.   Contribute to the wellbeing of your Church.

5.      You shall not neglect the needy. Share thy blessings with many who will go hungry and cold unless you are generous.

6.      You shall not neglect thy family during this season. You shall not forget the elderly and those who are lonely at Christmas time.

7.      You shall not value gifts received by their cost.  Even the least expensive may signify love, and that is more priceless than silver and gold. You shall give yourself with your gift.  This will increase its value a hundred fold, and he who receives it shall treasure it forever.

8.      You shall prepare your home with Christmas symbols (the crib, Christmas carols, the Advent wreath, the star, the angels, the Christmas tree etc.).

9.      You shall be as a little child.  Not until you have become in spirit as a little one are you ready to enter into the kingdom of Heaven.

10. You shall give your heart to Christ.  Let Him be at the top of your Christmas list.

Have a wonderful Christmas celebration with Child Jesus in your hearts and in your homes!

Celebrating the Christmas Joy with Neighbouring Religious

It is Christmas time: at DBYAC, Ennore it is a time of Celebration and Fellowship. It is a time of expressing and living the solidarity of the clergy and religious of the Ennore area.

The annual feature of Christmas get-together of the parish priests & religious of the neighbourhood was held on saturday, 16th December 2011 in our campus. Parish priests of Eranavur, Bharathiyar Nagar and Tiruvotriyur were the clergy along with sisters from different congregations as varied as our Salesian Sisters (FMA), Sisters of Charity, FSJ sisters, JMJ sisters, SMA sisters, Seva Missionary sisters and Sisters of Nava Jeevan Community.

The hall was beautifully decorated and a grand crib was created by our young men of the centre, Muthu, Rajesh and Vellankanni. It formed a fitting background to the celebrations of the evening.

Fr. Felix began the proceedings with a well-thought and meaningful prayer service. The highlight was placing the different protaganists  of the crib by the religious themselves. Child Jesus took centre-stage and was rightly honoured and felicitated by all gathered by singing carols in Tamil, English, Hindi and Malayalam.

A time of fun and games followed during which time different communities sang carols, played some fun games and enjoyed themselves.

And then followed the Agape Meal - food brought by different communities were shared among each other.

Finally, everyone wished Merry Christmas, prayed together one last time and left for their respective communities promising to be back for the same next year.

A Formation Seminar for Formators

Don Bosco Youth Animation Centre, Ennore was once again a beehive of activity. Salesian Formators from different parts of South East Asia were gathered together for five days of togetherness and celebration.

A national level seminar on “Affective Maturity” was conducted by SAFC (South Asian Formation Commission) for the formation personnel from 26 to 30^th November 2011 at Don Bosco Youth Animation Centre, DBYAC, Ennore. All the Novice Masters, the rectors of the various philosophates and prenovitiates, the formation delegates of the provinces, and the delegates from the various formation houses sans theologates, 43 in all, attended this disturbing – as some of the participants would put it – and challenging seminar and workshop conducted by Fr. Mariadass Selvarathinam OMI from Sri Lanka.

Fr. Chrys Saldana sdb, of the formation department in Rome, during the inaugural mass invited the participants to look deeper into themselves and their emotions and to be committed to their own search or quest for God in their lives – the core of religious life. That was the anchor point around which the whole seminar revolved: the formation of the formators.

Several sessions of input and in-depth sharing in small groups left the participants mesmerized, confused and uncomfortable – Not  the way in which the seminar was organized. No one could point a finger at Fr. Loddy, SAFC Co-ordinator, who with his meticulous planning not only made our stay comfortable but also an enjoyable one with a half day of outing to Little Mount and to St. Bede’s for a sumptuous dinner.

Thanks to Fr. Jospeh Jeyaraj, Fr. Henry and Bro. Lobo and to the pastoral community at DBYAC, Ennore.

The participants were confused and uncomfortable to realize that first and foremost they needed formation and that they need to start the spiritual struggle which is life-long. A formator is called to co-journey with the formee. Therefore it is a journey of both the formee as well as the formator.

What emerged from these discussions were:

·         In this co-journeying with the formee, the formator himself needs supervision.

·         We need a radical shift in our formation process – from legality to spirituality, from falling in line to falling in love with the core of one’s being which is LOVE.

·         We need to move from duality to acceptance, wholeness, integration and oneness. The journey toward oneness is true spirituality. Reaching oneness is mysticism. The end of formation is mysticism.

·         The participants returned home with a bag full of homework to do – to start the journey, to struggle through the journey (Spirituality) and hopefully reach the end Oneness, Mysticism.

Fr. Stalin Arokiam Dhanraj