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

Jubilant welcome to Don Bosco in Ennore

Fr Paul Raj Amal - Chennai, Oct. 29. 2011
The casket with the relic of Don Bosco received a jubilant welcome at the Don Bosco Youth Animation Centre (DBYAC), Ennore, as it arrived at 8.15 a.m., today. More than 1500 school children and about 2500 people waited in eager expectation as the vehicle with the relic inched its way through the narrow streets towards DBYAC, in the northern suburb of Chennai. The vehicle was escorted by the youth of the neighbourhood on their motor bikes.

Fr Andrew, parish priest of Ennore, blessed the relic at Mother Teresa`s Home for the Aged and Mentally Challenged, from where it was taken in joyous procession to the DBYAC campus. A splendid welcome dance by the students of St. Joseph`s Matriculation school and a stunning performance of `kolattam` by teachers of the same school added colour and grace to the occasion. Fr. Joseph Jeyaraj, the Rector, officiated at the prayer service while Fr. Henry Selvaraj gave a short talk on Don Bosco and explained the significance of the relic. Five students from the Evening School spoke on what Don Bosco meat for them. The parish choir kept singing hymns to Don Bosco as waves of people kept surging into the campus to catch a glimpse of the saint and venerate him.

Finally, the Salesian community of DBYAC garlanded the casket and knelt around their beloved Father and prayed three Hail Marys, recalling the day 160 years ago when Don Bosco himself had knelt with an orphan boy named Bartolomeo Garelli to say that same prayer, marking the very beginning of his work for the poor youngsters of Turin. The whole assembly joined the Salesian community in this profound moment of homage.

The services of more than a hundred volunteers chosen from among the DBYAC youth, the parish Vincent de Paul Society and the Salesian Cooperators ensured perfect order and discipline right through the event.

A Prayer before Exams

Loving God, as I begin this time of exams,
I feel some anxiety and frustration.
Help me to stay focused.

Give me a clear mind,

to perform to the best of my ability.
Help me to study with dedication and vigor.

Grant me silence so that I may process the knowledge I have obtained.
Let me sleep peacefully at night, so that I am refreshed and renewed for my upcoming exams.

Be with me, gentle God, during these days.
Please sustain me,
I pray to you, my dear Lord.
Please never let me panic nor get nervous
Just let me be at ease and give my very best

Please never let me guess nor rely on pure luck
but enlighten my mind and let me think clearly

Please never let me resort to chances nor to dishonesty
but let me work to the fullest of my ability

I pray for your guidance that as i think,
I may find the right solutions,
I may be able to correctly answer the questions
I may solve those difficult problems

I ask, oh Lord, your intercession that as i write,
I may not be careless nor overconfident
I may not be distracted but be more concentrated
I may not be in a hurry nor take the exams too lightly.

As I am getting ready to take the examinations
Let me, with your help, give my best effort
Let me, because of You, receive the best and fruitful result.

Mary, Mother of my spiritual life,
guide me in the ways of your Son,
so that my work may help
to transform this world for His glory.

I make this prayer in your precious Name, Jesus Christ - Amen

Online Networking Needed says BENEDICT XVI

Pope Benedict XVI says ONLINE PRESENCE IMPORTANT FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH in his message for the 45th World Day of Communications

MAKE OF YOURSELVES SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

The Rector Major invites the young people of the Salesian Youth Movement to  make something beautiful of their lives. The message, taking up the theme of the Strenna “Come and see,” is an exhortation to the young to be in the name of Christ, protagonists in society and in the Church.

During the Mass at which he presided in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Valdocco, on the Feast of Don Bosco, Fr Pascual Chávez gave his message to the Salesian Youth Movement around the world, in the name of the saint of youth: “I can do nothing better than speak with the heart of our Father Don Bosco.”

Fr Chávez, as though it were Don Bosco speaking personally, allows the saint to describe his experience of faith and of his vocation. He invites the young to find in their own lives those things which had helped him to grow: Mamma Margaret (the family), adults to look up to, a climate of human and Christian values. “when I had to make important decisions, I came across people enlightened by the Holy Spirit who helped me to understand that life is a vocation and implies self-giving, and they guided me in listening to the Lord’s call and in accepting the mission He was entrusting to me.” Valdocco: “a workshop where a vocational culture was fashioned.”
The young are invited to look for witnesses and guides in their family and their surroundings who “are “our John the Baptists.” Those who once again can show us the Lord of Life!” Jesus asks, as he did with the disciples of John: ”Who are you looking for?”  The young should then ask the apostles’ question: «Master, where do you live?»  and accept the Lord’s invitation “Come and see.”

“When you ask, my dear young people «what should we do to give to our lives real meaning?» look at that Man who has loved us so much as to give himself totally for us. He is the model for every plan of life, and the faithful and full response to every vocation, because he is a Man totally focused on a central idea”. In contract with “the butterfly person,” who is content with an ephemeral life, there is the “rock of a man” “firmly anchored and rooted in a solid foundation which unifies and harmonises his life with the will of the Father, which guides everything he does and everything he says, which fills all his activity and his prayer.”

To the young invited not to live their life as though it were “a simple biological process,” the Rector Major declares: “You are called to be protagonists in society and in the Church: «you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world» as Jesus would say”.

The message then becomes a challenge: “Yes, my dear young people! “Today” God needs you to “re-make” the world.” The Salesian Family is the ideal setting in which to take their place, finding among the various models of life, religious, consecrated and lay, their own. “I pray for you my dear young people, so that today many of you will allow yourselves to be captivated, fascinated by God to the point of giving yourselves totally to Him.” He offers encouragement to the  Salesians so that they “may live with joy and fidelity the great experience of spiritual fatherhood.”

The full text of the Rector Major’s message to the young people of the SYM is available on sdb.org.