GOOD NEWS from India - Chennai

With pleasure I received the provincial circular from Chennai, India (month of January).
After opening of the First missionary aspirantate in the North of India last November 2011,
the second good news is from the South of India. The provincial is sharing with the confreres:

Follow up:

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Missionary Animation has been a characteristic aspect of our Congregation from its very
beginning; commitment to the mission ad gentes is, in fact, an essential element of our charism.
The congregation is present in 132 countries, thanks to thousands of missionaries, past and
present, who have been ready to leave their shores and burn their boats.

What the congregation is today,
is due to the missionary vision of Don Bosco and the creative fidelity of Don Rua.
The salesian vocation places us at the heart of the Church.
From the beginning, Don Bosco wanted us to be deeply committed to the missions ad gentes
and has passed on to the whole Salesian Family the missionary ideal
as a constituent element of his spiritual and apostolic patrimony.

In recent years, responding to the signs of the times and the needs of the Church, the
Congregation has deepened the missionary dimension of the charism and has been very incisive in
its directives in meeting the new appeals and urgent needs of the missions ad gentes. This
missionary concern has aroused among the confreres a vast movement of generosity, capable of
opening up new frontiers, founding communities of the faithful and making the Salesian charism
present in every culture.

In keeping with the missionary spirit of the congregation and taking seriously the need to foster
more missionary vocations inter gentes (within India) and ad gentes (for the world mission - ad extra / abroad), in keeping with the deliberation of the Provincial Chapter 2010,
and taking inspiration from the Missionary Aspirantate in Sirajuli, in the province of Guwahati,
a new Missionary Aspirantate will be started at Chennai - Don Bosco, Perambur.

The Aspirantate will function especially for the South Indian Provinces
(Chennai, Bangalore, Tiruchy, Hyderabad, Panjim).
Further details are being worked out.
Your reflections and observations in this regard
will help this new important venture.

Fr. Raphael Jayapalan - provincial of Chennai
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During this Novena of Don Bosco Feast Day 2012,
I'm entrusting this second missionary aspirantate of India
to the protection of Mary, first disciple and missionary of Jesus.