NEW YEAR PRAYER

We share with you our prayer for this year:

May God make your 2007 a happy one!

Not by shielding you from all sorrows and pain,
but by strengthening you to bear it, as it comes;

not by making your path easy,
but by making you sturdy to travel any path;

not by taking hardships from you,
but by taking fear from your heart;

not by granting you unbroken sunshine,
but by keeping your face bright, even in the shadows;

not by making your life always pleasant,
but by showing you when people
and their causes need you most,
and by making you anxious to be there to help.

God's love, peace, hope and joy to you
and your family for the year ahead.

Visit of Fr. Domingo Moraleda, Director of ICLA

For the past 10 years ICLA has served the Church of Asia and, in a special way, the Church in China. Many Chinese priests and sisters have graduated from ICLA and gone back to China. At present there are about 40 Chinese students attending ICLA courses in Manila.

The Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia (ICLA) is a center for higher ecclesiastical studies, directed by the Claretian Missionaries. ICLA offers Masteral Degree in Theology of Consecrated Life, Spirituality, Missiology and Biblical Studies.

It facilitates and promotes research, reflection and discernment on congregational charisms, essential values of consecrated life, new spiritualities, mission, initial and on-going formation processes, emerging forms of consecrated life, inculturation and interreligious dialogue.

During this visit we looked for ways to better coordinate efforts between ICLA and Claretian Publications Macau for a more efficient ministry to the Church in China.

Consolidating our presence in China

The last days of December we concluded the official incorporation of our Congregation in Macau, China. Since religious congregations cannot officially register as such, we followed the path that is allowed, incorporating it as an association. Fr. Paco Carín came from Beijing to sign the documents. It was a good occasion to evaluate with him the work of the year and to make some projections. Indeed we had many “good news” during our first year in China and surprises keep coming. We need to be ready.

A few days later, on January 6, Bishop José Lai, the Bishop of Macau came to bless our apartments – property of the Diocese – and had dinner with us. The Congregation has now finalized negotiations with the Diocese for the purchase of these three apartments. One more step to further consolidate the Claretian presence in China.

One more collaborator: Divine de Leon

Divine has been working with Claretian Communications in Manila for many years. Her talents are a plenty, especially in organizing marketing programs and her ability at the computer makes the work of preparing internet pages look easy. You can see her work at www.bible.claret.org.

She is now here for a full time commitment to our China mission. And her main work is… well, marketing and Web pages. We are now placing the accelerator on some projects that have been in the making for a long time. May we invite you to take a short tour to one of these projects? It is the Concise Bible in English and Chinese, and in English mp3. So far, only the New Testament is posted and you can find it at www.bible.claret.org/bibles (go to Concise Bible). There will be much more to come.

Chinese Pastoral Resources on the Web

With our limited access for the formation of evangelizers in China we wonder all the time how we can be more relevant…
what is possible for us to do…

One project for 2007 is to gather on a web page an easily accessible index where all available pastoral resources for China can be found. Fr. Paco Carín will be the main coordinator of this project.

Donation of Books for the National Seminary in Beijing

Four hundred titles, which are about a thousand books, are already on the way to the Beijing National Catholic Seminary.

We have selected the best English books published and distributed by Claretian Publications in the Philippines and the cargo is finally on the way to Beijing today. A number of seminarians can already read English, so this is another way to contribute for the formation of seminarians and pastoral agents.

More on PARISH LIBRARIES

You will remember that we presented this project before www.macauclaret.org/. These past days we helped two more parishes to start their parish library. Fr. Huang Yudao, the coordinator of the project, writes:

Two parishes: one is Nanguan Church in Gaoyi County, and Yifeng Church in Longyao County bought some books from Faith Press, the books of Nanguan Church cost ￥2,578.64, and Yifeng bought ￥2,450.64. We are trying to buy books from Guangqi Press and Sophia Press now.


For those interested to help, we are accepting donations for this project. We have contacted Missio München and they are accepting donations for this particular project. If you want to help this project you can do it by writing to us or by using a special Missio Bank account; here is the Bank address:

Auch Spenden sind nötig:
MISSIO - München
Konto 2144069
BLZ 75090300
Kennwort: Bibeln für China 57285