Sihanoukville -- DBSC -- The Don Bosco Casket, a wax representation of the body of Saint John Bosco with his right hand inside a glass urn, will visit Cambodia between December 1 and 4 and it is the main motive for a big gathering of students, teachers and past pupils in the campus of the Don Bosco Technical School in Sihanoukville. But the coming to Cambodia of the Don Bosco relic is not an isolated event. It is within a long journey through most of the countries where the educational Salesian works of Don Bosco are active in the five continents. The pilgrimage of the urn containing the relic of the founder of a big educational network to the benefit of underprivileged youth on December 18, 1859, began the journey on July 2009 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the educational community of the Salesians and to prepare the 200th anniversary of the birth of Don Bosco (1815 - 2015). The Don Bosco Casket visited the countries of the Americas where the urn was welcomed even by officials, religious authorities and thousands of young people and former students. The urn returns temporary to Italy to prepare the journey to the other side of the planet, crossing Europe, Siberia, Mongolia and China to land in South Korea on November 1. On November 17 will leave to Thailand, November 1 to Cambodia and November 4 to the Philippines. The Royal Government of Cambodia accepted the visit of the symbolical urn to the Kingdom. It becomes a reason to meet all the persons that in Cambodia have received the benefits of the education that was made to promote the living and development of the Cambodians since the 1980s in the refugee camps, when Cambodia was enduring the troublesome times of war. The relic of the saint will enter by the Poipet-Aranyaprathet International Gate, just through the same region where the Cambodian refugee camps saw the foundation of the first technical schools and literacy centers for children and youth that were displaced by the Cambodian conflict in the 1980s. Currently, there is a Don Bosco Children Center in Poipet. The same day, the Casket, that is transported in a special Italian car that has come by the roads of three continents, will continue to Battambang where the urn will stop for a couple of hours in Andaung Chen to receive honors from the schools communities and Bishop Enrique Figaredo. Finally, the rally will continue to Phnom Penh and stays there until December 4, when the urn will go by plane to Manila.
Meaning of the event
The wax representation of the body of Saint John Bosco, a Catholic Italian priest who dedicated his life and mission to educate marginalized youth during the Turin industrial revolution, keeps the features of his body as it was when he died on January 31, 1888. Since then, his educational ideal of salvation of the youth through a visionary method of prevention, has been founded in 131 nations of the five continents, gathering millions of youth from different races, languages and religions during 150 years of action. Although Don Bosco is a Catholic saint, his contribution to humanism has been admired by persons and institutions from the most different perspectives. Urbano Ratazzi, a prominent socialist political leader during the troublesome Unification of Italy and an opponent of the Catholic Church during the time, said about Don Bosco in 1867: 'For me, Don Bosco is maybe the biggest miracle of our century.' (ref. 'Sanctity in the Salesian Family, p.22.)
A modern comparison of what Don Bosco caused in his 19th century can be found perhaps in what was Mother Theresa of Calcutta for the 20th century.
A movie of Don Bosco, doubled in Khmer language, will be presented during the night of December 2 in the campus of the Don Bosco Technical School of Phnom Penh, while top personalities of the Royal Government of Cambodia will visit the place on December 3. Msgr. Olivier Schmitthaeusler, Apostolic Bishop of Phnom Penh and other Cambodian Catholic authorities will lead a religious ceremony. Top members of different religious denominations, like the Buddhist Patriarchy of Cambodia, are already invited. The Don Bosco schools in Cambodia have worked several times with pagodas, in a friendly dialog for the education of children and youth in a country where Buddhism is the major religion in the country.
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Attention: The program can be changed this month due to confirmation of top personalities.
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