CRITERIA FOR DISCERNMENT
OF THE SALESIAN MISSIONARY VOCATION “AD GENTES, AD EXTEROS, AD VITAM”
General Criteria for Vocational Discernment – for the confrere and for the
Rector and his Council
Three essential aspects : (1) right intention, (2) lfree decision,
(3) necessary qualities.
The necessary qualities are:
♦ Good health;
♦ Human maturity; sense of responsibility; relational capacity ;
♦ personalità robustaRobust personality; psychological balance; perse-
verance in difficulties ;
♦ Patience, understanding, humility, capacity to appreciate authentic
values in other cultures and religions and to adapt oneself in chang-
ing situations ;
♦ Supernatural spirit, so as not to reduce mission to something merely philanthropic or social activity ;
♦ Spirit of faith; rootedness in Christ through personal and community prayer life, centred on the Eucharist,
regularity in the reception of the sacraments ;
♦ Salesian life lived with missionary zeal shown by his ardour in making Jesus known, especially to poor
and marginalised youth ;
♦ Profound love for the Church and the Congregation ;
♦ Spirit of sacrifice; generosity; being contentment with the conditions in he finds him-
self ;
♦ Fortitude in enduring fatigue and fruitlessness of one’s own effort ;
♦ Flexibility and ability to adapt oneself and to love life in an intercultural community ;
♦ Capacity to learn a new language;
♦ Capacity to live in community and to work as a team with the members of the community, lay mission
partners, the young ;
♦ Communion with and obedience to the local bishop in overall pastoral activity.
Counter indications of the missionary vocation
♦ The search for adventure and simple desire to change the place where one works;
♦ Urged on by a third person: parents, confreres, friends;
♦ Escape from one’s own relational, personal, vocational problems;
♦ Inability to integrate into the life and apostolate of the community. If such a confrere is sent to the missions,
he will be exposed to a more demanding environment (due to language, culture, and other factors) and will only
worsen, rather than improve, his situation.
[The Missionary Formation of the Salesians of Don Bosco, p 27-29]
Witness of Salesian Missionary Sanctity
Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni SDB, General Postulator for the Causes of Saints
At the battle front, the Servant of God Msgr. Stephen Ferrando (1885-1978), missionary in
India, bishop and founder of the Missionary Sisters of Mary Help of Christians, writes to his Pro-
vincial: “Its just a few minutes to midnight, before Christmas! I kept watch; how can you sleep
tonight? ... Soon Jesus will be born. He could have been born in a palace on a throne, yet he
preferred the crib of Bethlehem. He will not disdain, therefore, even this poor tent. What shall
I say to the child? He will see everything and in the midst of endless miseries he will find at
least a sincere heart, wishing never to abandon him. I will ask him to give me the strength to
win the latest struggles and battles”.
Salesian Missionary Intention
For the consolidation of the Family Ministry in the Mediterranean Region
That Salesians strengthen family ministry in close collaboration
with youth ministry.
Today “The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social
bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because
the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our
differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith
to their children” (Evangelii Gaudium 66). The family, the heart and cradle of all life, must be
in our prayers because it is increasingly within our pastoral initiatives.
