HARAMBEE 2005: Sent as a Missionary Family

My Dear Brothers and Sisters, Friends of Don Bosco, Young People,

Here we are once again gathered together on the occasion of the new missionary departure ceremony, to celebrate Harambeé 2005, which this year has as its the Slogan “Sent as a Missionary Family.” The organisers, in planning their missionary promotion have taken as their starting point the Strenna for next year 2006.

First of all I want you to think about this place that welcomes us, that is the Colle, the cradle which saw the birth of our dear father Don Bosco and also his “dream,” which is God’s dream, Who wants all men and women to be saved and to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This therefore is our dream, since we are the spiritual and apostolic Family of Don Bosco.

The celebration of the Harambeé at the Colle should help us to renew our commitment as a Missionary Family, to bring to reality God’s dream and Don Bosco’s dreams whcih he had here in this field close to his home, and which contain his whole vocation and mission on behalf of the young but in particular that of 1881, from Valparaiso, in Chile, to Pekin, in China, and which lets us see his missionary spirit.

May the Lord continue to seek out and to call ready collaborators for his marvellous plan for the salvation of the whole human race. I pray that the Eucharist we shall shortly celebrate for the 130th Salesian missionary departure ceremony will be the spark to release all the pent up spiritual energy and generosity in all your hearts.

From Harambeé 2004 to Harambeé 2005

But what has happened since last year when we were also here in this place?

There can be no doubt that at world level and in the life of the Church this has been a year full of extraordinary events that have filled the Media. I’ll recall some of them by way of example:

1) The “tsunami”

I think that no one who saw the distressing scenes of nature unleashed after the earth quake that struck Indonesia, the tidal wave (“tsunami”) that brought with it devastation, thousands of deaths, suffering and desperation in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the south east coast of India), will ever forget the images as though from Dante’s Inferno. And this the day after Christmas!

Thanks be to God, after this natural tsunami there followed a human tsunami of sympathy, compassion, solidarity and efforts to bring hope and to build a future for the victims of this enormous tragedy.

I take this opportunity to express my thanks for the imvolvement of the whole Salesian Family which was seen in all sorts of ways responding to the needs of the people and which we can still see committed to the large recontruction project.

2) The illness, death and funeral of John Paul II

I am convinced that no one would ever have imagined the reaction that was produced in world public opinion by the final moments of the life of Pope John Paul II, as was demonstrated by the endless flow of millions of people to St Peter’s Square, the presence of Heads of State and religious leaders at his funeral and the totally unexpected response of television to an event of this kind.

He leaves us a spiritual testament – his consistent defence of Man, who only finds his full meaning and reaches his true destiny in Christ, true God and true Man – and a pastoral testament, that truly magnificent “navigation chart” for the Church at the dawn of the XXI century, Novo Millennio Ineunte.

In the statment I wrote the day before his death I said:

Even though I find it difficult in a few words to describe an exceptional figure such as his, nevertheless I shall try to offer my own personal testimony of the Pope as I knew him.

1. John Paul II was an extraordinary man, because of his exceptional appreciation of the human being, of his dignity and of his rights. It is enough to think of the way he has fought for the main world issues, for the recognition that “nothing that is truly human is outside his concern.”

2. John Paul II was a charismatic figure, able to draw millions of people to him on account of his genuineness, his courage, his consistency. It is not surprising that right until the most recent polls concerning the credibility of world leaders he continued to lead the way.

3. John Paul II was a convinced Christian who from his youth had been able to form his extraordinary personality by finding inspiration and strength in the Lord Jesus and in His Gospel. His life, but also his “zeal” are a faithful reflection of the Lord Jesus to whom he consecrated his life, following in His footsteps and modelling himself on Him throughout his whole life.

4. John Paul II was a citizen of the world, who committed himself without self interest to the great issues that face humanity, which in his last speech to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See he summed up in four words: life, food, peace and freedom. From this point of view he was sometimes seen even as a great statesman.

5. John Paul II was a Pope who for over 26 years guided the Church at this phase of history, at the end of the second millennium and the beginning of the third, one characterised by the struggle against communism, against every kind of violence, of suppression and injustice, against the current unfettered neoliberism, and not least against terrorism, with firmness, with boldness, with ‘parresia’, with faith.

6. John Paul II was an extraordinary communicator, who made use of the media to reach the greatest number of people and to proclaim the “good news” everywhere.

7. John Paul II was a Successor of Peter, who knew how to preserve “the deposit of faith,” at a time of great relativism and confusion, without giving way to pressures or to compromises.

8. John Paul II was a good shepherd, who as a pilgrim travelled to the furthest ends of the world, announcing Jesus Christ with freedom and joy, always sustaining his steps with his shepherd’s staff and fixing his eyes on the cross.

With Paul, he could make his own the Apostle’s words:

«I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that Day; and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. » (2Tim 4,7-8).

We Salesians and members of the Salesian Family, who have pledged ourselves to make the face of the Church the Mother of our faith youthful again, can say that John Paul II has gone before us and has left us an example to follow. In fact he loved the Church as she ought to be loved expending all his strength for her. He has made the Church youthful again because he believed in the young, he gathered them together from all the countries of the world, he knew how to speak to them about Jesus, and he set them hihh goals to reach. He invited them not to be mediocre, not to follow the trend, not to become mere consumers or spectators but to be “the heralds of the morning” and to be “the saints of the third millennium.”

I take this opportunity to acknowledge publicly gratitude in my own name, in that of the General Council, of the Society of St Francis of Sales and of all the Salesian Family for the great love with which he has always honoured us.

May his call «Salesians, be saints », addressed to us during the 25th General Chapter continue to be a programme for all of us!

Dear Pope Woyti³a, a thank you from the bottom of our hearts for what you have given us: an example as a man, a believer, a pastor; and for what you have been: a loving and faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus and a constant and generous son of the Church.

3) The Conclave, the election and the inauguration of the pontificate of Benedict XVI

I had the good fortune to take part in the inaugural Mass for the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, and also once again I was able to be a witness to an incomparable experience of the Church and of the role she is being called to play in the world of today.

Well, in his homily – setting put a programme, even though he said himself that he did not have a programme and only wanted to listen to God and do His will –, explaining the two symbols the Pope is given as a sign of his ministry (the pallium and the ring), Benedict XVI invited us to share in his role as “pastor” making our own the “holy zeal of Christ… for him it is not a matter of indifference that many people are living in the desert.” Then he expanded on this word when he mentioned the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love, the desert of God’s darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. “The Church as a whole and all her Pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.” Like Don Bosco, let us the members of the Salesian Family renew our vocation in the Church as “pastors of youth” with the mission of leading them to Christ, the only One who does not disappoint their deepest expectations and satisfies their hunger and thirst for life, happiness and love.

Today gathered in this Harambeé, let us listen to the appeal of the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, who asked us not to leave him alone in carrying out the Petrine ministry that has been entrusted to him. We shall be close to him with our sincere heartfelt affection, as would Don Bosco, and we shall collaborate with him in his pastoral mission to “ put out into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the Gospel,” bringing them “out of the sea that is salted with so many forms of alienation and onto the land of life, into the light of God.” This dear brothers and sisters young people is our task as a Missionary Family.

4) The World Youth Day in Cologne

Also in Cologne the huge spectacle of almost a million young people from all parts of the world, and who had responded with joy and generosity to the last summons of Pope Woyti³a and repeated by his successor, was another fresh manifestation of the generosity, faith and commitment of young people, who are not content to be consumers or mere spectators in a swiftly and profoundly changing world, but want to be protagonists and agents of change.

The image of the Magi, a natural one given that Cologne Cathedral has the privilege of safeguarding their precious relics, recalls the journey of faith that we are all called to make following the example of the Magi of old who are offered to us as a “guiding star” in modern man’s journey along the ways of God, and especially as a model for the young people gathered in Cologne to adore the Lord Who never ceases to show the mystery of His love in the Eucharist.

5) The Year of the Eucharist

The celebration of the WYD in Cologne coincided with the final Phase of th Year of the Eucharist called for by John Paul II. The specific theme of the Day since it was first introduced, was intended to mark the Euchaistic dimension of the world gathering of young people as well as the links with the religious and cultural history of Cologne. «We have come to adore Him.»

Basing himself on the experience of the Magi on their way to Christ, and the example of the great saints, the Pontiff offered the young people gathered in Cologne a series of meditations rich in theological doctrine and full of spirituality aimed always at opening hearts and minds, the intelligence and will in the search for the Absolute Who is God, at the adoration and praise of His infinite love, given in Jesus Christ and present in the Eucharist, the source of Christian joy, a joy to be transmitted to the modern world. The final message that Benedict XVI entrusted to the young people in Cologne in his homily at the concluding celebration used the image of «nuclear fission»: the Eucharist, through the power of the infinte love of God, performs such a “fission” in the innermost hidden part of man, in his heart, in such a way that every human being may have the good fortune – like the Magi of old - of meeting Christ and his gospel and of returning home per another way (cfr. Mt 2,10), in other words transformed in his heart and in his life, filled with “the great joy” (Mt 2,10) of having seen the “star,” Christ Jesus the light of the world.

This then, my dear friends, is the hearfelt appeal to be men and women of the Eucharist. And I remind you of what is the essential aspect of a eucharistic heart:

- the conviction that if God has loved us to the point of giving us His own Son, then we ought to love each other in the same way;

- the conviction therefore that we are alive in order to give of ourselves, to be ready to break ouselves for others;

- the conviction that only through the total giving of ourselves to others will we learn to grow in Christ;

- the conviction that only through giving ourselves in following Jesus will we be able to build the Church;

- the conviction that we live for one single purpose, for our fulness in Christ, so as to reach His stature;

- the conviction that every deed, every thought and word ought to be inspired by this totally free giving.

6) Strenna 2005: Make the face of the Church youthful

And as they say in English, last but not least, this year has been marked by the spiritual and pastoral programme that I offered to the whole Salesian Family: make the face of the Church youthful celebrating in this way the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, an event that cannot be passed over in silence since for us it represents the model of the Church that we are called to be and to make grow.

I imagine you have noticed how many Congresses, Symposia, Meetings and Conferences have been organised around the world to celebrate this Pentecost of the Church, through which God wanted to renew her, rejuvenate her, make her the Sacrament of salvation, the People of God, the Light of the Gentiles.

I am happy to see the splendid welcome given to the Strenna and the initiatives that have come from it so that our communities and works might become more evidently at the service of witness, of evangelisation, of the liturgy, and of communion.

Even though I have already published the theme for the Strenna for 2006 (ensuring that special attention be given to the family, the cradle of life and love and where one first learns how to become human), the one for 2005 continues to be valid. In this regard, it is interesting to see how this theme of “making the Church youthful again” has been mentioned once or twice by Benedict XVI.

I conclude inviting you to become ever more a missionary family. This is a special feature of the Family of Don Bosco, of the Salesian charism.

Never give in to the temptation to think that what you do or where you are are unimportant. Everything that you do for the Lord is great, and there are no unimportant places as can be seen from Bethlehem, Colle, or Calcutta.

While we look with gratitude at the marvellous development of the Salesian charism, today present in all the continents, in 130 countries in the world, and we give thanks to God and to our missionaries, we take up the challenges that we still face:

- the gospel is still unknown to the vast majority of the peoples of Asia;

- where the gospel has been preached and peoples have been baptised, a life really inspired by Christ and the values of the gospel is still some way off: people are baptised but not evangelised;

- in many parts of the western world we are experiencing a secularisation that is presenting a view of man without God, and countries returning to a kind of neo-paganism that makes them mission lands;

- and in spite of economic progress, there are hundreds of millions of men and women living in extreme poverty, lives of basic survival, requiring of us a response of solidarity, full of compassion.

Let us therefore renew our missionary awareness, living, celebrating and proclaiming our faith as an essential part of our Christian vocation in those places where we are living and working, and also making ourselves available for the “missio ad gentes”.

Fr Pascual Chávez V.

Colle Don Bosco – 25 September 2005