Seminar on the postnovitiate for the Africa-Madagascar region,

Nairobi, 8-11 March 2019

Ivo Coelho, SDB

Why did we think of having this seminar? Fr Chavez once said to me, casually, after the last general chapter: pre-novitiate, novitiate, post-novitiate: the change in names was not casual. The Constitutions describe the postnovitiate as continuing the formation begun in the novitiate. To help make the shift – not only in name but in reality – from philosophate to postnovitiate, we thought of calling for this seminar, or for the series of regional seminars (Asia, Africa, Europe, America) on the postnovitiate phase of formation.

Why is it so important to make this shift? Because GC27 was about deepening the consecrated dimension of our vocation, and because it is probably this dimension that tends to be neglected or somehow sidelined.

• Mission – or better, mission reduced to “working for young people” – tends to take the centre stage in many of our lives, and that has consequences.

• To do youth work is not the same as to be engaged in the Salesian mission. And to be engaged in the Salesian mission is not the same as to be a Salesian consecrated person. All this needs to be clarified. These are, in a sense, theoretical issues, or theological ones. But they do affect the way we live and work.

My job here is to pull out what the Salesian magisterium say about the postnovitiate: Constitutions and Regulations; the commentary on these that is the Project of Life of the Salesians of Don Bosco; and the Formation of the Salesians of Don Bosco (2016).

Art. 114 of our Constitutions says:

The first profession is followed by a period of religious maturing which continues the formative experience of the novitiate and serves as a preparation for the practical training phase.

The deepening of the life of faith and of the spirit of Don Bosco, together with an adequate philosophical, pedagogical and catechetical preparation that interacts with the prevailing culture, disposes the young confrere to a progressive integration of faith, culture and life.

In addition, there is art. 95 of our Regulations:

Immediately after the novitiate all confreres must continue their formation for at least a two-year period in formation communities, preferably studentates.

During this period the general philosophical and pedagogical formation is given, with an introduction to theology….

Let me just highlight three aspects: (1) the postnovitiate as continuation of the formation experience begun in the novitiate; (2) the postnovitiate as preparation for practical training; and (3) the intellectual dimension of formation in the postnovitiate.