1. LETTER OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

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Look around you, and see

how the fields are ripe for harvesting¹.

1. With our gaze fixed on Christ. – 2. A missionary family. - 3. A new phase in our missionary praxis. - 4. The primacy of evangelization. - 5. A necessary and delicate task: inculturation. Deeper analysis of the mystery of Christ; an adequate understanding of the particular culture; in community; the process of inculturation; the stages. -- 6. Interreligious and ecumenical dialogue. Salesian attitudes and manner in dialogue. – 7. A watchword: consolidate. – 8. New frontiers. – 9. Together towards 2000. Conclusion.

Rome, 1 January 1998

Solemnity of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God

1. With our gaze fixed on Christ.

“Lift up your eyes and see the fields”:² this was the invitation made by Jesus to his disciples when, after his conversation with the Samaritan woman, they suggested he should take something to eat. A mysterious gaze of the Lord who saw the harvest waiting to be gathered!

We find the secret of his glance in his words: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work”.³ The Father’s will is the salvation of every human being and with Christ, the universal Saviour, this is proclaimed and extended to all nations and to every era.

While this is being done, the Father is active in humanity. He is preparing the heart of many persons and is keeping alive the expectations of peoples so that they may succeed in reading the signs of their salvation. He inspires the interventions of those who keep to his will and have the same love of Christ for mankind. And so there is much in the world that must be gathered in. Jesus affirms it of the present time: “Now is the time for harvesting”.⁴

The fact that the harvest is ready is due also to the wonderful communion which the Spirit creates between generations in the real history of salvation. “Others have laboured before you, and you have entered into the fruits of their labour”.⁵ Nothing is ever lost of the efforts of the past despite the appearance of sterility and delay.

The mission of Jesus in Samaria is like the prelude to the work of the evangelization of peoples. He suggests the spirit in which it should be carried out. To the disciples, who are unaware of God’s plan, he indicates the time when it should be given effect: now!

They must learn to see and start working without, as it seems to them, any waiting for further development. Everything is already arranged, prearranged by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They have to get on with the harvest and sow new seed: “One sows and another reaps”.⁶ Sight and trust must guide the enterprise he is will entrust to them: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole of creation”.⁷

Jesus also teaches them how to tell that the times are mature. The gift of God reaches even those who were considered outcasts and becomes in them an interior source of understanding, of love and peace; in their turn they too become announcers of Jesus through their words and witness; there is a new space within which man can meet God, over above and independently of all preceding laws of religious experience, and it is valid for all. It is the space created by God who offers it and by its sincere acceptance on the part of man: “The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… True worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth”.⁸ At the same time is declared the historical and unique character of the event which marks the manifestation of God: “Salvation is from the Jews”.⁹

I too, with the gaze suggested by the Lord to the disciples, have been able to perceive the abundance of the harvest to be gathered in at the present day, and the extent of the terrain to be sown for the future. I have caught a glimpse of the work of preparation which the Father has already done and is still doing in expectation of those he will send to work.

The time is ripe. This is evident from the heed being given by so many people to the proclamation of the Gospel, from the welcome being given to good suggestions, from the generosity of those who join us in apostolic and missionary initiatives. Fruits are being gathered everywhere, even if there are also arid and infertile spaces in line with what the Saviour had foretold.

On 28 September last in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, I presented the missionary crucifix to 33 new missionaries. It was the 127^th expedition and it recalled the first one, laden with daring and prophecy, which Don Bosco prepared and sent off on 11 November 1875. While I was carrying out the rite I thanked God for the signs of new fertility emerging in the group. The missionaries came from every continent and there were also lay people among them. In one case (a young married couple!) the missionary vocation had been joined to and integrated, as it were, with their marriage vows. Some were going to continue a work previously begun, while others were entrusted with the breaking of new ground and making new foundations: harvesting and sowing!

And I thought of the “laws” which are always verified in apostolic work: "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few”.¹⁰ It is a constant refrain in evangelization. The Father fills the world with his gifts and his invitations. Christ’s riches are immense. The workers, even if they were a hundred times as many, would always be too few for the distribution of such abundance.

The same thoughts were in my mind when I visited our former mission in China, or when I rejoiced with the confreres at the new sowing in Cambodia, when I saw the abundance of results in Southern Africa (and especially in Swaziland and Lesotho), and when I saw in my mind’s eye what would take place in other places which today are in the first phases of the work.

2. A missionary Family.

Don Bosco felt an attraction for missionary work. His desire and intention did not become immediately translated into a departure for foreign parts as would have been his own desire. The enlightened discernment of his confessor foresaw that other roads had been planned for him.

But the missionary spirit remained in him with the same intensity and inspired his vision, his thrust and his pastoral background: he was a missionary there in Turin. He began by making contact with the forgotten youngsters on the fringe of society; he pushed on to the urban frontiers of evangelization and education.

Later he realized also his missionary intentions in foreign lands in many different ways: every year from 1875 he sent off missionary expeditions, kindling in youngsters and confreres the ardent desire for the spreading of the Gospel and enthusiasm for the Christian life, dreaming day and night of new enterprises, spreading missionary sensitivity through the Bulletin, seeking resources and cultivating relationships which would help the work of the missionaries.

In this way the missionary trait became part and parcel of every Salesian, because it is rooted in the salesian spirit itself. It is not something additional in certain cases. It is like the heart of pastoral charity, the endowment which characterizes the vocation of all.

Each one, wherever he may be, considers his “highest knowledge is to know Jesus Christ, and his greatest delight is to reveal to all people the unfathomable riches of his mystery”.¹¹ He thinks therefore of those who have need of Christ’s light and grace; he is not satisfied with those who are already ‘in the fold’, but moves out to social and religious frontiers.

It was not just by chance that Paul VI called us “missionaries of the young”: catechists for some and bearers of a first proclamation of life for so many others, educators in institutes and also travellers in the vast field of youth situations not reached by such institutes.

In the same missionary expeditions Don Bosco united two directions of missionary mentality and endeavour. Don Ceria has spoken of them in the Annals: “He had very much at heart”, he wrote, “the condition of Italians who were becoming dispersed in large and ever growing numbers (…). Voluntary exiles in search of fortune, without schools for the children, and a long way from any possibility of religious practices, and who through distance or the lack of priests of their own language ran the risk of forming large blocks of populations without either faith or laws”.¹² The missionary project included also Christians who were lapsed, forgotten, abandoned and emigrants.

In recent times it became customary to speak of “mission lands”, not just as an appealing image, but in reference to contests marked by a Christian tradition. The parish has been defined as a “missionary community”, the school a “missionary setting”. Except for technical distinctions, it is evident that every one of our communities is nowadays facing a situation similar to those of first evangelization.

Since the missionary sense is not an optional trait but forms part of the salesian spirit in every time and situation, in the programming of the Rector Major and his Council we have proposed it to all the provinces as an area of special attention for the six-year period from 1996-2002.

Among the practical interventions we have indicated to make this effective we have indicated: strengthening the commitment of the Congregation to those most in need, concentrating on a more intense education of young people to the faith so as to give rise to vocations, and directing decisively the greatest possible amount of energy (personnel, projects and means) to the missions “ad gentes”.

The missionary spirit and style are eloquently marked by the availability of many confreres to work in areas of first evangelization and of foundation of the Church; but they are adopted and lived by all in the carrying out of their own mission. The will to evangelize and the ability to give transparent expression to the message of the Gospel is the point in which the two different realizations become one.

The confreres working in the front line feel themselves supported by the prayer, closeness and practical collaboration of all the others who share their same ardour and enthusiasm. This is why the Constitutions declare that we look upon missionary work as “an essential feature of our Congregation”.¹³

On our movement towards the very poor I have already had the opportunity of expressing my thoughts in the letter “He had compassion on them”,¹⁴ and this remains one of the fundamental criteria for our relocating. It is in fact the trait which marks the beginning of our charisma and reveals the impetus which moves the community of Christ’s disciples: charity.

The mission “ad gentes” is the object of the present letter. I intend to put forward some blueprints on two lines of action which seem more urgent at the present day: to strengthen our existing missionary works and to move towards new frontiers. To consolidate and advance: to give “pastoral” consistency to what we have recently begun and to push ahead to still untrodden territories and peoples not yet reached, so as to bring to all of them the light of the Gospel.

I have always in mind, and it is a basic starting point also for the indications I offer you, a particular characteristic of the missionary work of the Salesians: it is committed to first evangelization and the foundation of Churches, but from the outset it is called to enrich the Christian community with a particular charism: that of predilection for the young with special regard to the education of the poor and middle classes.

The charisma determines, without closing it off, the manner and direction of missionary work, while the latter gives vitality to the charism restoring its evangelical vigour and ecclesial sense.

I would like to stir up a renewed enthusiasm for the missions in all the Provinces and invite the confreres, of whatever age, to consider the possibility of a missionary commitment.

May the Lord grant that at the present day there may take place what happened at Valdocco when Don Bosco envisaged, prepared and sent out the first expedition and those which immediately followed it.

“Meanwhile”, say the Annals, “the words and deeds of Don Bosco with regard to the missions had created a new ferment among pupils and confreres. Vocations to the ecclesial state multiplied: there was a noticeable rise in applications to enter the Congregation, and a new apostolic fervour gripped those who were already members”.¹⁵

3. – A new phase in our missionary praxis.

Our missionary praxis of the present day is following in the wake of a tradition of enterprise, zeal, tenacity and creativity, and its results are undeniable. It would deserve a deeper study so as to understand it at greater depth and obtain greater results. It has been inserted and proved in many different cultural and geographical areas over a span of time which provides a sure guarantee of its consistency. The first missionary project for expansion in America (1875-1900), the one that led to the spreading of the Congregation in Asia (1906-1950), and the recent expansion in Africa have moulded a typical manner of missionary activity of which the characteristics are synthetically expressed in the Constitutions and Regulations.¹⁶

At the present day the praxis needs some rethinking. The reflection of Vatican II and the deeper study of theology have given new perspectives to missiology in the light of events which are marking the life of the Church and today’s world: the ecumenical movement, the reawakening and exploiting of religions, the human and social values of cultures, intercommunication at world level, the growth of the new Churches and the way they live the faith in interaction with their contexts, and the decline of ancient areas of Christianity.

Such phenomena have brought about a deeper understanding of the grace of creation and the work of the Father in the salvation of every individual, and also of the presence of the Spirit in the life of humanity.

Together with the new perspectives questions too are emerging, which we must know about and duly resolve from a doctrinal and practical standpoint. They regard the value of Christianity for the salvation of man, the implication of the universal mediation of Christ, the role of the Church and consequently the sense of evangelization itself and of its modern means.

Perspectives and questions are dealt with in the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, of which a careful study becomes therefore indispensable. On the same arguments the continental Synods, which were convoked in view of a new evangelization, are now expressing themselves with a richness of reflection and circumstantial analysis.

Indications for our missionary praxis today come also from the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, which entrusts to religious the study of certain aspects which have emerged in recent years.

Paul VI had already emphasized the participation of religious in missionary work: “They are enterprising and their apostolate is often marked by an originality, by a genius that demands admiration. They are generous: often they are found at the outposts of the mission, and they take the greatest risks for their health and their very lives”.¹⁷

John Paul II had pointed out in Redemptoris Missio: “History witnesses to the outstanding service rendered by religious families in the spread of the faith and the formation of new churches: from the ancient monastic institutions, to the medieval Orders, up to the more recent congregations”¹⁸.

In more direct terms, Vita Consecrata considers the “mission ad gentes” a dimension of all charisms because it is included in the total donation presupposed by consecration. Their mission, says the document, is expressed not only through the works proper to the charism of each Institute, but especially through participation in the great ecclesial work of the mission ad gentes.¹⁹

The Church awaits from consecrated persons at the present day “the greatest possible contribution”²⁰ and entrusts to them the specific task of proclaiming Christ to all peoples with new enthusiasm.

In addition to the quantitative contribution, realized in the past, verifiable in the present and hoped for in the future, the Apostolic Exhortation emphasizes certain present aspects of missionary activity for which religious appear to be particularly talented.

It attributes to consecrated persons a particular capacity for inculturating the Gospel and the charism in the different peoples. “Supported by the charism of their founders and foundresses, many consecrated persons have been able to approach cultures other than their own with the attitude of Jesus, who ‘emptied himself, taking the form of a servant’ (Phil 2:7). With patient and courageous efforts to initiate dialogue, they have been successful in establishing contact with the most diverse peoples, proclaiming to all of them the way of salvation”.²¹ Much is therefore expected of them in the way of effort and direction of inculturation.

Something similar is said with respect to religious dialogue. Since the life of consecrated persons is centered on experience of God, they have a particular disposition for entering into dialogue with other equally sincere experiences present in different religions.²²

To the new implications acquired by religious life there corresponds, on the other hand, the new impulse given to the lay condition. If the new Churches must manifest from their beginnings the holiness and newness of life of the people of God, the Christian formation of believers becomes a prime necessity. The laity, on the other hand, are called to develop their ability for active participation in the community and for service to the world. The new dimension of the laity modifies the very image of the Christian community and its way of functioning. Lay people, says the Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, “are to be helped to become increasingly aware of their role in the Church, (…) Consequently they are to be trained for their mission”.²³

In this frame of reference the efforts and competence of consecrated persons and of priests are arranged differently.

In the light of these incentives let us now focus on some questions, taking for granted the normal salesian praxis.

4. The primacy of evangelization.

Evangelization implies a plurality of aspects: presence, witness, preaching, appeal to personal conversion, formation of the Church, catechesis; and in addition: inculturation, interreligious dialogue, education, preferential option for the poor, human advancement, and transformation of society. Its complexity and articulation has been emphasized and presented in authoritative form by Evangelii Nuntiandi.²⁴

But there is a principal nucleus, without which evangelization is not evangelization at all, something which gives sense and shape to the whole, and even dictates the criteria and manner according to which the rest is carried out: it is the proclamation of Christ, the first announcement which presents Jesus Christ to those who do not yet know him, and the subsequent process by which his mystery is more fully explained, even to prompting others to the apostolate.

The Synod of the African Church says in this connection: “to evangelize is to proclaim by word and witness of life the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified, died and risen, the Way, the Truth and the Life”.²⁵ To proclaim the Good News is to invite every person and every society to a personal and communal encounter with the living person of Jesus Christ.²⁶

In what way are the aspects set out above to be considered or result, in reality, complementary and convergent towards a single goal which is precisely the ever deeper knowledge of Christ, adherence to his person in faith and sharing in his life? It is a question which must be solved not only doctrinally by the missionary communities, but also in the daily plan of activity.

In missionary praxis, in fact, there can be lack of balance, through choice, through limited vision or ability, or through lack of attention. To foresee such things we must establish priorities and yardsticks. One of these is a proper relationship between the explicit proclamation of Christ in its different forms (the first proclamation, catechesis, care of the community of the believers, the Christian formation of individuals), and human advancement. The Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi has presented very clearly the deep linkages and distinction between these; it has also offered enlightening principles for understanding the import and deep sense of liberation as announced and realized by Jesus Christ and as practised by the Church.²⁷

Salesian spirit and tradition emphasize the harmony and mutual relationship between these dimensions of evangelization; at the same time they make quite clear the order of significance. The clearest formulation we find in our Constitutions: “We educate and evangelize according to a plan for the total well-being of man directed to Christ, the perfect Man”;²⁸ “For us too evangelizing and catechizing are the fundamental characteristics of our mission”.²⁹ From it, and from him who is its object, our commitment for man draws its significance.

We must therefore give priority to evangelization in its various forms: in our preparation, in our dedication, and in our use of time, personnel and resources.

The ideal of a missionary situation is that envisaged by the practical guidelines of the SGC when it asked that the Province should become “communities at the service of evangelization”,³⁰ that every salesian community should become an “evangelizing community”,³¹ and that every Salesian be an “evangelizer”.³²

The ecclesial trend, in the time of new evangelization, leads us more than ever before to concentrate our gaze and hope on Christ. Knowing and welcoming him transforms the person and saves him, without ignoring or neglecting his temporal conditions but transcending them. To offer such an announcement of salvation is the specific task of the Church’s mission.

Within this there is another balance to be established: that between the first announcement and attention to the growth in faith of individuals and Christian communities through efforts at diffusion and consolidation. The latter includes the education of young people in the faith, the formation of adults in line with their different situations, the preparation of workers and ministers, the unity and witness of Christian communities, and apostolic commitment on the part of believers.

The two aspects must be suitably satisfied: extending the proclamation and giving consistency to the community. This is the task of the Provinces, of the individual communities and of each person, who must become capable of taking the process of evangelization to itsoptimum levels.

Finally there is the opportune proportion between means and declaration, between structures and presence among the people, between organization of works and direct communication, between service and insertion. Means, structures and organization are functional for proclamation, presence and communication. And they should be proportional to them and corresponding in style. When means and structures are too great and cumbersome, or when in order to create and maintain them we have to put excessive limits on our meditation of the Word to be proclaimed, on direct communication, on dedication to preaching and the formation of individuals, then we need to rethink them in the light of a project better centered on what is essential.

5. A necessary and delicate task: inculturation.

This is a theme which nowadays is frequently the focus of attention and is more deeply analyzed. It is presented in organic form in various ecclesial documents. The continental Synods have considered it at length. The preparatory texts, discussions and the Exhortations which have followed, have spoken clearly of it emphasizing its urgency, expounding its theological foundations, indicating criteria and ways for its realization and singling out preferential fields for its application.³³

Our typical synthesis between education and evangelization makes us particularly sensitive to inculturation; this why we Salesians have given attention to the point. Fr Egidio Viganò dealt with it in various letters.³⁴ The GC24 referred to it as a need and process to be able to educate and bring about participation in the salesian spirituality and mission.³⁵

The risk for practical workers like ourselves is that in all the enlightenment, which is necessary but also articulated and applicable in various directions, we do not find any common lines of realization, and in consequence we do not make the required effort or we get lost in small personal experiences not always properly assessed. It will be well therefore to recall some practical guidelines.