What have we done together?

I began by saying that we are looking for the courage to lead…..and that our Congregation has offered institutional help in this instance through a gathering of Rectors, which will help us to take heart, but that ultimately we need to go inside to find the courage to lead. I immediately connected with our Salesian language, the language of heart, of assistance, which I suggested has as much to do with a way of spiritual accompaniment that is truly Salesian as it has to do with a technique of presence. And I offered the image of landscape as a fresh way to look at the inner life.

We established reference points – ourselves and where we are in life and task at the moment, our charismatic past as expressed in MO, and our charismatic present as expressed in GC25. These three points allow us to triangulate – the practical exercise of triangulation was to be the personal rule of life of each rector.

We spent some time with MO, assuming that for many it was really the first time to become partly familiar with it in English. I offered you some ways to interpret it. It is a story but it has a hidden agenda – the spiritual formation of our Founder and our own spiritual formation as Oratorian pastors like him. The inner landscape of MO is a rich one. Its key message is revealed in concepts like conversion, confidence in God and ‘ritiratezza’. We discovered that we could dramatize it effectively too.

Knowing that MO presents a rosy picture, even with its dramatic moments of difficulty, we also looked at life in the Oratory 40 years later – the same Don Bosco concerned that the very principles he had narrated in MO were now on the wane, as if his very own beloved sons had not read it well or not noticed what he believed was essential to ensure the greater glory of God and the Salvation of souls.

In the meantime, you met in groups and worked away steadily in personal moments. That too had its possibilities if people especially felt confident and safe enough to be able to raise and explore difficult issues.

In addition to that agenda of the MO, the spiritual mission of the Rector, you had to suffer the speaker’s personal interests and hobbies – his interest in language and especially the language of the Congregation. You were inflicted with concept maps and structured narrative outlines. You could be forgiven for thinking that the speaker at times is slightly mad or obsessed. But I hope in your charity that you can also say that he loves the Congregation and Don Bosco and sees language as an important element in being faithful.

And finally, we spent a morning focusing on thinking outside the box – looking at possible new questions, new actions, new approaches.

Everyone here has been to many conferences and talkfests. As someone said last night, 12 days seems a long time to be together for this sort of thing and you are only half way through. It’s hard to quantify what exactly one is supposed to get out of a set of talks and group gatherings of the kind we have had this week. My own rule of thumb for conferences is a simple one – if I go away having picked up one completely new, fresh and useful idea, then it was worthwhile. If not, it was a complete waste of time!

You might have wondered at different points along the way that there was very little reference to Scripture. I intend to redress that lack in the few minutes that remain to me.