5559(II)_Interview: Salesian Cooperators World Administrator

Ms Cinzia Arena shares Salesian vocation & mission

January 26, 2021

By ASC - World Council
Interview with the World Administrator
Ms Cinzia Arena, ASC

World, 25 January 2021 -- The Association of Salesian Cooperators from the early days (approval by Pope Pius IX on 9 May 1876) with thousands of active members has contributed much to the Salesian mission in many countries. But today maybe not everyone is aware of the solidarity that contributes to the opening of many Salesian houses around the world through their generosity. Today we listen to the World Administrator of ASC, Ms. Cinzia Arena, an Italian Salesian Cooperator also deeply involved in the 'Economy of Francis' at the Italian level. The full text of this interview is available on the Boscolink website.

Who is Ms Cinzia Arena? Born in Naples in 1971, she has lived in Piedmont Matese since 1987. Married but (unfortunately) not a mother. She has a degree in Economics and Commerce and a diploma from the Conservatory in transverse flute. She works as a freelance professional in the Third Sector for non-profit associations that look after marginalised young people, disabled children and women who are victims of violence. She is also a consultant for the drafting and management of social and youth policy projects on behalf of public bodies and, in the vocational training sector, for bodies accredited by the Campania Region.

What is your vocation story as Salesian Cooperator?

I have been a Salesian Cooperator since 6 May 2000... As a young adult I was fascinated by the joy that transpired on the faces of the youth in the parish choir, it was the smile of Don Bosco! That's how Don Bosco won me over: with joy! When joining the parish choir I met also Tito (my future husband), I was enchanted by his gentleness and I thought: "Cinzia, today the Lord is not only introducing you to your new friends but also to your future husband". And so it was! ... I have grown in my charism thanks to Tito, who then really became my husband, thanks to my friends in the Oratory and to many consecrated Salesians who passed on to me their passion for young people.

Don Bosco has a disruptive personality that leaves no room for anything else: either you belong to him or you don't, and if you decide to belong to him he pervades your whole life inside and outside the Oratory! I perceived the importance of my vocation especially in 2010, when the then SDB provincial asked me, my husband and other Salesian Cooperators to run the Salesian Oratory. It meant to continue the work that the consecrated Salesians had begun a long time ago. Twenty-three of us said 'here I am', and since then I have been renewing my yes to Don Bosco every day: as vice-coordinator of the ASC local council of the Piedmont Matese local centre, then as administrator in the Campania Basilicata provincial council, and since 2016 as worldwide administrator of the Association.

What makes you happy as Salesian Cooperator in your life and vocation?

I am immensely grateful to God for having granted me the Grace to get to know Don Bosco and to be able to follow him as a Salesian Cooperator; I am happy with the gift of this vocation because it allows me to witness to Christ with the Salesian style, which has become my way of life. Being a Salesian Cooperator gives me the opportunity to look at the world with Don Bosco's gaze, to penetrate the bowels of humanity to inject optimism where darkness lies, to make myself close to young people, in whom I believe unconditionally, to guide them towards the only eternal good we have: the soul!

What makes you happy as a World Administrator of the ASC?

Becoming a world administrator is a unique experience that I am living through the Grace of God. When the proposal was made to me by the world coordinator Noemi Bertola, a volcano was ignited in my soul, a magma made up of enthusiasm and fear of not being up to it. At the time of the election, which took place in February 2016, the sense of responsibility was paralysing me, the fear of making a mistake was getting the upper hand, so Don Bosco, who speaks to me through the people he places beside me, intervened by making me casually find this phrase on Carolina Boccia's Facebook profile: "God does not choose the most capable, but makes capable those who choose"! My mind and heart opened up, the fear did not go away but I understood that my mission now was to serve the association by donating my professional experience as an economist and planner in the third sector. The thing that makes me happy is being able to offer a different point of view, not thinking of the economy as that brutal and greedy phenomenon that can make even talking about it uncomfortable, but becoming aware that the economy serves the well-being of society. If anything, what needs to be fought is speculative finance, that which takes advantage of misfortune, that which accumulates for itself, that which enriches itself on the poverty of others!

What is your dream for the Animation of Economic Solidarity (AES)?

My service to the Association consists above all in raising awareness among all Salesian Cooperators throughout the world about a new understanding of the economy.

In my meetings with Salesian Cooperators I repeat some basic principles that for me come to life from an expression Don Bosco said to Michele Rua, the first bursar of the Congregation,

“... I fear that if we are so strapped for cash it is because we want to make too many calculations.

When man enters into these things, God withdraws" ("Vita di Michele Rua", First Successor of Don Bosco).

From this it follows that in order to be able to speak correctly about economic solidarity we need to read it through God's eyes by inserting a new "accounting" principle, that of entrusting oneself to Him!

With this key to interpretation we discover that the first entry of every account will always be "Providence" and the first outflow will always be "Mercy", otherwise we fall into the error of "wanting to do too many calculations" and as Don Bosco teaches us, "when man enters into these things, God withdraws". All this stems from the fact that the Association of Salesian Cooperators was born for the salvation of our souls and of the young people who walk alongside us.

Salesian Cooperators are, in fact, bearers of a charism that is much more than being bearers of social and human values; therefore economic solidarity must be a means through which to express the Salesian charism, in the knowledge that all of us, Salesian Cooperators, have chosen Christ, but in the style of Don Bosco.

The economy we deal with is not, therefore, our end but our instrument; our end is mutual aid as a response to concrete needs, with the final objective of saving the soul! It follows that we place the word "solidarity" alongside the word "economy", as we speak of economy at the service of the charism and the mission, through concrete projects for the benefit of the young people most in need, where the Salesian Cooperators operate. My dream is that this approach will be clear to every Salesian Cooperator of today and tomorrow, because only in this way will all contribute with joy to the economic maintenance of the Association, in the perspective of co-responsibility, becoming its most assiduous benefactors to guarantee its autonomy and growth.