#587.
Sorry for the brief delay - there were many
pressings things happening on the home scene that slowed the act of translation
down.
THE FIRST GOODNIGHT FROM THE RECTOR MAJOR, FR.
PASCUAL CHAVEZ
I hope the fact that we are in the Easter season
did not influence my nomination, given that my name occurs often during this
liturgical time (paschal candle, paschal time); it could have been seen as a
subliminal message!
1. THANKS
Well then, I'll start by expressing my warmest
thanks, firstly to the Lord God whose desire it has been to give to the
congregation and to the Salesian Family a new pastor in Don Bosco's
footsteps. Thank you to Fr. Luc Van Looy
who for almost two years, since Fr. Vecchi's illness began, has guided the
congregation with true dedication and love. Thank you to Fr. Anthony
McSweeny, who has accompanied the process of discernment so widely and with such
love for the Salesians. I must say that the fact that the number of
preferences in the first 'sondaggio' was not made public in the Assembly allowed
me to sleep well to the point where right now I am much more at ease than I was
yesterday.
2. A SURPRISE
Of course, this nomination is a surprise for me and
I accept it as an expression of the will of God, as I said when I was asked if I
would accept. Nevertheless, that acceptance expresses my inadequacy to
undertake the grand task and honour of being the successor of Don Bosco.
It states the loving will of God that urges me further in the service of the
confreres and the young, with Him as the one and only Lord of my
life.
3. THE PROFILE
Reading through the list many times of the
qualities required of the Rector Major's role which were given to the Assembly,
I must confess that I didn't see myself in them and I didn't feel that I was the
right person, and so I was sure another would have been elected. I say
that sincerely. Now I understand that through this profile you have set
out not only your expectations of the Rector Major, but also his personal life
programme. Thank you very much. That too is a gift from
God.
4. PROGRAMME FOR THE NEXT SIX
YEARS.
The description of the problems which you presented
in your questions to the Rector Major's vicar after his 'state of the
congregation' report 1996-2002 completes the overview of the situation (as
described by Fr. Luc Van Looy in that report). Together with the priorities
indicated and at the conclusion of GC25, it will become part of the planning of
the Rector Major and his Council for the next six years.
5. A FAST RIDE!
Perhaps you will ask me how it is I have arrived at
this particular responsibility. In my opinion it's been an especially
short, fast ride! In 1995, at the end of my mandate as Provincial of
Mexico-Guadalajara, I was called by Don Vigano who sent me to finish off my
formative journey with a doctorate in biblical theology. I remember very
well his words: "The Congregation needs this doctorate". When I asked him
what my future would be, he said "I don't know yet. You could be a
professor at the UPS, or help out in the Formation Department, or you
could,,,you could also be Provincial!" I had a year and a half to finish
it. You probably remember how I came to be called onto the General Council
six years ago. I was preaching a retreat to a group of confreres
from the Madrid province when I received a phone call from Fr. Vecchi telling me
that the Chapter Assembly had elected me as regional for the Inter-America
region - and asking me for an answer. It was the 2nd April 1995.
That means that this new nomination has come my way six years later, plus a
day! When he asked me to become provincial, Fr. Vigano invited me to allow
myself to be guided by the Holy Spirit and to put aside personal projects and
take on those that God would give me as a life plan.
Fr;. Vecchi, for his part, in his introduction to
the workings of the new General Council, invited us all to live the task as a
grace, as an opportunity to make progress on the path to holiness by letting the
light of Don Bosco, his charism, his mission as we find it in the Rule enlighten
our reality and that of others. Even if I feel that I have grown as a
Salesian over those years, I must confess that there's still a way to go, but I
depend on the Lord and His grace and also on yourselves and each member of your
province.
6. IN CONTINUITY WITH PREVIOUS RECTOR
MAJORS
I know that I am called to continue the splendid
work of animation and government carried out by Frs. Vigano and Vecchi; the
achievement of the former being his renewal of the Salesian identity according
to indications of Vatican II and his situating the congregation in harmony with
the needs of young people today. This has been a contribution that we
cannot avoid responding to adequately and making a part of who we are. It
was Fr. Vecchi's contribution to create a pastoral model in synch with society
as it is today, with its new understandings of education, evangelization and
pastoral work for young people. Above all he strove to make our work
meaningful for young people. The robust
theological formation of Fr. Vigano and his closeness to the charism of Don
Bosco flow together into an original contemporary interpretation of our founder
and father. The pedagogical competence and anthropological vision of Fr.
Vecchi have enriched the congregation giving it more certainty in what to do
today to be more truly meaningful both for communities and for
individuals.
7. MY WISH
I would like to have the theological preparation of
Don Vigano; the pedagogical and cultural sensitivity of Don Vecchi, but above
all the loving fatherliness of Don Rinaldi and the fidelity of Don Rua, of whom
Paul VI affirmed that his beatification was owed to the fact that he had made of
Don Bosco a school, and of his sanctity a model and of his Rule a spirit.
Knowing my limits and weaknesses, I invite you and through you all the confreres
of the congregation young and old, priests and brothers, sick and in the
fullness of health, together to reproduce the image of Don
Bosco.
8. A NEW PHASE
I am the first non-Italian Rector Major (Fr. Vecchi
was Argentinian but of Italian parentage). This is the most evident sign
of the multicultural nature of the congregation now spread around the
world. I take this occasion to thank all of Salesian Italy which to this
point has known how to exercise its responsibility to faithfully hand on the
charism of Don Bosco. Thank you my dear Italian Salesians here present, or
working in the various communities of the Peninsula or as missionaries around
the world. Now this historical responsibility is passed on to all of us
since all of us are called to incarnate Don Bosco. We have a need to
deepen our knowledge of Don Bosco especially because we have a need of a
charismatic identity in order not to be lost in this ocean which we have been
called to plunge ourselves into....as indicated in my predecessor's recent
Strenna. We have a need to know Don Bosco so that he becomes our mens
(our way of thinking), our point of view, our action towards the needs of
young people. I invite you to love him. He is the most beautiful
gift that God has given us: Don Bosco, a sure road to human completeness and
above all the following of Christ. This is my exhortation for you:
know him, love him, imitate him, because we are all heirs of his spirit and ours
is to spread it around.
9. MY ATTITUDE TODAY
What attitude do I have as I take up this
responsibility? That of Moses and Don Bosco. In effect, when I was
ordained priest on 8th December 1973, I took as a motto something that had
struck me while I was studying the Letter to the Hebrews: "He held to his
purpose like a man who could see the Invisible". It is the text with which
the author of the letter recovers the spiritual experience of Moses, the Easter
man. In order to make the long and perilous journey together with the
people of God whom he, as leader, was guiding out of Egypt, he had need of
courage, of 'parresia'. But this had been shown to be inadequate above all
when he knew he was being sought for killing a man, and took refuge in the
desert; it was there that his choice to renounce all his own projects
matured. So when he was called anew by God, Moses knew he had to renounce
his projects and himself and trust himself to God, to believe in Him and walk as
if he were invisible. I can assure you that I felt great emotion when I
read this same expression years later in the renewed text of the Constitutions
as referring to Don Bosco in article 21 - where the saint is presented as father
and teacher. He was a man who lived to bring about a single dream:
the salvation of the young especially those most in need and in danger. He
was a priest educator 'consecrated' totally to the mission which God had
entrusted to him. He brought all his qualities of nature and grace to bear
on this mission. His being one so unified,
the perfect incarnation of apostolic interiority, is at the root of his
marevellous courage, his fantastic creativity, his tireless capacity for work,
his rich sensitivity, his generous love.
10. ENTRUSTMENT TO THE MADONNA
I conclude by inviting you to entrust me and the
congregation to Mary. She was the precious witness left by Jesus so that
she could be our Mother and teach us to be believers and disciples of her
son. And from the time of the dream of 9 years, she was the Mother and
teacher of Don Bosco. Today she is the 'Stella Maris' (Star of the Sea)
who will guide and accompany us in our adventure of putting out into the deep as
Fr. Vecchi urged us to do in order to put the congregation and the Salesian
Family in harmony with the pastoral plan of the Church at this beginning of the
third millennium.
Thank you.
Good Night!
Rome, 3rd April 2002
Fr.
Pascual Chavez
Rector Major
