VOCATIONAL ANIMATION IN THE POST-CONCILIAR DOCUMENTS OF THE SALESIAN CONGREGATION

Article for volume commemorating the Centenary of Salesian Presence in North East India (1922-2022)

Ivo Coelho, SDB

“I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.”¹ These words of Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium have become rightly famous. Mission is not something I have, it is what I am, it is my very being. And lest we forget that vocation is a relation not only with God but also with our fellow human beings, in Christus Vivit the pope distinguishes between mission in a broad sense as a calling from God (including the call to life, to friendship with him, to holiness, and so forth) and in a strict sense as a call to missionary service, as being there for others.² Trenchantly, the pope advises young people to stop asking “Who am I?” and to ask, rather, “For whom am I?”³

Already Paul VI had declared, and Benedict XVI had repeated, that every life is vocation.⁴ It seems to me that Pope Francis, with the Synod on youth, extends this conviction explicitly to all young people: those who belong actively to the Church, those who have other visions of life, who belong to other religions, and even who distance themselves from religion altogether.⁵ All young people are called to the joy of love.⁶ All young people are invited to make life choices within the liberating horizon of self-giving. (FD 69) All young people are invited to overcome the narrow confines of the atomic individualism of modern Western and contemporary culture and to immerse themselves in a vision of life that recognizes the intrinsic relationality of the universe and the call to the joy of giving and receiving.

In this line, the Synod on youth has invited us to overcome a narrow idea of vocations as indicating only the call to the ordained ministry and to consecrated life (IL 85) and to engage in a youth ministry that is vocational at its core.⁷ The two essential characteristics of youth ministry are first, that it is for youth, and second, that it is vocational – “because youth is the privileged season for life choices and for responding to God’s call.” (FD 140) The Synod is not asking us “to strengthen vocational ministry as a separate and independent sector.” It is asking us, rather, “to animate the entire pastoral approach of the Church, presenting effectively the great variety of vocations.” (FD 139)

In the present article, I will examine the journey of the Salesian Congregation on the topic of vocational animation – not only because it dovetails beautifully with what the Synod is saying, but also because, in its own little way, it flowed into the thinking of the Synod.⁸ In the conviction that we are called “to walk together” (syn-’odos), I will dedicate much attention to this journey (listening), so as to let it illuminate the vocational thinking and praxis of our South Asia region in the brief second part (interpreting) and to generate some suggestions for action (deciding).