Accompaniment Orientations_en


Accompaniment Orientations_en

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Salesian Formation Department
Salesian Youth Ministry Department
Young Salesians
and accompaniment
Orientations and Guidelines
Rome 2019

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Young Salesians
and accompaniment

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Salesian Formation Department
Salesian Youth Ministry Department
Young Salesians
and accompaniment
Orientations and Guidelines
Rome 2019

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Layout:
Andrea Marconi
Printing:
Scuola grafica salesiana di Milano
Febbraio 2020
All rights reserved by the Society of
St Francis de Sales
(Salesians of Don Bosco)
Extra-commercial edition (2019)
Sede Centrale Salesiana
Via Marsala, 42
00185 Rome

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Table of contents
ABBREVIATIONS, pag. 9
PRESENTATION, pag. 11
INTRODUCTION, pag. 15
PART ONE - RECOGNIZING, pag. 23
1. The study of Salesian personal accompaniment, pag. 25
1.1 The process, pag. 25
1.2 Macroscopic elements regarding the respondents, pag. 28
1.2.1 Newly professed, pag. 29
1.2.2 Demographics, pag. 32
1.2.3 Language, pag. 34
1.2.4 Age, pag. 36
1.3 The current document, pag. 38
2 Emerging topics, pag. 43
2.1 Those involved in personal spiritual accompaniment, pag. 43
2.1.1 A young Congregation, pag. 44
2.1.2 The spiritual guides, pag. 46
2.1.3 Community accompaniment, pag. 49
2.2 How personal spiritual accompaniment is understood, pag. 50
2.2.1 By those being accompanied, pag. 51
2.2.2 By the spiritual guides, pag. 53
2.3 What happens in what is called ‘personal spiritual accompaniment’, pag. 53
2.3.1 Some external conditioning factors, pag. 54
2.3.2 Rectors as spiritual guides: downward trend, pag. 54
2.3.3 Lack of confidentiality, pag. 55
2.3.4 Openness and transparency, pag. 56
2.3.5 Other problematic aspects, pag. 56
2.3.6 A behaviour to which to conform, pag. 57
2.3.7 The overlap between accompaniment and authority, pag. 58
2.4 The role of certain mediations, pag. 60
2.4.1 Periodic personal assessments (scrutinies), pag. 60
2.4.2 Different forms or aspects of prayer, pag. 61
2.4.3 The personal plan of life, pag. 62

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PART TWO - INTERPRETING, pag. 65
3 Light from our tradition, pag. 67
3.1 The originality of Salesian spiritual accompaniment of young people, pag. 67
3.2 Salesian spiritual accompaniment in the processes of formation, pag. 72
3.2.1 Don Bosco’s praxis reflected in formation processes, pag. 72
3.2.2 The Preventive System and the processes of formation, pag. 72
3.2.3 The splendid blending between family spirit and personal guidance, pag. 76
4 Understanding what the Spirit is saying, pag. 79
4.1 An inculturated formation, pag. 79
4.2 Clarification of the meaning of Salesian spiritual accompaniment, pag. 85
4.3 Crossing the threshold of the external forum, pag. 88
4.4 The experience of the prenovitiate as critical, pag. 88
4.5 The quality of youth ministry determines the formation processes, pag. 91
4.6 The foundational dynamic of grace and freedom, pag. 93
4.6.1 The problematic overlap between authority and personal spiritual
accompaniment, pag. 93
4.6.2 Grace and freedom, pag. 94
4.6.3 Respecting the dynamic of grace and freedom, pag. 96
4.7 Rector, spiritual guide and confessor: three key figures, pag. 100
4.8 Continuity of accompaniment, pag. 102
4.9 Role of community and mission, pag. 103
4.10 Respecting confidentiality and creating trust, pag. 107
4.11 Returning to the Preventive System, pag. 111
4.12 Learning by experience, pag. 114
4.13 Spiritual accompaniment as holistic, pag. 115
4.14 Periodic personal assessments as means for growth, pag. 116
4.15 Taking personal responsibility for formation, pag. 117
4.16 Learning that spiritual accompaniment is lifelong, pag. 118
4.17 The urgency of selecting and preparing spiritual guides, pag. 119

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PART THREE - CHOOSING, pag. 125
5. The way ahead, pag. 127
5.1 Emerging suggestions, pag. 127
5.2 Strategies, pag. 128
5.2.1 Clarifying the nature of Salesian spiritual accompaniment, pag. 128
5.2.2 Continuing the renewal of vocational youth ministry and aspirantates, pag. 128
5.2.3 Adopting the Preventive System as our model of formation, pag. 129
5.2.4 Taking care of community accompaniment, pag. 132
5.2.5 Guaranteeing freedom in personal spiritual accompaniment, pag. 133
5.2.6 Strengthening the figure of the Rector, pag. 136
5.2.7 Preparing formators and spiritual guides, pag. 138
5.2.8 Ensuring that spiritual accompaniment is lifelong, pag. 141
5.2.9 Contextualizing the strategies, pag. 142
CONCLUSION, pag. 147
APPENDIX: QUESTIONS AND HINTS FOR REFLECTION, pag. 151
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY, pag. 161

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The images
On the front cover: view of Tel Morasti, the land of the
prophet Micah (photo Salesian Monastery Ratisbonne).
“You have already been told what is right and what Yahweh wants of you.
Only this, to do what is right, to love loyalty and to walk humbly with your
God.” (Mic 6:8)
The motif of the images chosen for the text is ‘walking.’
The first step is taken by the Good Shepherd (p. 2 – Catacombs of Saint
Callistus): a powerful icon of the Salesian vocation and mission, focal point of
all that follows.
In the first pages we find photos of Colle Don Bosco, starting from the house
at Becchi, and in the last pages Valdocco and the Basilica of Mary Help
of Christians. The three parts of the text unfold within this pilgrimage from
Becchi, birthplace of our father Don Bosco, to Valdocco from where the
Salesian Family spread throughout the world.
The first part, RECOGNIZING, involves careful listening to the steps of the
many young people in formation and the guides who accompany them,
paying keen attention to what they communicate through the international
research from which these Orientations and Guidelines emerged. The
circle of feet [p. 22] and the puddle jump [p. 42] connect us with the first
protagonists of this work: the young people themselves.
The second part, INTERPRETING, outlines the way that we want to follow.
From the point where we now find ourselves, as it surfaces from the
research, we go back to the beginning of the journey, to the spirit that
directed Don Bosco’s steps. We are inspired and moved to look forward and
understand how to move ahead. It is a long way [p. 64], but one we willingly
undertake, because it is not a lonely path that isolates us from the rest of the
world. Rather, it leads us to share the life of the young people to whom we
are sent [p. 78], with a heart closer to that of Don Bosco.
The third part, CHOOSING, outlines the suggestions that emerge from the
journey. Since they are suggestions rather than norms, there is need of
further reflection and incarnation at the level of regions, provinces and local
communities. The image of young people who express with their hands the
need to receive and the desire to give LOVE [p. 126] highlights the main
DIRECTION of the entire journey. “Love and do what you will” (Augustine).

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Abbreviations
AL Amoris Laetitia
9
Alburquerque Eugenio Alburquerque Frutos, ‘Saint Francis de Sales as Spiritual Director: Spiritual Direction
in the Pastoral Praxis of the Bishop of Geneva,’ Attard- García 11-22
Attard-García Fabio Attard and Miguel Ángel García, ed. Spiritual Accompaniment: An Educational and
Spiritual Journey with Young People in the Way of Don Bosco. Bolton: Don Bosco Publications, 2018
Bay Marco Bay, Giovani salesiani e accompagnamento. Risultati di una ricerca internazionale. Roma: LAS,
2018. ET: Young Salesians and Accompaniment: Results of an international survey. Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti
Publications, 2019.
Buccellato Giuseppe Buccellato, ‘Don Bosco’s Experience of Spiritual Direction as it was practised during
his years at the Turin Convitto Ecclesiastico (1841-1844),’ Attard- García 75-105
C Constitutions of the Society of St Francis de Sales
CV Christus Vivit
EG Evangelii Gaudium
EPC Educative and pastoral community
FD XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops 2018, Young People, the Faith and Vocational
Discernment: Final Document
FoR Salesian Youth Ministry Department, Salesian Youth Ministry: Frame of Reference (2014)
FSDB Formation of Salesians of Don Bosco: Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis et Studiorum (4th edition, 2016)
GE Gaudete et Exsultate
Giraudo Aldo Giraudo, ‘Special Characteristics of the Spiritual Direction that Don Bosco Offered to Young People,’
Attard- García 107-115. ‘Spiritual Direction in Saint John Bosco: Contents and Methods…,’ Attard- García 117-127
Grech Louis Grech, Salesian Spiritual Companionship with Young People Today inspired by the Thought and
Praxis of St John Bosco. Malta: Horizons, 2018
IL XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops 2018, Young People, the Faith and Vocational
Discernment: Instrumentum Laboris
McDonnell Eunan McDonnell, ‘Spiritual Direction in Saint Francis de Sales: Outlines of the Spiritual and
Pedagogical Method in View of Salesian Youth Ministry,’ Attard-García 49-71
NW New Wine in New Wineskins, CICLSAL, Rome 2017
OEA Oeuvres de saint François de Sales. Annecy 1892-1932
R General Regulations of the Society of St Francis de Sales
Struś Józef Struś, ‘St Francis de Sales as Spiritual Director,’ Attard- García 23-48.
VC Vita Consecrata

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Presentation
Dear confreres,
11
I am happy to present to you Young Salesians and Accompani-
ment: Orientations and Guidelines, promulgating it ad experimen-
tum for a period of three years. While not being a supplement to
our Ratio (Formation of Salesians of Don Bosco), it supersedes
the Ratio in case of conflict.
I am particularly happy to say that this document is the fruit
of collaboration between the Formation and Youth Ministry de-
partments of our Congregation. Spiritual accompaniment, as is
becoming more and more clear to us, is central to both youth
ministry and formation. At the request of the Rector Major and his
Council, the two departments embarked on a fruitful collaboration
that involved an extensive exercise of listening to young Salesians
and to their spiritual guides. The two departments were, in fact,
using the method of discernment that has been employed in the
Synods on the family and the recently concluded Synod on Young
People, the Faith and Vocation Discernment.
Despite the fact that the current document results from a collab-
oration between two departments, it focuses on accompaniment
of Salesians in the processes of initial formation. Within accompa-
niment in general, the central point of concern is the relationship
of personal spiritual accompaniment. Since, however, in our tradi-
tion and praxis there is a very close relationship between personal
and community accompaniment, the document throws light also
on community accompaniment, the personal talk with the Rector,
and other elements in the formation process.
Further, it has become very evident through our ‘listening’ ex-
ercise that what happens in youth ministry affects formation, and
vice versa. If there is good accompaniment and vocation discern-
ment in our youth ministry, Salesian vocations emerging from
there will enter well prepared into the processes of formation. And
if there is good accompaniment in formation, we can hope to have

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Salesians who are well prepared for youth ministry and the ac-
companiment of young people. Our mission ‘sets the tenor of our
whole life’ (C 3), and ‘to become a consecrated apostle like Don
Bosco is the guiding principle of our process of formation’ (FSDB
41). To become ‘companions on the way’ for young people, as
Don Bosco was at Valdocco, is at the very core of our mission.
And one of the best ways to prepare Salesians for this mission is
to offer them rich experiences of personal accompaniment during
initial formation, through the service of confreres ‘capable of a
living communication of the Salesian ideal and of a genuine dia-
logue with the young confreres’ (C 104).
The document is addressed, therefore, to all those who are
involved in different ways in the processes of initial formation:
spiritual guides, formation guides and confessors; Rectors of
those in initial formation – and here we must not forget practical
trainees – and their Councils; Provincials and their Councils, pro-
vincial formation delegates and their commissions. But in the light
of what I have said above about the connection between youth
ministry and formation, it is addressed also in some way to all
Salesians involved in youth ministry, and most especially to those
working with aspirants to the Salesian life. All are invited to read
this document, allowing themselves to be challenged and pro-
voked by it, in order to work out ways – including the involvement
of young Salesians themselves – of adopting the orientations and
implementing the guidelines that the Rector Major and his Council
hereby entrust to the entire Congregation.
At the core of the document is the invitation to formators and
spiritual guides to be truly and genuinely Salesian. Writing to you
from the Basilica of the Sacro Cuore, I cannot but ask you to go
back to Don Bosco’s Letter from Rome, and to make of the Preven-
tive System our model of formation. Don Bosco said it beautifully:
Strive to make yourselves loved! Our perpetual profession cross is
a constant invitation and reminder to us of this central principle of
Don Bosco’s system of education: Studia di farti amare!

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The approach of the 400th anniversary of the death of our patron
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St Francis de Sales is yet another invitation to us to recover
the centrality of the heart in our charism and educative system,
and to restore spiritual accompaniment to its proper place both
in the pastoral proposal of Don Bosco and in the processes of
formation of his Salesians.
Ángel Fernández Artime, SDB
Rector Major
Sacro Cuore – Rome, 15 August 2019

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Introduction
In recent years, the Formation and Youth Ministry depart-
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ments of the Salesians of Don Bosco have been engaged in
an intense study of Salesian Personal Accompaniment (APS).
Happily, the recent Synod of Bishops on Young People, the
Faith and Vocational Discernment has reflected on the related
theme of the accompaniment of young people in the discern-
ment of their vocation. We are therefore before an important
topic that regards both formation and pastoral praxis.
Walking alongside young people and encouraging them to en-
gage in free and responsible dialogue with the Lord who calls,
is a task that belongs to the heart of the Salesian vocation and
mission. To create a climate of trust and confidence in which
young people feel loved as they are is part of Don Bosco’s edu-
cational system and spirituality, and constitutes the framework
of understanding of Salesian spiritual accompaniment.
Spiritual accompaniment, both communitarian and personal,
is an equally important part of the processes of initial formation
and, in fact, of formation as lifelong. There is an intrinsic and
ongoing interaction between the accompaniment offered in our
youth ministry, and that offered and experienced in the pro-
cesses of formation. The better the accompaniment of young
people, the better is likely to be the accompaniment experi-
enced during the processes of formation; and the better the
accompaniment during the years of initial formation, the more
likely it is that Salesians will be good spiritual guides to young
people and to our lay mission partners.
Already before GC27, Salesian accompaniment was the fo-
cus of attention of the department of Youth Ministry and the
department of Formation, each in its own way, with the aim
of promoting a rediscovery of this original part of the Sale-
sian mission. The department of Youth Ministry conducted
three seminars on the topic of the spiritual accompaniment of

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young people,1 while the department of Formation engaged in
a process of consultation that was to result in a supplement to
our Ratio on the topic of ‘Salesian personal accompaniment’
– which, while distinguishing itself from community accompa-
niment, was meant to include diverse forms of accompaniment
such as the friendly talk with the Rector, personal spiritual ac-
companiment (‘spiritual direction’), the sacrament of recon-
ciliation, psychological accompaniment, periodic evaluations
(‘scrutinies’), and intellectual, liturgical and pastoral accompa-
niment.
In June 2015, a draft of this supplement – entitled Criteria
and Norms for Salesian Personal Accompaniment – was pre-
sented to the Rector Major and his Council, but was not prom-
ulgated. Instead, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime invited the two
departments of Formation and Youth Ministry to collaborate in
a new process that would involve a more sustained process of
listening to all those involved in Salesian spiritual accompani-
ment, before going on to interpreting and marking out the way
ahead. The objective remained that of offering guidelines on
the topic of Salesian personal accompaniment in the process-
es of formation.
The two departments made a critical decision to retain the
broad understanding of ‘Salesian personal accompaniment’ as
envisaged originally by the Formation department, but to focus
especially on ‘personal spiritual accompaniment’ or the rela-
tionship of ‘personal spiritual direction’ in the processes of in-
itial formation. Given that personal spiritual accompaniment is
always done in the context of community, it was to be expect-
ed that the study would throw light also on the other elements
1 Fabio Attard and Miguel Ángel García, Spiritual Accompaniment: An educational and
spiritual journey with young people in the way of Don Bosco (Bolton: Don Bosco Pub-
lications, 2018).

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such as the friendly talk, the sacrament of reconciliation, and
17
the role of the community. The restriction of the study to the
processes of initial formation meant that it would not directly
concern itself with spiritual accompaniment in the context of
youth ministry, or even with such accompaniment in the con-
text of ongoing (in the sense of ‘post-initial’) formation. Howev-
er, as we will see, important implications did emerge from the
study for these areas of our life and ministry.
Method
In our study we followed the method of spiritual discernment
– recognizing, interpreting, choosing – which is now no longer
something optional, but must become the habitus of every
Christian community. We must add that the listening and rec-
ognizing that is part of discernment is no merely sociological
affair. There is, in fact, no such thing as ‘pure data.’ We are
always already enveloped and immersed in grace. We live in
a world that has been redeemed, in which the Spirit, as Pope
Francis reminds us, has been given to all the baptized.2
So discernment means listening to what the Spirit is telling us,
in our case through the great gift that is our 4000 plus formees
and their spiritual guides. Young people, the 2018 Synod has
said, are a theological locus ‘in which the Lord reveals to us
some of his expectations and challenges for building the fu-
ture.’ (FD 64)
Use
The text is obviously meant to provide orientations and
guidelines concerning Salesian personal accompaniment in
2 Francis, Costituzione apostolica Episcopalis communio sul sinodo dei vescovi (15
September 2008) 5.

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the processes of initial formation, with special reference to
personal spiritual accompaniment. Inevitably, the orientations
and guidelines will also touch upon the ‘before’ and the ‘after’:
the ‘before,’ because the quality of youth ministry and voca-
tion animation directly affects initial formation; and the ‘after,’
because accompaniment, both communitarian and personal,
is meant to be an integral part of formation understood as life-
long, besides being a valuable service that we are called to
offer to the young and to our lay mission partners.
The text is addressed primarily to those involved in different
ways in the processes of initial formation: Rectors, formators,
confessors and spiritual guides; provincial formation delegates
and their commissions; Provincials and their councils.
Besides providing orientations and guidelines, the text is also
to be used, along with Marco Bay’s book, Young Salesians and
Accompaniment, for animation at world, regional and provin-
cial levels.
Acknowledgements
We cannot end without thanking the many people who have
been involved in our study of Salesian personal accompani-
ment:
Those involved in the drafting of the Criteria and Norms re-
garding Salesian Personal Accompaniment: Francesco Cereda,
the then general councillor for formation, Chrys Saldanha, and
all the regional formation coordinators and provincial formation
delegates and the respective commissions.
The members of the Youth Ministry department: Miguel Ángel
García, Patrick Antonyraj, Daniel García, Tarcízio Morais.

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The members of the Formation department: Raymond Callo,
19
Salvador Cleofas Murguía Villalobos (now Bishop of Mixes –
Mexico), Silvio Roggia and Francisco Santos Montero.
The confreres who participated in the seminars of 2016 and
2017: Javier Altamirano, Patrick Anthonyraj, Simon Asira, Luca
Barone, Raymond Callo, Daniel Costa, Francesco de Ruvo,
Salvador Delgadillo, Guido Errico, Robert Falzon, Enrique Fran-
co, Daniel García, Sahaya Gnanaselvam, Louis Grech, Zenon
Klawikowski, Jose Kuttianimattathil, Erino Leoni, Francesco
Marcoccio, Francesco Santos Montero, Assis Moser, Salvador
Cleofas Murguía Villalobos, Johny Nedungatt, Luis Onrubia,
Alphonse Owoudou, Loddy Pires, Shaji Puykunnel, Giuseppe
Roggia, Silvio Roggia, Roque Sibioni, Juan Carlos Solis, Luis
Timossi, Gerald Umoh, Maurizio Verlezza, Roneldo Vilbar, Car-
lo Maria Zanotti.
Those involved in the administration of the questionnaire.3
The candidates and confreres – those in initial formation as
well as those offering the service of spiritual guidance – who
participated in the survey.
The very large number of confreres and young people who
generously did the data entry.4
The redaction group that worked on the draft of the present
Orientations and guidelines: Miguel Ángel García, Koldo Gut-
ierrez, Louis Grech, Salvador Cleofas Murguía Villalobos, Silvio
Roggia, Francisco Santos Montero and Michal Vojtaš.
3 The names may be found in Bay 25.
4 The names may be found in Bay 25-26.

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The translators: Zdzisław Brzęk, Placide Carava, Zenon
Klawikowski, Luis Onrubia, Jean-Luc Vande Kerkhove, José
Antenor Velho.
Finally, a very special thanks to Marco Bay and Silvio Roggia,
for the passion and competence with which they pushed for-
ward this work: without them it would have been impossibile.
Ivo Coelho, SDB
Consigliere generale per la Formazione
Fabio Attard, SDB
Consigliere generale per la Pastorale Giovanile
Sacro Cuore – Roma, 25 luglio 2019

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Part one
23
Recognizing

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24

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1. The study
of Salesian personal
accompaniment
1.1 THE PROCESS
25
1. The ‘pre-history’ of the present study has already been indi-
cated in the introduction, and so we will restrict ourselves here to
describing the process that led us to the current Orientations and
guidelines regarding Salesian spiritual accompaniment.
The first step in the collaboration between the departments of
Youth Ministry and Formation was to convoke an internation-
al seminar in Rome, 22-24 April 2016, with representatives from
the fields of youth ministry and of formation from the seven re-
gions into which the Congregation is divided.1 One of the imme-
diate fruits of this seminar was a clear direction for the follow-
ing months: listening to the most numerous and important set of
actors in the process of Salesian personal accompaniment: the
young Salesians themselves. This group was defined as all those
in the process of initial formation – those preparing for Salesian
life in the prenovitiate, novices, post-novices, practical trainees,
the two groups in specific formation (aspirants to the priesthood
and Brother-Salesians) – and also those in the first five years after
priestly ordination or perpetual profession (the quinquennium).
2. Led by Salesian Brother Marco Bay, Director of the Interfac-
ulty Data Research and Processing Centre of the Salesian Pontif-
ical University – Rome (UPS), and Silvio Roggia of the Formation
department, seven questionnaires were prepared, one for each
of the phases mentioned above, and an eighth one for those of-
fering the service of accompaniment and spiritual guidance. The
questionnaires, going into an average of 15 pages each, revolved
around 12 key themes that had emerged in the April 2016 seminar.
After a trial run and subsequent revision, the eight questionnaires
were translated into the 6 most used languages in the Congre-
1 The 7 regions established by GC27 are Africa – Madagascar, Central and Northern
Europe, Mediterranean, South Asia, Interamerica, Latin America Southern Cone, and
East Asia – Oceania.

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gation: English, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish.
A first idea was to administer the questionnaires online. This
was discarded for two reasons. First, the reflective and thoughtful
approach demanded by the many open questions in the question-
naires is presumably better supported by paper than by keyboard
and mouse. The second reason was the geography of initial for-
mation in the Congregation: where the largest number of formees
is found, the digital divide is still very strong, with the lack of the
kind of connectivity needed for a calm and unhurried approach to
26
questionnaires that call for anything between 30 and 60 minutes
of answering time.
3. A reading of some of the questions, especially those cutting
across the different phases, helps to perceive the nature of the
research:
Which are the points that helped you grow in the Salesian vo-
cation? How do you see your convictions about the ways of
growing in the spiritual life? What has most helped you to reach
the specific objectives of each phase of formation? What do
you have to say about your experience of personal spiritual
accompaniment? Could you describe personal spiritual ac-
companiment?
What is it that you appreciate about the confreres responsible
for your initial formation? What is it that you do not appreci-
ate in them? What are the indispensable tasks on the part of
those who coordinate, animate, guide and govern the religious
community? If the sacrament of reconciliation is a great gift for
spiritual growth, could you try to say what you think about it,
your experience of it, and in what way the sacrament has been
of help to you?
Looking at the journey so far and thinking about the help you
have received from those who have accompanied you, say
something about what you have discovered that is important
and new in your knowledge of yourself, your gifts and limita-
tions. Talk briefly about the most important elements of your
past life, positive and negative, that are part of the journey of
self-discovery. Indicate what you imagine to be your vocation-
al journey in the future.
Have you had up to now a positive experience of commu-
nity with your companions and other Salesians with whom
you have interacted? In Salesian settings and in the houses
in which you have lived, what has been of most help to your
growth? Could you try to express the difficulties you have ex-

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perienced in personal spiritual accompaniment in a Salesian
setting? What went well and what could have gone better on
your part, and on the part of the guide?
For the young people who will come after you in the journey of
Salesian formation, what changes would you suggest to make
spiritual accompaniment more useful? (Bay 15)
4. During the first two months of 2017 the questionnaires were
sent to all the provinces according to the number of copies for
each phase indicated by the provincial formation delegates. They
were administered during the first six months of 2017. Participa-
27
tion went beyond the most optimistic forecasts, as can be seen in
Table 02 which indicates the number of completed questionnaires
that reached the Interfaculty Data Processing Research Centre
of the UPS in a sealed envelope. (Bay 35-37) Note especially the
percentage of responses with respect to the number of candi-
dates / confreres in each of the initial formation phases according
to data supplied by the head office in Rome (31 December 2017).
Prenovices
Novices
Postnovices
Practical Trainees
Specific, Theology
Specific, Brothers
Quinquennium
Spiritual guides
Total
Frequency of questionnaires
filled and submitted
455
399
903
554
701
54
369
538
4.000
Percentages according
to provincial Flash reports
87
92
93
78
87
79
41
-
-
Table 02. Respondents divided according to phase of formation plus guides
Even the phases in which the percentage of respondents is
comparatively lower, such as practical training and the quinquen-
nium, reveal a strong participation. We are dealing here with con-
freres who are not together in houses of formation and who, nev-
ertheless, opted to respond.
5. The interest in this kind of research and the willingness to
participate also emerges in the generous service of more than 220
confreres from different regions who volunteered to tabulate the
data. Between June and August 2017, more than 4000 responses
were transformed into PDF files. If we keep in mind that an aver-
age of 20 to 40 minutes is needed for work on a single question-

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naire, depending on the open answers that it contains, we have
an idea of the long hours of service that have been volunteered,
mostly by postnovices and students of theology. The entire tabu-
lation job was done through digital platforms.
6. At the end of September 2017 a second international semi-
nar was held at Genzano di Roma in order to study this data. Most
of the participants had taken part in the first seminar in 2016. A
choice was made not to engage in an interpretation of the data,
but rather to devote time to perceive the richness of the messages
28
offered by the great chorus of voices representing 24.18% of the
total number of members of the Congregation (novices included).
In the interests of confidentiality, the respondents had been
asked to indicate neither name, nor community nor province. It
was only a careful cataloguing of the replies, therefore, based on
the place from which they were sent and the postal data, that al-
lowed classification by region of origin. This offered an important
added value to the research, making it possible to compare not
only phases and linguistic groupings but also regions.
7. With the tables of percentages and graphs for the closed an-
swers and the abundant open responses in different languages,
the first report exceeded 5000 pages. It was the great merit of
Marco Bay to have reduced this to the 584 pages of the volume
Giovani salesiani e accompagnamento. Risultati di una ricerca in-
ternazionale (Rome: LAS, 2018), now available in English transla-
tion as Young Salesians and Accompaniment: Results of an inter-
national survey (Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti Publications, 2019). Once
again, this book is meant to be not an interpretation but a first
synthesis of the data received.
1.2 MACROSCOPIC ELEMENTS REGARDING
THE RESPONDENTS
8. In the introduction to Young Salesians and Accompaniment,
Bay notes that certain ‘macroscopic elements’ emerge immedi-
ately from the data. (Bay 19) These give us an idea of the variety of
situations and contexts of the respondents, and at the same time
offer a realistic image of the Salesian Congregation itself in its
geographical and linguistic distribution and complexity. We report
these elements in some detail, along with some illustrative tables
from the first chapter of the book. (Bay 19-24, 39-44)

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9. But first let us put down clearly some numbers and percent-
ages.
Prenovices
Novices + SDB
in initial formation
Spiritual guides
Total (novices +
professed)
Total (31.12.2017)
521
3827
–
14.660
Responses
455
3007
538
4000
% respondents
vs total SDB
–
20.51
–
27.29
29
Note that novices and professed members in formation (includ-
ing the quinquennium) who replied form 20.51% of the total num-
ber of members of the Congregation as of 31 December 2017
(novices included). Novices, professed members in formation,
and spiritual guides who responded form 24.18% of the total
number of members of the Congregation as of 31 December 2017
(novices included).
1.2.1 Newly professed
10. On the 50th anniversary of Vatican Council II and 15 years
into the new millennium, the Salesian Congregation shows a de-
crease in the number of newly professed (see fig. 01a, 01b and
01c). However, this data must be read in conjunction with the sig-
nificant reduction in the number of those leaving the novitiate be-
fore first profession: while there is a drop in the number of novices,
there is at the same time a higher rate of those making first pro-
fession. Since 2011 there has been a downward trend also in the
rate of departures among those in temporary vows. So the Con-
gregation has a very real generational turnover and considerable
potential, even if it does not seem to be able to maintain the same
consistency and presence on all educational and pastoral fronts.
The hundreds of newly professed members allow the Congrega-
tion to face the educational-pastoral and vocational challenges in
a solid way, but it is clear from their testimonies that they require
attention, support and formative stimuli of various kinds.

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4.1 Page 31

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30
Fig. 01a. Newly professed confreres between 1996 and 2016
Fig. 01b. Newly professed confreres, lay and clerical, in the period
1996-2016

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31
Fig. 01c. Confreres in temporary vows who left the Society (1996-2016)
Fig. 01d. Number of members of religious institutes and societies of apostolic
life (1965-2015) and the difference

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1.2.2 Demographics
11. A little more than half (51%) of the young respondents are
concentrated in India (1235 – 30.9%), Italy (292 – 7.3%, where,
however, there are many novices and SDB students coming from
other countries and regions), Brazil (205 – 5.1%), the Philippines
(156 – 3.9%), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (145 – 3.6%).
These are followed by Kenya (144 – 3.6%), Poland (130 – 3.3%),
Colombia (115 – 2.9%, again with student confreres from different
countries), Timor Leste (98 – 2.5%) and so on (see Bay, chapter
32
1, table 04).2
What does this mean in terms of human resources for the Salesian
Society in the next twenty years?
Fig. 02. Demographic distribution of respondents according to provinces
The red circles indicate the areas of greatest concentration of
respondents. (Bay 21)
2 We need to keep constantly in mind that Italy, Philippines, Kenya and Colombia have
such relatively high percentages because of the interprovincial communities present
in these countries.

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Frequency
Percentage
Valid
percentage
Cumulative
percentage
Valid
Missing
Total
RASS
RAFM
RASE
RAMI
RAMS
RMED
RECN
UPS
Total
Not located
1274
836
480
402
336
336
266
51
3981
19
4000
31,9
20,9
12,0
10,1
8,4
8,4
6,7
1,3
99,5
0,5
100,0
32,0
21,0
12,1
10,1
8,4
8,4
6,7
1,3
100,0
32,0
53,0
65,1
75,2
83,6
92,0
98,7
100,0
33
Table 04. Respondents according to Salesian regions (frequencies and percentages)
Abbreviations: RAFM: Africa-Madagascar; RAMI: Interamerica; RAMS America South Cone;
RASE: East Asia-Oceania; RASS: South Asia; RECN: Europe Centre North; RMED: Mediterrane-
an; UPS: Pontifical Salesian University Vice-Province.
Fig. 01. The sample according to regions and phases of formation

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1.2.3 Language
12. More than half the respondents (53%) make use of the Eng-
lish language. They represent very different geographical, social,
religious and cultural contexts (India, the Philippines, Kenya, Ni-
geria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Ghana, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Aus-
tralia, Sri Lanka, Zambia, USA, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Rwanda,
Great Britain, Ireland, Thailand, China, Austria, Malta, Myanmar,
Papua New Guinea, Slovakia, South Africa, Timor Leste, Japan,
Croatia, Germany...). 10% use Italian.
34
Many questions arise. What nuances or differences in formation
are called for by anthropological and cultural filters like these?
What are their implications for identity building and membership?
Given that formation must take into account tradition as well as
innovation, what about access to historical sources (critical study
of Don Bosco and the Congregation)?
Language
EN English
ES Spanish
FR French
PT Portuguese
IT Italian
PL Polish*
TOTALE
Frequency
2101
521
468
394
388
128
4.000
Percentage
52,5
13,0
11,7
9,9
9,7
3,2
100,0
Valid
percentage
52,5
13,0
11,7
9,9
9,7
3,2
100,0
Cumulative
percentage
52,5
65,6
77,3
87,1
96,8
100,0
Table 07. Respondents according to language of compilation of the question-
naire (frequencies and percentages).
Questionnaires completed in Polish were translated into Italian.
NB: The Polish responses were translated into Italian. As already
mentioned, we need to keep in mind also that a good number
of the Italian responses were by novices or confreres in various
phases of initial formation or study in Italy.

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35
Fig. 2. Respondents according to language of compilation of the questionnaire (percentages)
Fig. 03. Respondents according to phase of formation (percentages) (Bay 44)

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1.2.4 Age
13. If we exclude the spiritual guides, we are faced with re-
spondents in the 20-30 age bracket, mainly from Africa, Mada-
gascar, Asia and Oceania (see fig. 03). As per the central data-
base, Salesians + novices under the age of 35 are 3,355; those
of the sample are 2,726, or about 81% of confreres and novices
under 35. These proportions, compared with the 2,751 Salesians
over 75 years of age, are rather comforting as a generational turn-
over. If we go instead to the regional level as shown in the graph
36
(fig. 3a), significant imbalances are noted.
Phormation phase
Prenovitiate
Novitiate
Postnovitiate
Practical Training
Specific, Theology
Specific, Brothers
Quinquennium
Salesian Guides

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37
from analysis of respondents in sample** (n=4.000)
From the Statistics Office: entire population of SDBs* (N=14758)
Age in groups
* novices included; **prenovices included
Fig. 3a. Age groups in the sample divided by region of origin
From the central database (total number of Salesians = 14,758 at 31 December 2017)

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14. Investment in the younger age groups is of fundamental
importance for the present and the future of the Congregation, for
vocational fidelity and fruitfulness.
In addition, it can be seen that the spiritual guides (see fig. 04)
are of different ages, with a high concentration in the 40-50 age
bracket. 27.4% of them work in the South Asia region and 16.9%
in Africa – Madagascar. About half of them (48.3%) answered in
English. Significant generational groups can be observed in the
sample. Those over 70 are just under a hundred (of which more
38
than a quarter are found in America, a fifth in the South Asia re-
gion and another fifth in Africa): a relevant group of people, active
and appreciated for their experience, reliability and wisdom.
Figure 04. Overall trend of age groups of spiritual guides.
Fig. 4. Spiritual guides according to age groups
1.3 THE CURRENT DOCUMENT
15. We have said already that Bay’s book is intended to be not
an interpretation of the data but merely a first synthesis.
The work of interpretation will be carried out in two ways: [1] by
a group of experts, [2] and by the departments of Formation and
Youth Ministry.

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The group of experts will carry out in-depth studies of the
data, and other such studies will follow, taking up themes such
as interculturality and accompaniment, interpretation from a
psychological point of view, textual analyses of recurring items
in phases such as practical training and the quinquennium, etc.
16. The interpretation by the departments of Formation and Youth
Ministry is, instead, embodied in the current document – Young
Salesians and Accompaniment: Orientations and Guidelines.
This second interpretative effort involves a movement of return,
39
in some way, to the groups involved in the research – those in
initial formation, those accompanying them as guides, provincial
formation delegates and their commissions. The inspiration here
comes from an image borrowed from trigonometry: triangulation.
The synergy of three perspectives affords us a better grasp of the
reality under study.
• The first perspective is that of the data emerging from the
research, which is almost a census rather than a sample sur-
vey, given the high number of respondents for each phase.
• A second perspective is that of the first hand experience of
local realities. Here the regional level is of special importance
for capturing the peculiarities that emerge in each region and
trying to grasp differences between regions. In general, the
privileged moments for this work are the annual meetings of
the regional formation commissions, the periodic meetings
of the provincial formation commissions, and also meetings
of formators of particular phases, such as those for Rectors
and principals of postnovitiates in 2018-2019.
• The third perspective comes from the pre-understanding
of Salesian personal accompaniment that all Salesians
have. This pre-understanding might be seen as a limiting
‘pre-judgment’ or prejudice, but it should also be obvious
that there is no way to ‘jump out’ of our pre-understanding.
The only way is to become aware of it, and to engage in
a continual process of enrichment, modification and
purification in interaction with fresh data – which is in fact
what we have been calling the process of triangulation.
17. Data, first-hand experience and Salesian pre-understanding
come together in the method of discernment that has structured
the study, and that gives a structure also to the present document
with its three parts:

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1. Recognizing: this first part gives an account of the listening
process (the study of Salesian personal accompaniment),
and then goes on to indicate the themes emerging from
the research, organizing them around four points: what is
personal spiritual accompaniment, those involved in it, how
it is carried out, and some mediations.
2. Interpreting: the second part may be seen as the result of
triangulation: interpreting the data in conjunction with first-
40
hand experience at the regional and provincial levels, on the
basis of the Salesian pre-understanding illuminated by the
recent magisterium of the Church and the Salesian charism
and tradition.
3. Choosing: the third part puts down strategies and lines
of action suggested by the interpretation of the data. The
guidelines that are offered are meant to serve as a stimulus
for reflection, discussion and renewal, with the goal of
making Salesian personal accompaniment an even more
fruitful element in the journey of vocational fidelity.
18. All this may seem too ambitious, and it certainly would be, if
it were a question merely of a printed text. But in point of fact the
present document is merely one step within a far longer journey
that has involved literally thousands of people, amounting to a
little less than one-third of the Congregation.
The process of involvement is already part of the change –
which has therefore already begun. Our firm hope is that this pro-
cess will continue, involving every circumscription, community
and confrere. In fact, it is not a question of adding something new
to our already heavy workloads. It is a question of rediscovering
the richness and beauty of a treasure that already belongs to us
by vocation, a charismatic gift that can make us more faithful to
Don Bosco and to the young people of our times, starting with
those who feel called to share our lives, but not excluding those to
whom we are sent. Because, as will become clear in what follows,
there is the strictest correlation between formation and mission,
between the quality of spiritual accompaniment in the processes
of initial formation and the quality and place of such accompa-
niment in youth ministry and in the animation of our lay mission
partners.
19. The research also provides rich data about differences be-
tween regions, which can be compared both with the overall re-

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sults as well as with other regions. The current document, how-
ever, cannot enter into the analysis of these regional variations,
which is a task best taken up at the regional level, especially by
the regional formation centres, regional formation commissions
and interprovincial formation communities.
20. Article 119 of our Constitutions – the last in the third part
dedicated to formation, and therefore a summary and interpre-
tative key to that part – offers a good indication of the fruit of
Salesian personal accompaniment: ongoing formation as a per-
manent personal frame of mind. Read alongside R 99, it also im-
41
plies that, just as formation is not something that ‘finishes’ with
the last phase of initial formation, spiritual accompaniment is not
something reserved for the years of initial formation.
Art. 119: Ongoing formation as a permanent personal
frame of mind
Living in the midst of the young and in constant contact with
working-class surroundings, the Salesian tries to discern the
voice of the Spirit in the events of each day, and so acquires
the ability to learn from life’s experiences. He sees his ordi-
nary activities as effective means of formation, and he also
makes use of any other means of formation that may be of-
fered him.
Even when he is fully occupied he finds opportunities for re-
newing the religious and pastoral meaning of his life and of
learning to carry out his work with greater competence.
He also feels it his task to make the best formative use of any
situation, and to see it as a favourable opportunity for grow-
ing in his vocation.
Like formation, spiritual accompaniment is also permanent
and lifelong, and must become a permanent personal attitude
and habit. This is the great process in which the present docu-
ment takes its place, as a small but hopefully useful contribution.

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42

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2 Emerging topics
21. In the previous chapter, we engaged in a description of the
43
process leading to the current document, while also highlighting
certain macroscopic elements regarding the respondents. In the
current chapter we will present certain topics emerging from the
research, while reserving interpretation to Part II. These topics
have been organized around four nuclei: the principal actors in
personal spiritual accompaniment; the dominant idea of personal
spiritual accompaniment among those being accompanied and
their guides; what actually happens in Salesian personal spiritual
accompaniment; and the role played by some important media-
tions and instruments.
We remember again that the focus of the research was personal
spiritual accompaniment in the processes of Salesian initial for-
mation, but that it throws light also on related elements such as
the friendly talk with the Rector, community spiritual accompani-
ment, the sacrament of reconciliation, the periodic assessments
(scrutinies), and the role of the community.
2.1 THOSE INVOLVED IN PERSONAL SPIRITUAL
ACCOMPANIMENT
22. The principal actors in personal spiritual accompaniment
are the young persons being accompanied, their spiritual guides,
the formation team and the community. The raw data regarding
numbers and percentages has already been presented; here we
try to identify the topics that emerge from these and other ele-
ments in the responses.

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2.1.1 A young Congregation
The 20-30 age bracket
23. A first point is that the Salesian Congregation is quite young
– perhaps younger than we commonly think. The number of Sale-
sians who expressed themselves in the questionnaire – here we
exclude prenovices but include novices and those offering the
service of guidance – is 24.18% of the total: a little under one-
fourth of the 14,660 members of the Congregation as of 31 De-
44
cember 2017, novices included. If we exclude the spiritual guides,
the respondents are quite young, most of them in the age group
addressed by the 2018 Synod on Young People, the Faith and
Vocational Discernment:
If we exclude the spiritual guides, we are dealing with respond-
ents who are mostly between 20 and 30 years, predominantly
African and Asian. According to the central database the SDB
+ novices under the age of 35 in 2017 were 3,355; those in-
volved in the research were 2,726 (prenovices excluded). Ap-
proximately 81% of confreres and novices under 35 have been
reached by this survey. (Bay 22)
24. We have seen already the distribution of young confreres in
the different phases of formation. It is important to note that this
distribution is influenced also by the varying durations of these
phases: a maximum of 1 year for the prenovitiate; 1 year for the
novitiate; 2-4 years for the postnovitiate; 2-3 years for practical
training; 4 years for specific formation to the priesthood; 2 years for
specific formation for Brother-Salesians. Thus, as of 31 December
2017, there were 521 prenovices, 435 novices, 942 postnovices,
676 practical trainees, 740 aspirants to the priesthood in specif-
ic formation, 68 Brother-Salesians in specific formation, and 966
Priest-Salesians in the quinquennium. (Bay 32) Obviously, the rela-
tively small number of Brother-Salesians in initial formation3 is also
reflected in their number in specific formation. This small number,
it must be noted, tends to skew interpretations of their responses.
Geographic and linguistic shift
25. Another face of the Congregation that emerges is its inter-
nationality, along with a marked geographic and linguistic shift – a
direct result of the great missionary projects of the Congregation
such as Project Africa.
3 214 as of 31 December 2015: see AGC 424 (2017) 72.

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Responses to the questionnaires came from confreres or
candidates from 61 nations spread over 88 circumscriptions
grouped into 7 regions.
The geographic shift emerges when we look at the continental
distribution represented more or less by the Salesian regions.
Limiting ourselves to the most represented segment in the
questionnaire, that of the postnovices, we see that 76.7% of them
come from Africa – Madagascar, Asia and Oceania (34.9% from
South Asia, 28.2% from Africa and Madagascar, 13.6% from East
Asia and Oceania). These represent the three regions with the
45
most significant vocational growth, with Africa – Madagascar in
the lead. Three-fourths of the total number of Salesian postnovices
comes from these regions.
26. When we look at the linguistic factor, we cannot help noting
that 53% of the responses arrived in English. The implications for
formation of this geographic and linguistic shift need to be stud-
ied. However, it is important to note that our respondents look
upon interculturality as a gift, while not ignoring the difficulties and
challenges involved.
27. It is interesting that the highest appreciation for internation-
ality and interculturality comes from the novices and confreres of
the Africa – Madagascar region, where formation takes place for
the great majority within the region itself. We cannot overlook the
fact that even a single continent may contain very real diversity.
Interculturality is a great challenge to those who offer the ser-
vice of accompaniment, called as they are to respect, recognize,
welcome and accept diversity. Here again, facile assumptions are
to be avoided. It cannot be taken for granted, for example, that
a formator belonging to a particular cultural group will be able by
that very fact to understand and relate wisely to those of his own
group. The ability to understand people involves far more than the
mere fact of common belonging.
It is heartening to see that our spiritual guides look upon inter-
cultural situations in a positive way. ‘In general, situations in which
there are differences of cultural origin (for example, country, lan-
guage, ways of expression, habits, customs...) between the one
accompanied and the guides are perceived by the 87% of the
latter as positive and enriching, while only 13% see it as negative
and problematic.’ (Bay 470)
It would seem that a personal experience of interculturality –

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perhaps through formation or missionary work in a different cul-
tural setting – is a precious asset in a spiritual guide. The research
shows that 91% of such persons consider cultural differences
between them and those they guide as positive and enriching.
(Bay 470)
2.1.2 The spiritual guides
28. The number of spiritual guides who responded is 538. We
46
have no idea of the total number of confreres offering the service
of spiritual guidance, and so it is not possible to determine the
percentage of responses.
The age group of these respondents ranges from 21 to 91.
The lower limit reflects the curious fact that 26 practical trainees
chose to answer the questionnaire for spiritual guides – as well
as probably the specific questionnaire for confreres in practical
training. (Bay 427)
29. It may be interesting to compare the percentage of respons-
es of formees [A] (Bay 516) and of guides [B] (Bay 427) accord-
ing to their regions, as compared to the total of questionnaires
received respectively from formees [A] and guides [B]. For East
Asia – Oceania, America Southern Cone and Central & North Eu-
rope the relative percentages are almost the same (e.g., for Amer-
ica Southern Cone the formees [A] are 8.4% of the total, and the
guides [B] are 8.0% of total). If we consider the Interamerica and
Mediterranean regions, [B] is about 5 points higher than [A] (e.g.,
for Interamerica [A] = 10.1% and [B] = 15.8 %). For the South
Asia and Africa – Madagascar regions, instead, the situation is
reversed (e.g., for South Asia [A] = 31.9% and [B] = 27.3 %).
Spiritual guides who are Rectors
30. The number of spiritual guides who are also Rectors is 243
or 45.16% of the total number of guides who responded. Of this
group, 119 are Rectors of houses of initial formation (probably
excluding Rectors of practical trainees), and 42 are novice direc-
tors. (Bay 427) The others may be Rectors, but not of those they
are guiding.
As for Rectors who are also spiritual guides (of their own ‘sub-
jects’), this is true for 75% of prenovices, 93% of novices, 64%
of postnovices, 55% of practical trainees, 37% of aspirants to
the priesthood in specific formation, 28% of Brother-Salesians in

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specific formation, and 37% of Priest-Salesians in the quinquen-
nium. (Bay 495) If we leave aside the novitiate, we can see that
there is a constant decrease in the percentage of Rectors who are
spiritual guides.
Spiritual guides who are also confessors
31. The number of spiritual guides who are also confessors is
not possible to ascertain from the data of our study. However,
we can say that a large majority of the respondents considers
the sacrament of reconciliation and spiritual accompaniment as
47
distinct, requiring one to approach different individuals – and here
also there is a lowering of percentages as one approaches the
final phases of initial formation. (Bay 495) Thus a good number of
those in the quinquennium and an even greater number of guides
indicate that their confessor is also their spiritual guide.
Help received from Rector, spiritual guide, confessor
32. Regarding the help received from the Rector, the spiritual
guide and the confessor, some trends emerge quite clearly and
transversally.
If we take all respondents – guides included – according to
age, the confessor is the one who is most appreciated (55,92%),
reaching a peak value of 67% on the part of the older guides.4
If we restrict ourselves only to the confreres in initial formation,
more than 80% say that they have great confidence in the confes-
sor, and that it is not difficult to talk with him about what weighs
on the conscience. (Bay 512)
The spiritual guide comes next, with a 50.53% appreciation
rate. It is interesting to note, however, that for the below 40 group
– which corresponds to almost all those in initial formation – the
spiritual guide receives a rating of 62% – 2 points above the con-
fessor (60%).
As for the Rector, the rating is as follows. For the entire group of
respondents (guides included), the appreciation for help received
is 32.15%, with those below 40 indicating 48.8% and those above
55 (= 42% of the guides who responded) indicating 16.6%.
4 The data and percentages of the following three paragraphs are from a part of the
results of the research that was not included in Bay, Young Salesians and Accompa-
niment.

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Appreciation for the friendly talk with the Rector
33. It would seem that there is also an appreciation for the
friendly talk as one of the important services rendered by the Rec-
tor. In the answers to the question about the relative importance
of various duties of the Rector, the friendly talk is consistently re-
garded – from the postnovitiate to specific formation – as a more
important part of the Rector’s role than the service of personal
spiritual accompaniment. (Bay 152, 209-210, 298, 350-351)
48
This is mostly matched by the answers to the question about
which aspect the Rector should never neglect. The postnovices
put the friendly talk in fourth place, followed by spiritual guidance
(Bay 152); aspirants to the priesthood in specific formation put the
friendly talk in fourth place, and spiritual guidance in the sixth (Bay
300); and the Brother-Salesians in specific formation place the
friendly talk in second place, while not indicating spiritual guid-
ance at all (Bay 352). Interestingly, only the practical trainees re-
verse the order, putting spiritual guidance fourth, followed by the
friendly talk in seventh place (Bay 211).
Preparation of spiritual guides
34. As far as preparation for their service is concerned, 78.6%
(423) of the guides say they have learnt by experience, 57.1%
(307) by reading, writing, reflecting and personal meditation, and
41.3% (222) by seeking counsel and comparing their experience
with others.
24.7% (133) speaks of supervision by a mentor who is an expert
in spiritual guidance. (Bay 472) For 40.3% (205) of the guides,
their own access to spiritual accompaniment is part of their life-
style, while 44.6% (227) report an inertia in this regard. Paradox-
ically, 15.1% (77) of the guides say that they have not yet them-
selves acquired a conviction and strong motivation for growing in
this direction. (Bay 453)
45.7% (246) reports some sort of formal preparation for the
service of spiritual guidance. This preparation includes master’s
degrees in spiritual theology or pedagogy (formation of forma-
tors), post-graduate courses in psychology or spiritual theology,
the course for the ongoing formation of formators (UPS – Rome),
the Escuela Salesiana de Acompañamento Espiritual (Quito), the
Rectors’ course (Don Bosco Renewal Centre – Bangalore), and
the Salesian Studies course (Berkeley). Besides, there are shorter
courses of a week or so organized by dioceses and religious con-

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gregations in counselling, pastoral counselling, spiritual direction,
etc. (Bay 470-471)
We need to note that the formal preparation mentioned here is
very varied in nature. Some of the courses tend more towards the
academic and intellectual, others concentrate on the acquisition
of skills, while still others promote change and growth in the per-
son of the formator. (AGC 426 40-42)
2.1.3 Community accompaniment
49
Desired presence and closeness of formators
35. When respondents are asked ‘what to change or add in the
way formation is carried out,’ there emerges an insistence from
all the linguistic areas on the proximity of formators. Our young
formees from all over the world ask that their formation guides be
present with them in informal moments, and that they be willing
to share, bridge distances, encourage friendship, build trust and
confidence and create a family spirit.
It is evident that the community environment greatly influences
vocational growth, and is itself already a form of accompaniment.
In no way does it replace personal spiritual dialogue, but it condi-
tions very much the effectiveness of that moment, as the recent
Synod has also insisted. (FD 95-97)
The community environment is not always favourable
36. In point of fact, it emerges that the community environment
is not always favourable for personal accompaniment.
Speaking about the prenovices, for example, Bay observes: ‘An
interesting group of about a quarter of respondents, 24.9% (110),
has conversations [with the confreres who form part of the com-
munity] only 1-3 times a month or a few times a year.’ (Bay 72)
It is interesting to see also the relevance of community to those
at the other extreme of the arc of initial formation – the quinquen-
nium. From all linguistic areas there emerges an insistence on the
importance of sharing, interaction and meetings with confreres,
young people and lay mission partners, as also an attention to
the difficulties experienced in relationships, especially within the
religious community.

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Regional variations
37. It may be illuminating to note certain variations over regions
and linguistic areas in the responses of the quinquennium regard-
ing difficulties concerning community life:
ITALIAN: too much work and loneliness, with little possibility of
sharing with confreres because of the generation gap, leading to
individualism and sectorialism.
50
ENGLISH: too much work and difficulties in relating to the sen-
iors, leading to misunderstandings and behaviour contrary to the
Salesian vocation.
FRENCH: misunderstandings, prejudices, problems in commu-
nication.
POLISH: generational distance and little openness on the part of
senior confreres, with a tendency towards a diocesan style of life.
PORTUGUESE: generational gap, conflicts of mentality, too
much work, inconsistencies.
SPANISH: a lot of work along with questions related to the use
of money and power; very little accompaniment and dialogue.
Size of the community
38. Not a few of the quinquennists refer also to the size of the
community: if it is too small, the difficulties mentioned above in-
crease.
There is also the problem of large formation communities, with
the risk of depersonalization and weakening of the processes of
formative accompaniment.
2.2 HOW PERSONAL SPIRITUAL
ACCOMPANIMENT IS UNDERSTOOD
39. One’s understanding of personal spiritual accompaniment
tends to orientate one’s praxis. We would like to know, therefore,
what the young confreres in initial formation and the spiritual
guides understand by ‘personal spiritual accompaniment,’ and
how they think it is related to other forms of accompaniment such

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as the friendly talk with the Rector and the sacrament of recon-
ciliation.
2.2.1 By those being accompanied
Distinction between personal spiritual accompaniment and
the friendly talk
40. A first point is that there is a clearly emerging trend among
our young people in formation to distinguish between personal
51
spiritual accompaniment and the friendly talk. The percentages
are as follows: prenovices 46%, novices 46%, postnovices 57%,
practical trainees 67%, aspirants to the priesthood in specific for-
mation 70%, and Brother-Salesians in specific formation 71%.
(Bay 495)
However, there are interesting regional variations. Thus when
postnovices are asked if ‘the colloquy I have with the person re-
sponsible for the formative phase is distinct from spiritual accom-
paniment (two different things),’ the percentages of ‘yes’ are as
follows:
76% in the Mediterranean
71% in Central and Northern Europe
61% in East Asia – Oceania
59% in Interamerica
54% in Africa – Madagascar and South Asia
46% in America Southern Cone.
Sincere esteem for personal spiritual accompaniment
41. A second point: those being accompanied have a sincere
esteem for personal spiritual accompaniment. A large number of
items emerging from all the phases of initial formation reflect the
consciousness of a treasure in the field that needs to be recov-
ered.
The testimony of confreres in the quinquennium is especially
remarkable: 89.80% (344 out of 383) considers spiritual accom-
paniment important for the journey, even though initial formation
has ended.
Accompaniment is ‘spiritually focused’
42. Another element that emerges, especially in the responses of
those in the last phases of initial formation, is that accompaniment
is ‘spiritual focused.’ Our young confreres believe that spiritual ac-
companiment must concentrate on those aspects that help a per-

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son grow in his spiritual life and in his relationship to God.
Thus, as far as students of theology are concerned, ‘Attention in
the meeting of accompaniment goes above all to the life of prayer
and to the way of living the relationship with God, the commitments
of the spiritual life, etc. for 88.60% (615)…. The Word of God is
often part of the dialogue, according to 67.60% (468).’ (Bay 259)
We might add that while the word ‘God’ appears 1607 times in
the open responses of the formees, the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’
52
occur 730 times.
Attention to the charism
43. Life in community and involvement in the apostolic mission
are extremely significant factors in the processes of formation.
Growth in the Salesian charism is an integral part of the journey
of spiritual accompaniment whose aim is to grow as disciples of
Christ in the way marked out by Don Bosco.
The research indicates that attention to the charism is espe-
cially strong in the novitiate but less so in later phases. 95.9% of
the novices place love for Don Bosco and for the Salesian mis-
sion in the second place, coming after the possibility of better
self-knowledge (97.5%) and before the journey of spiritual growth
through silence, prayer and meditation (94.7%). (Bay 90)
It is also interesting to note that ‘Salesianity’ in general is more
valued in some regions than in others. More than half of the re-
spondents from Africa – Madagascar and East Asia – Oceania,
and also those from the UPS, have highlighted as positive the
help received to know Don Bosco better, and the study of the
Constitutions. (Bay 533)
We may add that the word ‘Bosco’ occurs 596 times in the open
answers of the formees, and 33 times in those of the spiritual
guides.
Characteristics of accompaniment
44. Great importance is given to the feeling of being at ease in
spiritual accompaniment and having no fear of opening the heart
on delicate and personal issues (84% of students of theology).
Even more important is the atmosphere of freedom (96% of stu-
dents of theology, but also practical trainees).

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The freedom to choose the guide is rated very high (91% of
students of theology, 93% of the quinquennium).
The students of theology note that, for their part, confidence
and openness (97%), transparency and sincerity with the guide
(95%) are important.
Again, absolute confidentiality on the part of the guide is con-
sidered of utmost importance (94% of students of theology).
53
2.2.2 By the spiritual guides
Accompaniment as ‘spiritually centred’
45. What do the spiritual guides understand by personal
spiritual accompaniment, and what value do they assign to it?
The Salesians offering the service of spiritual guidance were asked
to express themselves on the ‘intensity of the qualities and attitudes
assumed, lived and practised by the guides in accompanying oth-
ers.’ They could choose among 12 closed answers expressing a
spectrum of positive attitudes. The answer that received the highest
consensus is as follows: ‘I believe that the most important, but also
the most difficult task, is to know how to ‘transmit God,’ that is, to
help the person live more consciously in the presence of God. Se-
renity, peace, mercy, passion for the little ones and the poor, inner
joy... these are the signs of ‘union with God’ that those who accom-
pany must experience in themselves, in order to be able to commu-
nicate the same values in their turn to others.’ (Bay 440)
In the open answers of the guides the word ‘God’ appears 237
times, the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Christ’ 43 times, and the word ‘Bo-
sco’ 33 times.
2.3 WHAT HAPPENS IN WHAT IS CALLED
‘PERSONAL SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT’
46. We cannot take for granted that ‘what one thinks’ always
coincides with ‘what actually happens.’ We ask therefore about
what actually happens in what is called ‘personal spiritual ac-
companiment.’ Or at least, we seek some indications about what
might be happening in personal spiritual accompaniment in our
formation processes.

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2.3.1 Some external conditioning factors
Initiation to accompaniment in the prenovitiate
47. A first point is that for over 80% of the respondents, includ-
ing those offering the service of spiritual guidance, initiation to
accompaniment took place in the prenovitiate. (Bay 494)
However, some respondents do recognize, with percentages
that go from a third to more than half, that they were accompanied
54
in some way already before the prenovitiate. (Bay 53, 535-536)
Rectors / in charges with not enough time for accompani-
ment
48. Secondly, there is a complaint that Rectors or those in charge
do not always have enough time for accompaniment. Thus 45.70%
(403 out of 882) of the postnovices say that the Rector has so many
things to do that he does not have time to follow them spiritually.
(Bay 153) More surprisingly, 31.40% (124 out of 389) of the novices
reports the same thing about the novice director. (Bay 100) This
is the situation also reported by 33.90% of prenovices (Bay 58),
46.10% of practical trainees (Bay 212), 37.90% of aspirants to the
priesthood in specific formation (Bay 301), and 54.90% of Broth-
er-Salesians in specific formation (Bay 353).
We must keep in mind, of course, that ‘accompaniment’ here
might not always coincide with ‘personal spiritual accompaniment,’
given that the Rector is not always the chosen spiritual guide.
2.3.2 Rectors as spiritual guides: downward trend
49. We have seen (see section 2.2.1 above) that our formees
increasingly tend to distinguish between the friendly talk and
spiritual guidance. Distinction, however, does not necessarily
mean separation: I may distinguish friendly talk and spiritual ac-
companiment and still choose the same person for both services.
Thus, while 46% of prenovices make such a distinction, 75% of
them indicate that the one in charge is also the spiritual guide.
Going further up the arc of initial formation, 93% of novices say
that their novice director is their spiritual guide. 67% of postnovic-
es, 55% of practical trainees, 37% of aspirants to the priesthood
in specific formation, and 28% of Brother-Salesians in specific
formation say that their Rector is their spiritual guide. (Bay 495)

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If we leave aside the novices, therefore, we see that our formees
tend not only to distinguish between friendly talk and spiritual
guidance, but also increasingly distinguish between Rector and
spiritual guide.
2.3.3 Lack of confidentiality
50. There is a datum that emerges transversally across the
regions: the sensitive issue of confidentiality regarding what is
shared in personal accompaniment. We have seen already that
55
such confidentiality is considered of absolute importance (cf. sec-
tion 2.2.1 above). However, many of our respondents have the
impression that what is shared with a guide is often revealed to
others.
The scores are particularly high in the prenovitiate: ‘87.90%
(385) of the prenovices indicated as the main discomfort that the
guide uses the information given by the prenovice with others,
and sometimes even against the prenovice.’ (Bay 73-74)
In the other phases, the scores about violations of confidenti-
ality are much lower: novices 12.10% (47); postnovices 14.30%
(78); practical trainees 14.90% (78); theology students 13.40%
(91); Brother-Salesians in specific formation 25.5% (12 out of 47);
and quinquennium 21.10% (79). However, it is interesting that
even 16.7% of the Salesian guides reported this very difficulty
during their own experience of personal spiritual accompaniment
during initial formation. (Bay 459)
51. In various meetings of the regional formation commissions
during 2018, the question was raised whether these feelings were
more subjective than real, especially given that prenovices tend to
be apprehensive about their being admitted to the novitiate.
Whatever be the answer to that, we cannot avoid the fact that
the score, at least among the prenovices, is not only very high
(almost 90%) but also cuts across differences between countries
and regions. Even if this were to reflect a merely subjective im-
pression, it would still be an indicator of the quality of relationship
between formees, formators and the community. This is one of
the data in our research that solicits the most urgent reflection
and response.

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2.3.4 Openness and transparency
52. We have seen that 97% of students of theology consider
confidence, openness, transparency and sincerity as important
in spiritual accompaniment (see section 2.2.1 above). In point of
fact, however, there might not always be such openness.
Asked if personal spiritual accompaniment is a moment in which
one can freely share feelings, doubts, joys and difficulties, very high
values are given by the two regions of Europe, the two regions of
56
America, and Africa – Madagascar; the two regions of Asia follow
behind with a difference of 10-12 percentage points. (Bay 539)
Is personal accompaniment a moment in which one feels at
ease, without fear of opening one’s heart on very personal mat-
ters? Once again, the highest values are given by the Mediterra-
nean and Central & Northern Europe regions (88-89%), while the
lowest are given by the two regions of Asia. (Bay 539)
Does one say only what is strictly necessary during personal
accompaniment? It is once again South Asia and East Asia – Oce-
ania, this time along with Africa – Madagascar, that affirm this:
they do esteem the guide, but do not yet have the full confidence
to be able to tell him everything. (Bay 540)
There is, in other words, a diffidence about openness and trans-
parency in some regions but not in others.
2.3.5 Other problematic aspects
53. When we turn to other problematic aspects concerning the
relationship of accompaniment, the diversity among regions be-
comes even more pronounced. We cannot but notice a clear and
constant difference of at least +9.14 points between the values
coming from South Asia and East Asia – Oceania jointly (43% of
the total respondents) and those of the other regions on the fol-
lowing six items:
• lack of trust on the part of the guide;
• infrequent meetings;
• poor ability to listen: the guide wants to hear certain things,
and not what the one being accompanied would prefer to
share
• misunderstandings
• too much attention to matters of character and of psychology

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• fear of opening up on the part of the one being accompanied.
(Bay 545-546)
2.3.6 A behaviour to which to conform
54. In many cases, formation is identified with conforming to
a set of behaviours so as to reach up to the standard by which
formees will be evaluated.
Thus 29.80% (117 out of 389) of the novices say that the minute
57
regulation of every moment of the day gives little space for per-
sonal initiative. About a quarter, 24.20% (94), say they feel more
observed and controlled than accompanied. 23.70% (93) say that
the director of novices insists so strongly on discipline and obe-
dience that he fosters fear rather than sincerity and spontaneity.
For one out of five – about 21% (83) – the personal meeting with
the novice director is more a duty to be fulfilled than a desired
encounter in which to share what one really feels. (Bay 100)
55. When we come to the postnovices, the percentages are
even higher: 393 out of 885 (44.60%) say they feel more observed
and controlled than accompanied, and that the strong insistence
on discipline and obedience favours fear more than sincerity and
spontaneity; and 378 (42.70%) feel that the meeting with the Rec-
tor is more a duty to be fulfilled than a meeting where one can
share what one really feels. (Bay 153)
As for the practical trainees, 29% feels more observed and con-
trolled than accompanied, 26% feels that the insistence on dis-
cipline and obedience leads to fear, and for 36.20% the meeting
with the Rector is mostly a duty to be fulfilled. (Bay 213)
For those in specific formation towards the priesthood and for
Brother-Salesians in specific formation, 33.30% (221) and 44.9%
(22) respectively feels more observed and controlled than accom-
panied, and 36.90% (250) and 46.9% (23) respectively regards
the talk with the Rector as a duty rather than a moment for sharing
what one truly feels. (Bay 301 and 353)
56. We are dealing, in other words, with a model of formation
that makes use of strict discipline and formal obedience to a
packed program of obligations and events as a kind of ‘railway’
that facilitates the achievement of clear and well-defined objec-
tives for each phase. Among these obligations is also the monthly
talk with the person in charge.

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Given that for a very large number up to the postnovitiate this
talk coincides with personal spiritual accompaniment, the latter
also runs the danger of becoming one of the behaviours with
which to conform ‘in order to go ahead.’
2.3.7 The overlap between accompaniment and
authority
57. In a number of ways, and with varying degrees of insist-
58
ence, our Regulations and the FSDB encourage that the service
of spiritual guidance be offered by the one responsible for a par-
ticular stage of formation, at least up to and including practical
training:
Formation communities must have a rector and a team of for-
mation personnel who are specially prepared, above all as re-
gards spiritual direction which is ordinarily given by the Rector
himself. (R 78, emphasis added)
He [the Rector] is responsible for the personal formation pro-
cess of each confrere. He is also the spiritual director proposed
to, but not imposed on, the confreres in formation. (FSDB 233,
emphasis added)
The Rector [of the postnovitiate] continues the action of the
director of novices. With wisdom and sound judgement he ani-
mates the life and progress of the community, following up and
helping the postnovices especially through personal guidance
and the friendly talk, the spiritual direction of conscience and
periodical conferences. (FSDB 417, emphasis added)
This overlap between accompaniment and authority emerges
across the board as a major difficulty, because those recom-
mended and proposed as spiritual guides are also those with ma-
jor responsibilities in the process of admission.5
The fusion of roles is tolerated in the initial phases
58. Our survey reveals that such a fusion of roles is tolerated
as long as it cannot be avoided, and is dropped by the majority
just as soon as there is a chance to do so – usually between the
5 The FSDB proposes the Rector / in charge as spiritual guide up to the practical
training phase: see 339, 345 (prenovitiate); 417, 420 (postnovitiate); 437, 438 (practical
training). In the phase of specific formation it simply says: ‘[The Rector] should take
care of the spiritual animation of the community and of individuals.’ (FSDB 490)

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postnovitiate and practical training (see section 2.3.2 above).
Even among the novices, 93% of whom say that the novice di-
rector is also their spiritual guide (Bay 495), it is significant that
more than half of them (67.50%) are uncomfortable with this sit-
uation.6
Insistence on the freedom to choose the guide
59. There is a remarkable convergence in all the linguistic are-
as – therefore in all seven regions – on the freedom to choose the
59
guide. This emerges with special force when the respondents are
asked to freely suggest (in the open answers) what they believe
has to be changed in order to improve the quality of formation.
There are, however, regional variations. The majority of the
prenovices who ask not to be obliged to approach the one in
charge for spiritual guidance, even openly denouncing certain
limitations in their formators (lack of trust, etc.), are French-speak-
ing and English-speaking, coming from Africa, Madagascar, Asia
and Oceania (see answers to open questions about what could
be done better and what should be changed: Bay 73-83).
60. Again, the word ‘freedom’ recurs more strongly in the an-
swers to open questions coming from Anglophone Asia as com-
pared to other regions.
The desire for greater freedom in choosing the spiritual guide is
openly expressed, and quite a number – especially in the three in-
itial phases of formation – complain that such freedom is lacking.
Positively, the freedom to choose one’s spiritual guide is one
of the most appreciated characteristics in the phases of specific
formation, for both Priest-candidates and Brother-Salesians. Here
is the reply of the theology students to Question 16 about ‘helpful
elements for the experience of personal spiritual accompaniment’
(let us keep in mind that the respondents were 87% of the total of
SDB students in that phase of formation in 2017):
6 Here we are correcting Bay 114 which reads: ‘An important group of about a third of
the novices, i.e., 32.50% (127) indicate that the formator/novice director and spiritual
director are the same person, even if for three-fourths, 67.50% (264), this is not true.’
The question was about what creates discomfort or difficulty: ‘Now, reflecting on the
spiritual accompaniment that you experienced, try to express what might have creat-
ed discomfort or difficulty for you.’ 67.50% indicated as a difficulty ‘the fact that the
Formator/ Director of Novices / Spiritual Guide is the same person.’ 32.50% indicated
the opposite – that this fact does not create discomfort or difficulty.

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Almost all respondents to the questionnaire (over 90-98%)
belonging to this formative phase spoke of their confidence
in and openness to the guide – 96.70% (665 out of 688); the
positive attitude and great respect on the part of the guide
– 96.10% (661); the climate of freedom – 95.90% (658); the
openness and confidence of the guide towards the one being
accompanied – 94.40% (645). ... It is remarkable that 90.50%
(620) of the confreres in specific formation indicate the free-
dom to choose the spiritual guide as an important element of
help for their growth. (Bay 318)
60
What are we to make of this transversal insistence on the free-
dom to choose one’s guide, and of the regional variations?
2.4 THE ROLE OF CERTAIN MEDIATIONS
2.4.1 Periodic personal assessments (scrutinies)
61. A topic on which a large number of those who participat-
ed in the questionnaire expressed themselves forcefully is the
quarterly personal assessment, which is meant to be an aid for
personal growth, complementing what is offered in personal ac-
companiment. This assessment could be described as a person-
alized community accompaniment. ‘A form of guidance explicitly
provided for by the pedagogy of Salesian formation are the peri-
odic moments of personal assessment (‘scrutinies’) by which the
Council of the community helps the confrere to assess the situa-
tion of his personal formation, guides him and gives him practical
encouragement in the process of his growth to maturity.’ (FSDB
261)
62. On this topic, the research brings out strong and persistent
criticism through all the formation phases, with variations in per-
centages, but always with significant figures.
‘For a third of the novices, that is 30.3% (106), it is felt more
as a judgment on themselves that is not objective, that captures
only something of what one does, and not who one really is. Fi-
nally, more than a quarter of the novices – 28.1% (106 out of 377)
– maintains that the incidence of the scrutinies on admission to
first profession leads them more to fear than to desire them.’ (Bay
123) If already in the novitiate this instrument of growth is seen as
negative by more than a third, the problem is neither personal nor
isolated but structural.

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The index of negativity increases when we come to the postno-
vitiate. ‘For four postnovices out of ten, that is 41.6% (366), it is
felt more as a judgment on oneself that is not objective, and that
captures only something of what one does and not who one really
is. In the end, more than a quarter of postnovices, that is 27.9%
(244 out of 875), maintains that the incidence of the assessments
on the admission for the renewal of vows leads the post-novice
more to fear than to desire them.’ (Bay 183) On the same items,
the percentages of confreres in practical training are 38.3% and
31.9% respectively, and those of theology students in specific
formation 35.30% and 27.5%.
61
63. A more detailed examination of regional variations would be
significant. However, the data in general does call for our attention
as a Congregation, given that for a very large number of formees
this exercise does not seem to function as the help for growth that
it is meant to be.
2.4.2 Different forms or aspects of prayer
64. We have seen that, in general, our formees hold the life
of prayer in high esteem, and that many of them see personal
spiritual accompaniment as centrally concerned with it.
It is interesting, however, to examine the responses to various
personal and community expressions of the life of prayer. The daily
Eucharist always gathers the highest consensus – though here it is
difficult to distinguish between ‘head’ and ‘heart,’ between a value
that ‘must be affirmed’ and how the Eucharist is actually lived and
valued. Instead, the responses regarding personal prayer, commu-
nity prayer, meditation and the word of God are as follows:
Prenovices
Novices
Postnovices
Pr. trainees
Stud. theology
Bro. spec. for.
Quinquennium
Personal
prayer
74,60%
83,00%
73,80%
77,70%
74,90%
69,20%
74,20%
Community
prayer
61,80%
71,60%
Meditation Word of God
Not among the
22 options
69,80%
65,00%
Not among the
22 options
60,60%
52,40%
68,20%
61,43%
42,23%
67,82%
57,90%
46,50%
73,20%
69,20%
59,60%
63,50%
62,10%
42,30%
68,20%

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The table confirms the general esteem for these expressions of
prayer, especially personal. We may note that East Asia – Oceania
is the region that gives the highest value to personal prayer, com-
munity prayer and meditation. (Bay 535)
65. However, there are also signs of fatigue. Take, for instance,
the answers of the quinquennists with regard to the liturgy of the
hours, which they identify as one of the dimensions of the life of
62
prayer that is less authentic and life-giving. This gives cause for
reflection: how is it that the liturgy of the hours, which is one of
the most constant forms of prayer in the whole of initial formation,
ends up becoming something merely external and not life-giving?
And what about meditation, daily fidelity to which is ‘guaran-
teed’ during the whole of initial formation? Clearly, faithfully ‘be-
ing present’ for it is not automatically a guarantee of growth and
appropriation of its value and beauty from within. The individual
needs to be helped to attend to what is happening interiorly as
he meditates, so as to help him make decisions for growth and
inner conviction. In the table above, meditation is the expression
of prayer with the weakest appreciation indices.
2.4.3 The personal plan of life
66. Another mediation that can be very significant for the jour-
ney of personal accompaniment is the personal plan of life.
It is significant that the personal plan is one of the tools to which
spiritual guides give a lot of attention. Among a number of oth-
er instruments, this is the one that gathers a large consensus
(83.7%).
There is a question in the survey for each phase about ‘meth-
ods, techniques, models to learn more about oneself and spiritual
life’ that are used and appreciated. It is interesting to read the
consistent weight given to the personal plan of life as compared
to three other instruments.

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Novices
Personal plan
of life
78,20%
Exercises
of personal
analysis and
evaluation
78,20%
Journal
68,80%
Autobiography
65,80%
Postnovices
72,40%
68,80%
50,60%
38,60%
Practical
trainees
64,20%
62,40%
47,80%
32,50%
Theology
students
75,40%
69,30%
45,50%
39,80%
63
Brother-Sale-
sians in specif-
76,60%
72,00%
45,70%
40,40%
ic formation
Quinquennium
70,10%
65,40%
28,90%
28,50%

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64

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Part two
65
Interpreting

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3 Light from our
tradition
3.1 THE ORIGINALITY OF SALESIAN SPIRITUAL
67
ACCOMPANIMENT OF YOUNG PEOPLE
67. It is worth insisting on the peculiarity of Salesian spiritual
accompaniment of young people: it is a process involving com-
munity, group and personal dimensions. (FD 95-97) On this point
we now have full backing from the 2018 Synod: ‘There is an in-
herent complementarity between personal accompaniment and
community accompaniment, which every spirituality or ecclesial
sensibility is called to articulate in its own way.’ (FD 95)
Don Bosco found his vocation in the rapid expansion of the city
of Turin, with a huge influx of young people searching for a job
and at great personal risk. He realized that if his work were to suc-
ceed, he had to convince the boys that they had found a ‘friend,’
someone they could trust and to whom they could open up their
hearts. He understood the fundamental importance of making
each young person feel at ease and loved.
While catering to the needs of the group of young people flock-
ing to his oratory, Don Bosco also took care to maintain one-to-
one relationships. His aim was to prepare the boys for life and
make them aware of God’s love for them, to love their Catholic
faith and to live it in daily life. Thus the oratory became a home, a
parish, a school and a playground.
The following diagram illustrates the originality and richness of
Don Bosco’s praxis (Grech 251-254):

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DON BOSCO’S SPIRITUAL DIRECTION PRAXIS
INFORMAL
APPROACH
FORMAL
APPROACH
ORATORY
OPTIMUM ENVIRONMENT
FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH
68
GROUP
INDIVIDUAL
68. The spiritual direction practised by Don Bosco is a journey
occurring simultaneously within an environment and on an indi-
vidual level. Spiritual direction is not limited here to the periodic
one-to-one meeting between spiritual director and the individual
seeking guidance. Don Bosco managed to maintain a beautiful
balance between a healthy, mature environment and the individ-
ual level. Within these two levels we can distinguish further be-
tween formal and informal approaches.
The formal approach is regular and is based on agreement. On
the level of the group it includes spiritual retreats, liturgical life,
catechesis and other meetings with formal input. On the individual
level, it consists of one-to-one meetings between spiritual direc-
tor and the person seeking guidance.
The informal approach is exemplified by the ‘word in the ear.’
Such accompaniment is occasional and may involve a variety of
mentors.
69. The process of spiritual accompaniment takes place within
a faith community receptive to grace and the action of the Holy
Spirit, where there is a natural interweaving of formal and informal
approaches. The regular and structured approach is more likely to
be transformative and fruitful, but it is equally true that without the
various informal interventions and the community environment
the efficacy of the formal moments would be diminished.
Such a holistic praxis indicates also just how much time Don

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Bosco dedicated to accompanying his youth. Dedicating a few
hours a week to one-to-one dialogue was simply not enough for
him. His originality lay in creating a holistic approach that incorpo-
rated group and individual dimensions through various formal and
informal approaches within a specific environment. (Grech Chap.
4. Giraudo 107-109)
The one-to-one spiritual accompaniment of Ignatius of Loyola
70. Don Bosco’s praxis is related in interesting ways to Ignatius
of Loyola and to Francis de Sales.
69
The spiritual direction praxis of Ignatius of Loyola is centred on
one-to-one meetings with a guide. Like Teresa of Jesus, Ignati-
us gave great importance to the discernment of spirits aiming at
establishing a relationship with God. His Spiritual Exercises were
forged by reflection on his own spiritual journey and imply a clear
option for introspection and review of the inner motivations be-
hind choices. Ignatius’ proposal consists in removing disordered
affections and seeking knowledge of God’s will on the basis of
this new freedom.
71. The Exercises were a central element in the formative pro-
ject of the Convitto Ecclesiastico where Don Bosco spent three
decisive years of his early priestly life and ‘learnt to be a priest.’1
Don Bosco not only made the Exercises every year but also of-
fered them from the very beginning to his poor young people,
besides regularly helping Cafasso with the Exercises for groups
of clergy and of lay people at Sant’Ignazio sopra Lanzo for many
years. Offering the Exercises to the young and to simple people
was, in fact, one of the five aims of the Salesian Congregation
from the time of the first Constitutions written by Don Bosco him-
self.
Francis de Sales: Spiritual friendship in accompaniment
72. The Ignatian influence is strong on Francis de Sales. He
chose to enter the Jesuit college of Clermont in Paris over his fa-
ther’s preference for the College of Navarre. As a student in Pad-
ua, he chose the Jesuit Fr Anthony Possevin as his spiritual guide.
1 The Convitto was founded by Luigi Guala under the inspiration of Pio Brunone Lan-
teri. Lanteri himself was a disciple of Nicolaus von Diessbach, a Jesuit who was an
enthusiastic follower of Alfonso Maria de’ Liguori. Diessbach had initiated Lanteri to
the propagation of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius as a privileged instrument of
the apostolate. This was one of the central intuitions of the Convitto Ecclesiastico in
which Don Bosco was formed. See Buccellato 76-80.

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As a young bishop he entrusted himself to Fr Fourier, Rector of
the Jesuit College of Chambery. In his own praxis, however, to
what he learnt from the Ignatian tradition he adds the element
of spiritual friendship. ‘Perhaps the most characteristic trait of
Salesian spiritual direction is the mutual friendship that unites the
director and the directee. We can safely say that for Francis de
Sales there is no real spiritual direction without real friendship,
and such friendship always involves mutual communication and
reciprocal enrichment, which allows the relationship to become
truly spiritual.’ (Alburquerque 19) In the context of Francis de
70
Sales’ terminology, ‘the word which best expresses the spiritual
director’s manner and style of being full of charity is “friendship”,’
and his insistence on friendship probably constitutes a watershed
in the history of spiritual direction in the Church. (Struś 40, 47-48)
Relationship as central to the praxis of Don Bosco
73. Building on what he had learned about the Ignatian tradi-
tion at the Convitto, Don Bosco spontaneously seems to have
adopted also the Salesian element of friendship and warm per-
sonal relationships in the praxis of spiritual accompaniment. ‘In
Salesian spiritual direction, the relationship of the director with the
young person is not incidental to the whole process, but essential
for both healing and growth…. This fatherly or motherly concern
can be traced back to St Francis [de Sales]’ and Jane Frances
[de Chantal’s] unique mode of spiritual direction where “they hold
their directees in their hearts”.’ (McDonnell 55) ‘The relationship
that is established between the Salesian formator and young peo-
ple should always have the imprint of “the greatest cordiality,”
since “familiarity leads to love, and love leads to confidence. It
is that that opens up the heart and the young reveal everything
without fear…. They become honest in confession and outside,
and they are readily open to all that is asked from them by the one
whom they know loves them.”’2
There is, in fact, a beautiful resonance between the etymology
of the word accompaniment and Salesian familiarity: to accom-
pany means ‘to be companions on the journey,’ with that level of
togetherness that comes from sharing bread, cum-panis, with all
the echoes from our Christian and Salesian context.
2 Giraudo 111, citing G. Bosco, Due lettere da Roma, 10 maggio 1884.

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Community, group and personal accompaniment
in Don Bosco
74. But to relationships of friendship and cordiality with the
young people, Don Bosco added the community and group di-
mensions – and here lies his originality. We find this well reflected
in the Frame of Reference of Salesian youth ministry (FoR Chap.
5) when it notes that the educative and pastoral community (EPC)
is animated by means of accompaniment of the environment, of
the group and of each person. 3
71
In the context of community and group accompaniment, ‘meet-
ing and dialogue have a value and a particular function. The dia-
logue is an opportunity for pastoral intervention, as we see in the
encounter of the boy John Bosco with Fr Calosso or the meet-
ing between Don Bosco the priest with Bartholomew Garelli. The
Salesian approach is intended to evoke the young person’s ac-
tive collaboration and this is critical to the educational process,
because of the possibilities, choices and personal experiences it
creates…. It evokes the desire for dialogue and discernment, and
promotes the internalisation of daily experiences in order to deci-
pher the messages to be learned. It enables the young person to
face confrontation and make critical judgements, to seek recon-
ciliation and regain inner calm, and leads to a growth in personal
and Christian maturity.’ (FoR 124)
Accompaniment in the Strenna of 2018
75. The originality and peculiarity of the Salesian style of ac-
companiment of young people is beautifully confirmed by Fr Án-
gel Fernández Artime in his 2018 Strenna on the topic of accom-
paniment, ‘“Lord, give me this water” (John 4:15). Let us cultivate
the art of listening and of accompaniment.’ (AGC 426) First, like
Don Bosco, Salesian accompaniment does not limit itself to the
moment of personal dialogue, but inserts this into the living con-
text of an attractive educative environment ‘rich in educational
proposals and human relationships.’ (AGC 426 21) Second – and
this follows from the first – Salesian personal accompaniment is
a living part of our pedagogical spirituality of relationship, which
aims at the conquest of the heart: ‘the emotional tone and the cre-
ation of trust and sympathy’ are fundamental conditions of Don
Bosco’s educational method. (AGC 426 22)
3 In his post-synodal Exhortation, Pope Francis observes that the Church is growing
in the awareness that it is the entire community that evangelizes the young. (CV 202)

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All this finds confirmation in Pope Francis when he says that in
the pastoral care of youth ‘we need to use above all the language
of closeness, the language of generous, relational and existential
love that touches the heart, impacts life, and awakens hopes and
desires. Young people need to be approached with the grammar
of love, not by being preached at.’ (CV 211)
3.2 SALESIAN SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT IN
THE PROCESSES OF FORMATION
72
3.2.1 Don Bosco’s praxis reflected in formation
processes
76. The originality and richness of Don Bosco’s spiritual direc-
tion praxis ought to be reflected not only in the various settings
of our youth ministry but also in the processes of initial formation.
Thus, commenting on the Ratio in ‘Vocation and Formation,’ Fr
Pascual Chávez notes that formative accompaniment or guid-
ance ‘is not limited to individual dialogue, but is a composite of
relations, environment and pedagogy, something typical of the
Preventive System.’ (FSDB 258; AGC 416 46) Community accom-
paniment plays a very important role in the living communication
of Salesian values. This accompaniment needs of course to be
personalized, and for this we must ensure that there are ‘dedicat-
ed people involved in formation who are competent and united in
their criteria.’ (AGC 416 47)
3.2.2 The Preventive System and the processes of
formation
77. The Preventive System is our way of doing things: it is both
a spirituality and a pastoral methodology. It is, in fact, our model
of formation.
The famous triad of the Preventive System can be specified in
terms of fundamental attitudes for accompaniment: hospitality in
reference to love, pedagogy in reference to reason, and mystago-
gy in reference to religion.
78. Hospitality involves values such as unconditional accept-
ance, loyalty, respect and trust, patient listening, sensitivity to the
other, a relationship full of humanity, and the objective of integral
health. At the centre of education and formation is the person in

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his singularity and concreteness.4 ‘The first kind of sensitivity is
directed to the individual. It is a matter of listening to someone
who is sharing his very self in what he says. A sign of this willing-
ness to listen is the time we are ready to spare for others. More
than the amount of time we spend, it is about making others feel
that my time is their time, that they have all the time they need to
say everything they want. The other person must sense that I am
listening unconditionally, without being offended or shocked, tired
or bored.’ (CV 292)
Hospitality means looking positively at the person, listening, en-
73
gaging in dialogue, making concrete proposals for growth, accom-
panying the processes of growth with patience, being present at
key moments of decision and difficulty. The research shows that
young people immediately perceive whether or not their formators
dedicate themselves willingly to the service of guidance, or are
more concerned, instead, about their personal agenda. A guide
who is time conscious will hardly be able to create a conducive
holding environment.
The formator helps persons be themselves, risk making their
own decisions and take charge of their lives. It is such hospitality
that creates a safe space where those in formation might dare to
open up their hearts and confide in their formators and guides. It
is such openness, confidence and transparency that enables due
attention to the human dimension, including the area of affectivity
and sexuality, and allows the surfacing of deep motivations and
convictions.
Pedagogy involves beginning from where each young person is,
initiating a journey, engaging in a process, proposing goals and
stages, helping think critically, and educating to the faith. The at-
tention to the life story of each person in his uniqueness is the
starting point of accompaniment and demands very good listen-
ing skills on the part of the one accompanying the candidates,
most especially in the first stages of their vocation journey. Our
candidates exhibit a growing diversity and fragmentation, linked
also to family and social backgrounds in constant transformation.
To accompany the young starting from the ‘present stage of
their freedom’ (C 38) is a pedagogical art that requires a very good
Salesian sensitivity and also specific preparation. Much help can
be obtained from counselling, psychology and the human scienc-
4 This is one of the central axes of spiritual direction in St Francis de Sales: see Albur-
querque 15-16.

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es, in the context of a preparation that engages the person and
the life experience of the educators.
Mystagogy involves awakening the desire for faith, helping
persons become aware of their interiority, connecting with ques-
tions regarding meaning, recognizing the indwelling of a Pres-
ence, initiating to the experience of God. The Final Document of
the Synod on youth invokes the example of the deacon Philip:
Like the deacon Philip, the accompanier is called to obey
74
the call of the Spirit, going outwards and leaving behind the
safe area enclosed by the walls of Jerusalem, a figure of the
Christian community, so as to set out towards an inhospitable
desert place, perhaps a dangerous one, in which he makes
the effort to pursue a chariot. Having reached it, he must find
a way of entering into a relationship with the foreign traveller,
so as to elicit a question that perhaps would never have been
formulated spontaneously (cf. Acts 8:26-40). (FD 101)
79. All this is part of the maternal role of the Church. ‘Ed-
ucation therefore means sharing with a fatherly and maternal
love in the growth of the individual concerned, while fostering
collaboration with others to the same end: educational relation-
ships presuppose, in fact, a number of different agencies work-
ing together.’ (Viganò AGC 337 14) Here personalized care and
maternal intimacy become mystagogy. (Giraudo 115)
The mystagogical dimension involves acknowledging that the
guide is a mediator. Like the Baptist, the Lord must increase
and the guide must decrease (cf. Jn 3:28-30). The great virtues
of the mediator are humility and self-denial. The humble guide
helps a lot; the guide who is filled with himself is a great danger.
‘In brief, to accompany requires placing oneself at the disposal
of the Spirit of the Lord and of the one accompanied, with all his
or her qualities and capacities, and then having the courage to
step aside with humility.’ (FD 101)
80. The temptations of the guide are many: wanting to occupy
the place of the Lord, appearing as someone special, searching
for followers and disciples, thinking that everything depends on
him, or that the victories of the one accompanied are his own
victories, and that the failures of that person are his own failures.
Again, he might be tempted to substitute the person accompa-
nied – not respecting his freedom or his process of growth, mak-
ing decisions for him, betraying confidentiality, failing to encour-
age independence, creating dependence. ‘At a certain moment,’

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says Pope Francis, ‘we ourselves have to disappear in order to
let the other person follow the path he or she has discovered. We
have to vanish as the Lord did from the sight of his disciples in
Emmaus, leaving them alone with burning hearts and an irresisti-
ble desire to set out immediately (cf. Lk 24:31-33).’ (CV 296)
81. The mystagogical dimension obviously presupposes an in-
tense love for Jesus on the part of the guide. ‘It is not the same
thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the
same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing
to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to con-
75
template him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to.
It is not the same thing to try to build the world with his Gospel as
to try to do so by our own lights.’ (EG 266)
Love for the Lord is nourished by prayer. To nourish love it is
necessary to speak with the beloved: ‘Our infinite sadness is only
cured with an infinite love.’ (EG 265) ‘With a friend, we can speak
and share our deepest secrets. With Jesus too, we can always
have a conversation…. Prayer enables us to share with him every
aspect of our lives and to rest confidently in his embrace. At the
same time, it gives us a share in his own life and love. When we
pray, “we play into his hands,” we give him room “so that he can
act, enter and claim victory”.’ (CV 155)
Prayer is fundamental to one who is a spiritual guide: ‘Without
sustained moments of adoration, of prayerful encounter with the
Word, of sincere dialogue with the Lord, the tasks are easily emp-
tied of meaning, we are weakened by the fatigue of the difficulties
and the fervour is extinguished.’ (EG 262) The guide prays for
those he accompanies. His prayer is a humble request to the Spir-
it to enlighten and accompany the one guided and to make up for
the limits and deficiencies of the guide himself. When the guide
fails to give value to intercession, accompaniment slowly loses its
freshness and becomes a routine.
82. Accompaniment, finally, becomes a school of holiness and
bears fruits of joy and happiness both in the one accompanying
and in those who are accompanied. ‘Do not be afraid of holiness.
It will not take away strength, life or joy. On the contrary, because
you will become what the Father thought when he created you
and you will be faithful to your own being.’ (GE 32)

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3.2.3 The splendid blending between family spirit
and personal guidance
83. From Don Bosco’s own descriptions in his Memoirs and
in the Lives he wrote, we see that the interplay between environ-
ment and personal accompaniment is so intense that we cannot
imagine one without the other. The ‘splendid blending of nature
and grace’ that describes our Founder (C 21) is reflected in the
way he carried out his mission among the young, in the splendid
harmony of family life and personal accompaniment that Magone,
76
Besucco, Savio and their companions found in Valdocco.
Our research confirms the importance of the relationship be-
tween a community environment steeped in the family spirit (see
C 16) and the attention given to each one through the three main
accompaniment roles. These roles found a unity in the person of
Don Bosco, who was at once superior, spiritual guide and con-
fessor. History has given rise to many changes in the animation
of the community and the way personal guidance is carried out in
the Congregation, but the value of these three ways of personal
accompaniment remains unaltered.
Rector
84. In our tradition, the Rector’s role is closely linked to the
pedagogical and spiritual experience of Don Bosco himself, and
is therefore quite different from what we find in other religious in-
stitutes. More on this point may be found in The Salesian Rector:
A ministry for the animation and governing of the local commu-
nity (2019), which is the revised Rector’s Manual mandated by
GC27. For the purpose of the present orientations and guidelines
it is sufficient to remind ourselves of the fact that (1) the Rector
is the spiritual guide and guardian of unity in the religious com-
munity and in the educative and pastoral community; (2) he is
the guardian of Salesian charismatic identity, favouring common
commitment towards a creative fidelity to Don Bosco in the par-
ticular context and situation of the Salesian presence; and (3) he
‘has a direct responsibility towards each confrere; he helps him
realize his own personal vocation’ (C 55) especially through the
friendly talk (C 70). This kind of accompaniment retains its value
even when distinguished from the personal spiritual accompani-
ment that enters into the internal forum. The head of the family is
the one who knows the confrere in those aspects of life that are
manifested within the community and in the mission, and he has
a special responsibility at times of discernment, applications and
admissions.

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Confessor
85. The sacrament of reconciliation is an element of central
importance in the spirituality and pedagogy of Don Bosco. We
will have more to say later about the confessor (see section 4.7
below). Here it is enough to note that this form of accompani-
ment, where the encounter between grace and freedom finds
expression in a most intimate and sacramental way, is in har-
mony with the roles of Rector and spiritual guide. It is in this
harmonious blend of inner life and external commitments, com-
munity relationships and personal journeys, that we find the best
77
support for our ‘path to holiness’ (C 25).
Spiritual Guide
86. Personal spiritual accompaniment must be in deep har-
mony with the community environment, the Rector’s fundamen-
tal role of accompaniment of the community and of the con-
freres, and the sacramental experience of reconciliation. The
better the integration, the richer will be the journey of vocational
growth. We give much importance, and rightly so, to person-
al freedom, including the freedom to choose one to whom we
can confide our most personal experiences. Nevertheless, this
does not diminish the wisdom coming from our tradition about
choosing a guide who not only knows our charism but can also
witness the unfolding of our daily experience within the commu-
nity. Our interactions with others and our daily lifestyle are part
of the ‘matter’ of personal spiritual accompaniment, so it can be
helpful if our guides themselves form part of our community and
have independent access to these experiences. A wise Rector
will, therefore, know how to help his confreres in the choice of
spiritual guide.

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78

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4 Understanding
what the Spirit is saying
87. In Chapter 2 we structured the data given us by our exer-
79
cise of listening with the help of four questions: Who are those
involved in the process of spiritual accompaniment? What do they
understand by personal spiritual accompaniment? What actual-
ly happens in what is being called personal spiritual accompani-
ment? And what is the role of certain mediations? In Chapter 3,
we tried to draw light from the Salesian tradition and the recent
teaching of the Church.
We can now proceed to the second step in our exercise of
spiritual discernment, which is interpreting: what is the Spirit tell-
ing us through what we have heard? Here we will not follow the
structure provided by the four questions but will allow the themes
to emerge spontaneously.
4.1 AN INCULTURATED FORMATION
Dialogue with the culture of the young
88. A first point that emerges from our study is the invitation to
dialogue with the culture of the young, so as to ensure an incul-
turated formation. Meeting young people ‘at their present stage
of freedom’ (C 38) also involves entering into dialogue with their
culture, their way of understanding life, and their patterns of com-
munication.
If this is a challenge that concerns all Salesians, it is undoubt-
edly a prominent one for those who offer the service of personal
accompaniment, especially in the initial phases of formation. It is
precisely there that the encounter between the new generations
and Salesian life takes place every year, with new faces, gifts,
needs and challenges.

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Dealing with a culture that is digital
89. A major element in the culture of the young people of today
is the digital universe. ‘“The digital environment is characteristic
of the contemporary world. Broad swathes of humanity are im-
mersed in it in an ordinary and continuous manner. It is no longer
merely a question of ‘using’ instruments of communication, but
of living in a highly digitalized culture that has had a profound
impact on ideas of time and space, on our self-understanding,
our understanding of others and the world, and our ability to
80
communicate, learn, be informed and enter into relationship with
others.”’ (CV 86)
Given that the majority of our formees are in the 20-30 age
bracket, they are digital natives, belonging to Generation Y and
now also to Generation Z.5 They have grown up in a culture dom-
inated by the technologies of virtual communication. Within this
space, they have become actors and scriptwriters, with their own
language and interests. They discover and reinvent themselves,
and demand the right to navigate and dialogue in cyberspace.
‘The fresh and exuberant lives of young people who want to affirm
their personality today confront a new challenge: that of interact-
ing with a real and virtual world that they enter alone, as if setting
foot on an undiscovered global continent. Young people today are
the first to have to effect this synthesis between what is personal,
what is distinctive to their respective cultures, and what is global.’
(CV 90)
In the process, one of the risks is that ‘bringing those far away
much closer, while at the same time making those near more dis-
tant.’ With hyper-connectivity, paradoxically, loneliness has not
decreased: it is quite possible to be ‘alone together.’ At the same
time, young people still value connectivity with anyone at any
time. The challenge before them is ‘to pass from virtual contact to
good and healthy communication.’ (CV 90)
90. Among other risks are pornography, gambling, cyber-bully-
ing, hidden dangers in chat rooms, and ideological manipulation,
and our young candidates and confreres are not exempt from
these dangers. Those offering spiritual accompaniment urgently
need to become attentive to these obstacles to growth, their hab-
it-forming potential and the tendency to addiction.
5 According to one proposal, Gen Y includes those born between 1980 and 2000, while
Gen Z are those born after 2000.

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91. But the task of guides is not limited to a healthy and ethical
use of the net. For us, social communication is a field of activity
that constitutes one of the apostolic priorities of the mission. (C
43) Here also, Pope Francis invites us to trust the young: ‘Young
people can find new fields for mission in the most varied settings.
For example, since they are already so familiar with social net-
works, they should be encouraged to fill them with God, fraterni-
ty and commitment.’ (CV 241) Growing up faith-filled and deeply
rooted in the Salesian charism, our young confreres of the digi-
tal generation will create new languages for communicating with
their peers and sharing the good news brought by Jesus.
81
A culture that does not encourage definitive commitments
92. The present generations also tend to have difficulties in
making definitive commitments. They are marked by a state of flu-
idity and uncertainty, where freedom is understood as the possi-
bility of access to and choice from an indefinite range of ever-new
opportunities. Such fluidity and uncertainty lead to a marked fear
of making definitive commitments.6 At the same time digital na-
tives are still ‘major seekers of meaning… intrigued and motivated
to action by anything that is in tune with their quest to give value
to their lives.’ (IL 7) Despite secularization, there is still a deep
hunger for God in the young people of today.
93. Further, in the current social, economic, political and cultur-
al scenario, the period of youth varies a great deal. ‘In some coun-
tries, people get married or choose the priesthood or religious life
even before they turn 18, whereas elsewhere this happens after
30, when youth is actually over. In several contexts, transitioning
into adulthood has become a long, complicated and non-linear
process, where progress and setbacks occur and, in general, job
searching prevails over the affective dimension. This makes it
harder for young people to make definitive choices.’ (IL 16)
94. Two further factors are the idea of freedom and consumer
capitalism. When freedom is understood as the possibility of hav-
ing access to ever-new opportunities, and when it is reinforced by
consumer capitalism driven by an abundance of choices, young
people are easily led to shy away from making definitive choic-
es that seem to limit and restrict them: ‘Today I choose this, to-
morrow we’ll see.’ Or: ‘Up to now I am happy. Tomorrow if I find
something else, I will see.’
6 See F. Cereda, ‘La fragilità vocazionale. Avvio alla riflessione e proposte di interven-
to,’ ACG 385 (2004) section 2.1: Incapacità di decisioni definitive.

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Dealing with interculturality
95. There is the further element of interculturality. The plane-
tary distribution of the Salesians of Don Bosco is not merely a
geographical fact but a dynamic of internationality that is quite
unique. Spread out over 132 countries, we are undoubtedly one
of the most widely distributed religious congregations in the
world. This cannot but have an impact on the formation process,
particularly in what concerns spiritual accompaniment.
82
Speaking only in terms of diversity, we have young candidates
from the great urban centres and others from remote rural areas;
those who belong to dominant majority groups, and others who
come from ethnic minorities; those who have the possibility of
engaging in the formation process in their own native language,
and others who have to go through the pain of learning a second
and sometimes even a third language; and so on. Added to this is
regional, national, cultural and economic diversity, not to mention
also the caste and other subtle or not so subtle stratification or
classification factors that prevail in several parts of the globe.
96. In the face of this diversity, the Congregation is actively
encouraging interculturality, both in the phases of initial formation
and elsewhere.7 What kind of formators, guides and teams are
needed to accompany diversity and interculturality? How should
we prepare such formators and guides? Above all, how can the
Congregation effectively govern interprovincial realities such as
those of an increasing number of formation houses around the
world, when most of its structures are meant to govern provinces?
Also, the Congregation has to take more into account the fact
that 53% of the respondents answered in English. We have to ask
about the implications for our formation processes.
Further, if the learning of a foreign language calls for dedication
and constancy, much more demanding and necessary is an open-
ness to the new way of understanding, valuing and communicat-
ing characteristic of the new generations. This kind of language,
grammar and culture calls for a readiness to listen, dialogue and
learn that is no less intense than what is demanded of a confrere
sent to a new country as a missionary ad gentes.
7 GC27 75.5; A. Fernández Artime, AGC 419 (2014) 25-26; F. Cereda, ‘Encouraging
international communities (GC27 75.5),’ AGC 429 (2019) 42-51.

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Bridging cultures
97. We are seeing a shift from a ‘classicist’ to an ‘empirical’
notion of culture, to the idea that there is no one culture that is
normative, the ideal to be reached.8 Faith and charism are funda-
mentally transcultural realities that call for incarnation in the vari-
ety of the cultures of humankind.
98. In such a situation, the formators and guides of today are
called to a necessary inculturation or the capacity to create bridg-
es across cultural gaps. And this, in our opinion, is not so much
83
a matter of knowledge of cultures, as of the ‘solid inner core’ of
the person of the formator. It is the existential-spiritual interiority
of the formator that is the true bridge over cultural distances. No
formator or spiritual guide can ever hope to know every one of the
cultures in his often multicultural community, but we can certainly
expect him to grow and keep growing in his graced interiority. We
come back, in fact, to the need for the preparation and continued
formation of formation guides, and to a simple but generous in-
sistence on the Preventive System that knows how to value each
person in his particularity and to engage in dialogue with patience,
knowing that all of us are carried and enveloped by grace.
Our research shows that the experience of a lived and consist-
ent exposure to a culture that is not one’s own is seen to be very
helpful to a formator (see above, section 2.1.1). ‘Until a man ac-
quires some knowledge of another culture, he cannot be said to
be educated, since his whole outlook is so conditioned by his
own social environment that he does not realize its limitations.’9
Keeping in mind the fact that the great majority of young Sale-
sians now belongs to the regions of Africa – Madagascar, South
Asia and East Asia – Oceania, the need to give deeper attention
to the cultures that nurture the lives of these young people and
confreres, especially in the formation of formators, becomes a
strategic way forward for the Congregation. Without a proper un-
derstanding of cultures there will be no inculturation of formation
and of mission. Formation and mission are meant to be interwo-
8 The distinction (though not in these terms) may be found in the ecclesiastical and
Salesian magisterium, as for example in EG 117 and AGC 419 25. Classicism took
one culture as the norm; others were merely barbarian. The empirical notion of culture
is simply the negation of classicism. It acknowledges a plurality of cultures, because
it regards culture as the way any people apprehends meaning and value in their way
of life.
9 Christopher Dawson, The Crisis of Western Education (New York: Sheed and Ward,
1961) 113.

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ven in the process of engaging with the life and culture of peoples
and nations, in that ‘blending of nature and grace’ (C 21) that is at
the heart of every vocational journey.
Bold steps need to be taken also in the inculturation of our
study programmes, in line with what has been proposed in Veri-
tatis Gaudium.10
New forms of vocational discernment and aspirantate
84
99. The accompaniment of young people who show an interest
in the Salesian consecrated life has to take into consideration all
the changes affecting the social and cultural world of youth today,
changes that manifest not only a frenetic rhythm but also ma-
jor variations as far as regions and provinces are concerned. The
letter issued by the Youth Ministry and Formation departments
in 2011 attempts to respond to this by proposing a variety of ap-
proaches to the aspirantate:
Nowadays we recognise that the maturing process takes much
longer and that individuals’ rhythm of progress are different. Many
factors contribute to this situation. However, it is not a question
of prolonging the formation process but of changing pedagogical
methodology. … Aspirantates take different and new forms ac-
cording to the various circumstances of the candidates [a list of
different types of aspirantates follows] ... Indeed one hopes that
new kinds can be found to respond to the circumstances of the
young, in particular of university students, workers, immigrants
and the autochthonous. Today it is possible to have in a Prov-
ince two or more types of aspirantate. It is up to each Province
to determine the type or types of aspirantate it needs in order to
respond to the diversity of the candidates and of the situations in
its own territory.11
10 See Mauro Mantovani, ‘La “filosofia” nel Proemio di Veritatis Gaudium, vent’anni
dopo Fides et ratio’ Salesianum 81/1 (2019) 27-46, and Andrea Bozzolo, ‘Trasformazi-
one missionaria e rinnovamento degli studi nel Proemio di Veritatis Gaudium,’ Sale-
sianum 81/1 (2019) 47-71.
11 Letter of Fabio Attard and Francesco Cereda, ‘Guidelines for the Aspirantate Expe-
rience,’ dt. 26 July 2011, prot. 11/0377.

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4.2 CLARIFICATION OF THE MEANING OF
SALESIAN SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT
Our accompaniment is spiritually centred
100. We have seen that our formees and their spiritual guides
have a ‘spiritually centred’ idea of personal spiritual accompa-
niment. This is a positive and encouraging signal, revealing an
interest and predisposition to discover within one’s personal story
the plan of God and the working of the Spirit. It also means that
the young are looking for adults who can accompany them in this
85
kind of journey, helping them to move towards the ‘high standard
of Christian living’12 to which we are called.
Going by the word counts in the open responses of both formees
and guides, however, there is a clear preponderance of the word
‘God’ over the words ‘Jesus,’ ‘Christ,’ and ‘Spirit.’ Might this in-
dicate a need to ensure that personal accompaniment is more
clearly Trinitarian and Christocentric?
But not always charismatically consistent
101. The spiritual centeredness of personal accompaniment is
not always matched by charismatic density. As we have said al-
ready (see section 2.2.1 above), attention to the Salesian charism
is very strong during the novitiate but much weaker in the suc-
cessive phases. Again, we have seen that ‘Salesianity’ in general
is more valued in certain regions (Africa – Madagascar and East
Asia – Oceania) than in others.
Our identity must give direction to our formation
102. The Constitutions insist that ‘the religious and apostolic
nature of the Salesian calling indicates the specific direction our
formation must take.’ (C 97) The Ratio repeatedly indicates the
Salesian consecrated identity as the constant point of reference
for the whole of formative accompaniment:
To become a consecrated apostle like Don Bosco is the guid-
ing principle of our process of formation.
It is through formation, in fact, that we achieve our identity as
Salesians and acquire the maturity needed to live and work in
conformity with the founding charism. Starting out from an initial
state of enthusiasm for Don Bosco and his mission for youth,
12 Novo Millennio Ineunte 31.

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we arrive at a true conformity with Christ and a stronger iden-
tification with our Founder; we embrace the Constitutions as
our Rule of life and identity-card, and develop a strong sense of
belonging to the Congregation and to the provincial community.
The close relationship between formation and identity ‘means
that each member should study diligently the spirit, history
and mission of the Institute to which he or she belongs, in or-
der to advance the personal and communal assimilation of its
charism’. [VC 71] It underlines the importance of ‘Salesianity’,
that is, of the spiritual patrimony and the ‘mind’ of the Congre-
86
gation that need to be progressively studied, assimilated and
fostered. (FSDB 41)
Led by the Spirit ‘to live Jesus’
103. From Francis de Sales also we have inspiration to move
spiritual accompaniment more explicitly in the direction of disci-
pleship and configuration to Christ. The aim of all accompaniment
is to put on the mind of Christ, to be transformed and transfigured
into Christ – or, as Francis says simply, ‘to live Jesus.’ Our growth
into Christ, the bishop of Geneva would say, is a continuation
of the incarnation in us. ‘When we follow his imperceptible al-
lurements and then begin to unite ourselves to him… he assists
our feeble efforts and perceptibly joins himself to us, so that we
perceive that he has penetrated and entered into our heart with
incomparable gentleness.’ (OEA V 11: McDonnell 50)
104. Our transfiguration into Christ is the work of the Spirit: ‘And
we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being
changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for
this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.’ (2 Cor 3,18) Spiritual
accompaniment is therefore profoundly Trinitarian. God comes to
us through the missions of the Son and the Spirit; it is the Spirit who
‘raised up Don Bosco… formed within him the heart of a father and
teacher… inspired him to initiate various apostolic projects’ (C 1),
and it is the Spirit who transforms us into the likeness of Christ.
Making accompaniment more charismatic
105. Given further that our following of Christ is mediated by
Don Bosco, there is need for explicit and greater attention to the
charismatic dimension of our following of Christ – and this is a
concern that those offering the service of spiritual accompani-
ment must take to heart.
Helpful here is the Congregation’s new attention to a theologi-

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cal-spiritual reading of Don Bosco’s life and experience and to the
Salesian spiritual journey. Any effort in this direction will be of great
help to personal spiritual accompaniment and to lifelong formation.
Attention to the charismatic dimension involves helping those in
formation to know Don Bosco and with him to discover the pres-
ence of God through those to whom we are sent (C 95). It would
be important to draw up more adequate local formation plans,
and discover and implement pedagogical processes of growth.
It also involves accompaniment of pastoral experiences, atten-
87
tion to the field of social communication and to the missionary
dimension as a decisive ingredient in vocational growth.
The accompaniment of pastoral experiences (FSDB 198-199) will
ensure that one learns by experience the meaning of the Salesian
vocation (C 98), in keeping with the formative phase, and in a pro-
gression that follows the educative-pastoral qualification outlined in
the Frame of Reference of Salesian Youth Ministry. This is also one of
the most fruitful areas of joint formation of confreres and lay people.
106. Social communication ‘constitutes one of the apostolic
priorities of the Salesian mission’ (C 43), with an ever growing
impact that cannot be overemphasized, considering the context
from which our candidates are coming, the environments of the
communities in which they live, and the youth world to which
they are sent. The formation team must therefore be formed in
the area of this apostolic priority, so as to be able to respond to
the challenges and needs that emerge in the accompaniment of
the young people in formation. Steps towards such formation in-
clude collaboration with the Social Communications department
at provincial, interprovincial and regional levels, as well as with
other ecclesial and educational realities, drawing on the support
of experts in the area of communication.
107. The missionary dimension qualifies the Salesian charism
at every stage of vocational growth. It is a key element in the pro-
cess of initial vocational discernment, since it represents in a syn-
thetic, symbolic and realistic way the kind of life one feels called
to embrace. The absence of clear positive signs of attraction to
this mission towards youth and to the poorest among them would
be a clear indication of absence of the Salesian vocation. Local
formation plans and ongoing personal accompaniment will help
the missionary slant to grow along the arc of initial formation.
Contemplating Christ with Don Bosco, therefore, we learn to see
everything with the eyes of the Good Shepherd.

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4.3 CROSSING THE THRESHOLD OF THE
EXTERNAL FORUM
108. We have seen that a large number of formees consid-
er personal spiritual accompaniment as quite distinct from the
friendly talk with the Rector, and that the distinction becomes
more evident and widespread through the regions in the succes-
sive phases of formation, reaching a peak during specific forma-
tion (see section 2.2.1 above).
88
We have also noted a transversal desire among our formees to
be able to freely choose their spiritual guide (see section 2.3.7
above).
Let us set aside the novitiate, where the novice director is by
law the spiritual guide, and specific formation, where by and large
there exists real freedom in choosing one’s guide. The fact re-
mains that in the other phases, a large number choose the Rector
as their spiritual guide (75% of prenovices, 64% of postnovices,
55% of practical trainees). We need to ask about the nature and
quality of spiritual accompaniment in these cases. It could well
be that a formee, while considering the friendly talk and spiritual
accompaniment as quite distinct, still freely chooses the Rector
for both services, and that is fine. It could also be, however, that
a formee chooses the Rector as his spiritual guide for other rea-
sons. In this case, there is a risk that what is being called spiritual
guidance never really quite crosses the threshold of the external
forum – either because of the fear rooted in the overlap between
authority and accompaniment, or simply because he chooses not
to open his heart.
We keep in mind, of course, that our young confreres express
a great appreciation for spiritual growth, genuine Salesian values
and accompaniment with meaningful and trustworthy adults. They
have a genuine desire for fruitful Salesian personal accompani-
ment. At the same time they do point out, with great frankness,
the real obstacles on the way, and we need to address these if
personal spiritual accompaniment is to cross the threshold of the
external forum and become what it is meant to be.
4.4 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE PRENOVITIATE
AS CRITICAL
109. The prenovitiate is a phase of critical importance as far as

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accompaniment is concerned, given that for 80% of the respond-
ents initiation to personal spiritual accompaniment took place in
this phase. The experience of the prenovitiate influences and de-
termines – positively or negatively – subsequent experiences of
accompaniment.
If the person in charge of the prenovices or the aspirants is able
to lay the foundations for a relationship of true mutual trust, his
charges will learn to read the traces of the presence of God in
their lives, pick up courage to open the pages of memory, engage
in a healing of wounds, grow in faith and engage in vocational dis-
89
cernment. This may be the greatest gift that the prenovitiate can
give, and in this way the prenovice can relive at least in part what
John Bosco experienced in Morialdo during the nine months he
spent with Don Calosso.
But if the dynamics are different and the one in charge of the
prenovices does not have the time, interest or approach that fa-
vours this type of initiation, a paradigm is created in the mind of
the prenovice that becomes the measure of subsequent accom-
panying relationships. 144 out of 455 (31.54%) prenovices claim
to have esteem for the guide, but do not yet have full confidence
and are not willing to tell all their personal secrets. 151 (33.18%)
say that the role of authority communicates respect and fear, but
does not help to have confidence or to open up. (Bay 57-58)
110. Much has been done by way of strengthening the preno-
vitiate. In almost all provinces and circumscriptions we now have
prenovitiates of at least six months if not an entire year – and this
has already borne good fruit, if we are to go by the drop in the rate
of departures from the novitiate in the last few years. However,
much more needs to be done by way of the consistency in quality
and number of the formation teams, and to ensure that formation
plans and processes focus clearly on growth in faith, within which
alone genuine vocational discernment can take place. Pope Fran-
cis says it very well: ‘The first thing we need to discern and dis-
cover is this: Jesus wants to be a friend to every young person.
This discernment is the basis of all else.’ (CV 250) He insists that
growth in faith cannot be reduced to doctrinal and moral forma-
tion, however necessary these might be: any educational project
or path of growth for young people must be centred on two axes:
‘the deepening of the kerygma and growth in fraternal love, com-
munity life and service.’ (CV 213)13
13 Cf. also the whole section ‘Main courses of action’ (CV 209-215). The two courses
are ‘outreach, the way we attract new young people to an experience of the Lord’ and

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Within the team, the one in charge of prenovices has an ex-
tremely important and delicate role to play in terms of formative
accompaniment and vocational discernment. If he is selected and
prepared with care, it makes a qualitative difference to the expe-
rience of the prenovitiate.
111. Much more delicate is the issue of freedom of choice of
spiritual guide in this phase. We have seen that a large number
of prenovices ask for the freedom to choose a guide (see section
2.3.7 above). We can only speculate about what goes on in what
90
is called ‘personal spiritual accompaniment’ when a prenovice
approaches his mandated spiritual guide with fear, trepidation,
anxiety, apprehension, and so on. Without a free choice of guide,
the very experience of spiritual accompaniment risks being vitiat-
ed. On the other hand, it is true that the one in charge has to help
the prenovices arrive at a clear vocational choice. The discussion
of the dynamic of grace and freedom (see section 4.6 below) will
hopefully throw some light on this issue.
112. There is also the area of psychological testing and accom-
paniment in the prenovitiate.
Before or during the prenovitiate it is necessary that there be a
medical check-up and a psychological examination to verify if
there exists the human foundation and the required elements
of suitability required by ‘Criteria and norms’ for beginning the
Salesian formation process, without prejudice to can. 220. The
results of the medical check-up and the psychological exami-
nation can be communicated by the doctor and the psycholo-
gist to the Rector of the prenovitiate and to the Provincial, if,
‘within the framework and necessary collaboration with those
responsible for the formation process’ (CN 36), the prenovice
consented to it in writing, prior to the medical check-up and
the psychological examination. This consent must be ‘previ-
ous, explicit, informed and free’. (FSDB 352)
This is an area that calls for adequate attention, and here lay
faithful with professional competence in the human sciences can
be especially helpful, as well as institutions of the local Church
that offers such services. This would be one way of implementing
the call of the Synod on youth for the inclusion of lay people, es-
pecially women and married couples, in the process of formation.
(FD 163-164)
‘growth, the way we help those who have already had that experience to mature in
it.’ (CV 209)

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4.5 THE QUALITY OF YOUTH MINISTRY
DETERMINES THE FORMATION PROCESSES
Personal accompaniment is still an exception in our youth
ministry
113. Of the 80% of respondents who speak of having been
initiated to personal spiritual accompaniment only in the preno-
vitiate, some of them (from a third to more than half) do recog-
nize that they were accompanied in some way already before the
prenovitiate (see 2.3.1 above). This means that a large number
91
(ranging from two-thirds to a little less than half) have not experi-
enced an accompanying relationship and help to vocational dis-
cernment prior to the beginning of the vocational journey towards
Salesian life. We cannot therefore take for granted that personal
accompaniment is always available in many of our settings.14
And also in our aspirantates
114. This would seem to be true, unfortunately, also of many
of our aspirantates, which are by definition periods of accompa-
niment and vocational discernment. Most of the prenovice re-
spondents come from a previous experience of aspirantate lived
full time in a Salesian house, and yet not all of them report an
experience of spiritual accompaniment as part of the aspirantate.
If our aspirantates themselves neglect personal spiritual accom-
paniment, it is a serious and dramatic state of affairs.
Combining the signals we get from the research and from the
study of the statistics regarding those who leave during the no-
vitiate, in temporary vows and even after perpetual vows, we are
led to the clear realization that discernment and vocational ori-
entation before the prenovitiate is extremely important.15 ‘Only
when the candidate has made his option for the Salesian life and
shows, in the judgement of those responsible, a corresponding
human, Christian and Salesian maturity, can he be admitted to the
prenovitiate.’ (FSDB 330) The solution cannot be merely a stricter
process of screening of candidates; it has to involve good accom-
paniment and discernment.
14 Giraudo is severe on this point: ‘Among the great spiritual directors in the history of
the Church, one can say that Don Bosco is the one who in a very explicit way dedi-
cated himself to preadolescents and developed a method for their spiritual accompa-
niment, thus creating a school of spiritual formation for them that has great historical
resonance, both within and outside the Salesian world. Today, one gets the impression
that the Salesians have completely forgotten it.’ Giraudo 109, see also 109-110.
15 See FD 163 on the need for serious initial discernment.

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Accompaniment and discernment as an integral part of
youth ministry
115. The Congregation has been saying for years that voca-
tional guidance is an integral part and ‘the crown of all our edu-
cational and pastoral activity… sustained by prayer and personal
contact, above all in spiritual direction.’ (C 37) All the dimensions
of youth ministry converge on the vocational dimension, ‘the ulti-
mate horizon and reference point of our ministry.’ (FoR 160) ‘The
vocational dimension shapes the first and ultimate objective of
92
Salesian Youth Ministry.’ (FoR 160) In Chap. 7 on activities and
works of Salesian youth ministry, the Frame of Reference dedi-
cates a section to ‘experiences or services of animation and vo-
cational guidance,’ such as ‘welcoming communities, live-in com-
munity experiences, vocational discernment centres’. (FoR 256)
116. All this is echoed in the Synod on Young People, the Faith
and Vocational Discernment, which even speaks of ‘vocational
youth ministry,’ to indicate that vocational animation is intrinsic
and essential to youth ministry. With the Synod, therefore, we in-
sist on the urgent need to offer a valid personal accompaniment
to all the young people to whom we minister, and not only those
who wish to embrace Salesian life. (IL 1) As Aldo Giraudo notes,
spiritual accompaniment towards Christian perfection is an es-
sential and necessary part of Salesian pedagogy. (Giraudo 108)
Underlying this is the conviction about the universal call to holi-
ness that was such an important part of the praxis of Francis de
Sales and of Don Bosco himself.
Community, group and personal accompaniment is the proper
context within which vocational discernment can take place. A
healthy vocational culture favours the emergence also of specific
vocations within the Church such as the vocation to Salesian re-
ligious life.
117. As for the aspirantate, a joint letter from the Youth Min-
istry and Formation departments had described it thus: ‘The en-
vironment, the suitable conditions, the process and the accom-
paniment proposed to the young person inclined to Salesian
consecrated life are what constitute the aspirantate experience.’
Regarding the aspirants it said:
Those young people begin the aspirantate experience who,
in ordinary circumstances, have already undertaken a process
of developing maturity in the faith and of vocational guidance
within the Salesian youth ministry programme aimed at fos-

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tering apostolic vocations for the Church and for the Salesian
Family. Other young people also begin this experience who are
attracted by Don Bosco’s charism, and who have not lived in
a Salesian educative pastoral community. To all these candi-
dates the Province offers specific accompaniment by means
of one of the various different forms of aspirantate which best
corresponds to the needs arising from their personal back-
ground and their present situation.16
The need to continue the renewal of youth ministry
118. The quality of youth ministry determines the quality of for-
93
mation, and vice versa. We are invited to continue on the path of
renewal of youth ministry that has already been undertaken by the
Youth Ministry department, so that it becomes truly a process of
education and evangelization, in which group and personal ac-
companiment finds their rightful and necessary place – given that
every young person must be helped to discover the manner in
which he is to live out his vocation to love.
On the other hand, if the experience of personal accompani-
ment during the phases of initial formation has been meaningful
and fruitful, there is a good probability that a confrere will continue
to seek guidance after this process, and in his turn be ready to
accompany the young people to whom he is sent. Unfortunately,
the reverse also is true: if for some Salesians the experience of
accompaniment has been ‘suffered’ and merely tolerated, it is not
likely that they will continue to seek accompaniment once they
have reached the end of initial formation, nor that they will be
moved to offer accompaniment to young people.
Between youth ministry and formation there is a circularity and
interaction that is far deeper than what may appear.
4.6 THE FOUNDATIONAL DYNAMIC OF GRACE
AND FREEDOM
4.6.1 The problematic overlap between authority
and personal spiritual accompaniment
119. Our respondents have given intense attention to the over-
lap between personal spiritual accompaniment and authority, to
the fact that in the codification of our tradition, the Rector is ordi-
16 See Attard and Cereda, prot. 11/0377 dt. 27 July 2011.

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narily also the spiritual guide (R 78), one who is proposed though
not imposed (FSDB 233). (Cf. sections 2.3.7 and also 2.3.6 above)
This overlap is seen as less problematic in places where num-
bers are smaller, fraternity is high, and there is no gap between
formees and formators. It is felt much more as a problem, instead,
where numbers are high, formation tends to be conformation (see
section 4.11 below), and there is also a certain distance between
formees and formators. In this case the overlap between authority
and accompaniment leads to fear and conformity without deep
94
conviction to standards and forms of expected behaviour, includ-
ing that of the regular friendly talk / spiritual accompaniment.
We could identify three elements in the overlap between per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment and authority: (1) the Salesian tra-
dition codified in our proper law, (2) the conformation model of
formation, and (3) the personalities of the formators, most espe-
cially that of the Rector or the one in charge. But let us begin with
a reflection on grace and freedom, which is the core dynamic of
any spiritual journey.
4.6.2 Grace and freedom
Freedom is central to spiritual accompaniment
120. Freedom is central to spiritual accompaniment. We can
draw here on the authority of Francis de Sales himself, for whom
freedom of spirit is central. To Jane Frances de Chantal, Fran-
cis writes in capital letters: DO ALL THROUGH LOVE, NOTHING
THROUGH CONSTRAINT. ‘At the core of this Salesian insistence
on gentleness rather than coercion is the fundamental belief that
everything must be done by love, and not by coercion, because
the will must not be forced in an extrinsic sense to move in a
direction contrary to itself. Gentleness, if you like, corresponds
to freedom of spirit... This liberty of spirit is one of the hallmarks
of Salesian spiritual direction which is recognised universally by
Salesian commentators.’ (McDonnell 55)
Francis ‘never wishes to impose his own will, but prefers to mo-
tivate his directees in such a way that they will arrive at and take
the necessary decisions themselves. Underlying all this is a deep
respect for the person and their liberty, which is a constant through
Francis de Sales’ praxis of spiritual direction.’ (Alburquerque 19)
121. Freedom is, in fact, the only way to access the truth of

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the person and invite his full involvement in the spiritual journey
of holistic growth. Where freedom is diminished or even replaced
by behaviours that are only external and formal, accompaniment
is emptied from within of its meaning and value. One can be faith-
ful and regular for the moments of personal spiritual accompani-
ment, but they remain an empty field without any hidden treasure.
Only what is freely assumed becomes conviction and reaches
the level of motivation, where that ‘right intention’ is born which
the Ratio indicates as the foundational element of the whole jour-
ney of Salesian life: ‘A fundamental sign of the maturity required
95
for perpetual profession is the right intention, that is, a clear and
decisive will to offer oneself entirely to the Lord, to belong to him
and serve him in one’s neighbour, according to the Salesian vo-
cation.’ (FSDB 504)
Deep respect for the person and his liberty is very much part of
the ‘reason’ or ‘reasonableness’ that is one of the pillars of Don
Bosco’s Preventive System. It should be pedagogically natural for
us to favour the meeting between young people and the Lord, re-
specting the path of each one and meeting them ‘at their present
stage of freedom.’ (C 38)
Grace and freedom are at the heart of accompaniment
122. The dynamic of grace and freedom is at the very heart of
the process of accompaniment. Spiritual accompaniment is noth-
ing if it is not attuned to the dialogue between the love of the Lord
and the freedom of the young person who is called to respond.
The spiritual journey of each human being is the mystery of the
ongoing encounter between two freedoms – that of God and that
of the person himself. Grace not only speaks to freedom but also
empowers it and makes it ever more full. Grace it is that enables
our response, because it is love that calls to love.
But there can be no love without freedom, and so even the
greatest grace does not take away our freedom. Francis de Sales
says: ‘In spite of the all-powerful strength of God’s merciful hand,
which touches, enfolds and bends the soul with so many inspira-
tions… grace has the power not to overpower but to entice our
heart.’ (OEA IV 126-127: McDonnell 63) The omnipotent God, as
Benedict XVI liked to say, is a beggar before the human heart.17
17 Benedict XVI, Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI for Lent 2007 (21 November
2006).

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Pope Francis puts this in terms of friendship: Jesus presents him-
self as a friend (Jn 15:15) and invites us to be friends with him –
with an invitation that does not force us but appeals delicately to
our freedom. (CV 153) The Salesian formator and spiritual guide
should not try to be different.
4.6.3 Respecting the dynamic of grace and
freedom
96
Beginning with the quality of our relationships
123. Faced with the intense dissatisfaction with present ar-
rangements and the strongly expressed desire to be able to freely
choose one’s spiritual guide, our temptation might be to either
take refuge in the tradition or else to somehow blame our young
formees for not being willing to entrust themselves with simplicity
to the one indicated (‘proposed not imposed’) by our official doc-
uments.
Our reflections on grace and freedom light up what is being said
by the Synod on youth. ‘The first fruit of this Synod, clearly visible
in the Final Document, is that we cannot blame young people for
having gone away from the Church; we must instead evaluate
and renew the evangelical quality of the Church as a whole.’18
Such evaluation and renewal begins with the relational quality of
its members – youth included.19
124. Let us look – all of us, young Salesians included – at the
quality of our relationships. The process of formation is reciprocal
by nature. Our formees are not merely objects of formation, they
are also subjects and the main protagonists (cf. CV 203, 206).
They are a theological locus ‘in which the Lord reveals to us some
of his expectations and challenges for building the future.’ (FD 64)
Imitating God himself
125. What are our young Salesians telling us through their cry?
What is the Lord telling us through what they are saying? This is
the question we must try to answer.
18 Rossano Sala, ‘Invito alla lettura,’ in XV Assemblea generale ordinaria del Sinodo
dei vescovi, I giovani, la fede e il discernimento vocazionale: Documento finale (Torino:
Elledici, 2018) 14.
19 Ibid.

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We are being invited to imitate God himself who respects our
freedom and is infinitely patient with us.
We are being invited to a formation that touches the heart and
leads to transformation.
We are being invited to learn to listen.
Starting again from Don Bosco
126. Above all, we are being asked to return to Don Bosco and
97
to recover his educational method in all its authenticity. We are
being invited to listen to the cry of Don Bosco in his 1884 Let-
ter from Rome. We are being reminded that confidence and trust
cannot be imposed but can only be won.
The Preventive System, we could say, is our model of formation,
and its leitmotif is ‘Strive to make yourself loved’ – the Studia di
farti amare that is found on the cross we receive at perpetual pro-
fession.
Towards a formation that touches the heart
127. Opening our gaze on to the wider horizon of religious life,
we see that the Church has been insisting on a formation that is
capable of ‘encountering the freedom’ of young people. We rec-
ognize the serious difficulties that emerge when life in formation
houses ‘does not touch the heart’:
We must, therefore, ask ourselves some serious questions
about our formative system. We have certainly made some
positive changes in recent years that are taking us in the right
direction. These changes, however, have been carried out ir-
regularly and have not modified the structures that are essen-
tial in supporting formation. Despite all of the effort and hard
work put into formation, it does not seem to reach and truly
transform the heart of people.
There is the impression that the formation process is more
informative than it is performative. The result is that people
maintain a certain fragility, both in their existential convictions
and in their journey of faith. This leads to minimal psychologi-
cal and spiritual endurance and the subsequent inability to live
one’s own mission with openness and courage when it comes
to dialogue with culture and social and ecclesial integration.
(NW 12)

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It is more important to begin processes than to try to dominate
spaces, as Pope Francis tells us:
Obsession, however, is not education. We cannot control every
situation that a child may experience. Here it remains true that
‘time is greater than space.’ [EG 222] In other words, it is more
important to start processes than to dominate spaces.... The
real question, then, is not where our children are physically, or
whom they are with at any given time, but rather where they
are existentially, where they stand in terms of their convictions,
goals, desires and dreams. The questions I would put to par-
98
ents are these: ‘Do we seek to understand where our children
really are in their journey? Where is their soul, do we really
know? And above all, do we want to know?’ (AL 261)
Learning to listen
128. Listening is the key. ‘When we are called upon to help
others discern their path in life, what is uppermost is the abili-
ty to listen.’ (CV 291) In what does this listening consist? How
can we together listen to the Lord? It is worth meditating on the
three distinct and complementary ‘sensitivities or attentions’ that
Pope Francis offers in Christus Vivit: (1) attention to the person,
which is an unconditional listening, ‘without being offended or
shocked, tired or bored’ – exemplified by Jesus with the disciples
of Emmaus who were going ‘in the wrong direction’; (2) atten-
tion, through a discernment between grace and temptation, to the
deep truth that the other is trying to express; (3) attention to the
impulses to go forward that the person is experiencing, that may
demand ‘that they look not to their own superficial wishes and
desires, but rather to what is most pleasing to the Lord’ (CV 294).
The pope adds: ‘This kind of listening seeks to discern their ulti-
mate intention, the intention that definitively decides the meaning
of their life. Jesus knows and appreciates this ultimate intention
of the heart.’ (CV 294)
We have here a marvellous interaction between the person, the
guide and the Lord. It is a question of listening to the Lord through
the person, in order to discover what might be more pleasing to
the Lord, the gift that will make him smile (cf. CV 287). It is a
question of a ‘discernment of friendship’ that becomes even more
marvellous when we realize that he has primereado, ‘beaten us to
it’ (cf. CV 153), because it is he who first thinks of the gift that will
please us and do us most good (cf. CV 288-290).
The experience of John Bosco with Cafasso and of Dominic
Savio with Don Bosco are some of the Salesian Emmauses of the

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origins, whose fruitfulness is proof of the value of this openness
to the presence of God. In the answers given by the 538 spiritual
guides, it is significant to note that among the approaches or
types of accompaniment that gathered most consensus was the
following:
[One that] does not focus exclusively on solving a problem, but
is aimed at initiating or strengthening one’s spiritual life. In this
approach, it is not so much the themes that direct the work of
accompaniment, and certainly not the well-being and capacity
of the person as such, but, taking into account the problems
and the particular person, the guide focuses more on the goal
99
to which the person is called, pays attention to the vocation
to which he is called to respond, looks to continuing growth in
Christ. (Bay 435)
Learning to respond
129. All this naturally also involves a great responsibility on the
part of the formees themselves. With the best of formators and
guides, it can still happen that a formee does not decide to open
up his heart. Such openness and transparency is, instead, vital:
‘In the process of formation, it is necessary that the seminarian
should know himself and let himself be known, relating to the
formators with sincerity and transparency.’20
Without the total engagement of one’s freedom there is no an-
swer to a call, and not even a true beginning of a vocational jour-
ney.
Far from making the process easier, the recognition of the full
‘weight’ of freedom in dialogue with grace puts greater demands
on anyone who sincerely wishes to grow in discipleship.
If a candidate is not ready to commit himself fully to this voca-
tional journey and trust those who have been given him as me-
diations for the process of discernment and vocational growth,
it means that he has freely chosen not to walk this road, and the
sooner he come to this realization the better.
Formators for the young Salesians of today
130. The words of the young people of the pre-Synodal meet-
ing summarize well the kind of formators needed for the young
20 Congregation for the Clergy, The Gift of the Priestly Vocation: Ratio Fundamentalis
Institutionis Sacerdotalis (Rome, 2016) 45.

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Salesians of today:
Mentors should not lead young people as passive followers,
but walk alongside them, allowing them to be active partic-
ipants in the journey. They should respect the freedom that
comes with a young person’s process of discernment and
equip them with tools to do so well.
A mentor should believe wholeheartedly in a young person’s
ability to participate in the life of the Church. A mentor should
therefore nurture the seeds of faith in young people, without
100
expecting to immediately see the fruits of the work of the Holy
Spirit. (CV 246, citing the Document of the Pre-Synodal Meet-
ing)
4.7 RECTOR, SPIRITUAL GUIDE AND
CONFESSOR: THREE KEY FIGURES
131. As we have said above (see section 3.2.3), in our tradition
there three key figures as far as personal accompaniment is con-
cerned: the Rector, the spiritual guide, and the confessor.
The research shows that these three roles are central in the un-
folding of the Salesian experience through initial formation and
even beyond, as we can see in the responses of the guides. But
there are major variations in the way they are perceived and val-
ued according to age, phase and region.
132. One common element is the great value given to the com-
munity atmosphere and closeness between older and young-
er confreres, either as something appreciated or, quite often,
as something that is desired and sought (see open answers in
all phases). This kind of ‘community accompaniment’ is closely
linked to the Rector’s role of animation. We must remember that
the friendly talk with the Rector is an important instrument also
for the smooth running and well being of the community. When
properly lived, it is a help not only to the individual confrere, but
also to the entire community, enhancing communion of purpose
and favouring personalized care and attention to the needs and
pace of each one of its members.
133. It has to be clearly acknowledged that the Rector is the
one ultimately responsible for formation in the community – which
does not necessarily mean that he is the only one responsible.
He is the guarantee of the totality of the process of formation.
He accompanies the community spiritually in various ways, and

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the individual confreres through the friendly talk and also through
informal interventions. He does his best to promote the friendly
talk as an important and irreplaceable moment of formative ac-
companiment and an extremely useful means for the building up
of the community. He must be careful to ensure true freedom of
choice as far as personal spiritual accompaniment is concerned,
while at the same time keeping himself open to those who wish
freely to choose him as their spiritual guide. He helps the young
confrere in initial formation to make a synthesis with his earlier
phase of formation and to prepare him in some way for the next
one. He also ensures that confreres in initial formation are able to
101
genuinely participate in the process of drawing up or revising the
formation plan of the community.
134. The confessor offers the ministry of sacramental accom-
paniment of conscience. It appears that several formees opt to
combine the sacrament of reconciliation with personal spiritual
accompaniment. In this case the confessor must ensure, with
delicacy, that the relationship of spiritual accompaniment not be
reduced to a mere formality. One way of doing this would be to
distinguish the two moments of sacramental confession and per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment.
The appreciation for the sacrament of Reconciliation expressed
in various ways by the research is an invitation and a challenge.
How much are we ready to invest in the preparation and qualifi-
cation of confreres for this ministry? The choices made by those
entrusted with the service of leadership are open indications of a
hierarchy of values. If the confessor becomes a synonym for one
who ‘can’t do anything else’ for reasons of age and health, what
kind of message are we giving to our confreres?
135. For both spiritual guide and confessor, the Ratio express-
es the strong desire that he be a Salesian: ‘If a confrere should ask
for a special confessor or spiritual director, the superior should
grant it to him, but it should be kept in mind that in the period
of initial formation it is highly desirable that such a person be a
Salesian and that his service be permanent.’ (FSDB 292) Here
again, however, the Rector and the formation team must ensure
true freedom of choice, and strive first and foremost to imitate
the example of Don Bosco who was able to gain the confidence
of the young and of his confreres. Within such a relationship of
mutual trust, they will find it possible to gently guide the choices
that have to be made.
136. Clearly, there is need for a shared vision and objectives

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among the three figures of the Rector, the spiritual guide and the
confessor – and here, once again, it is the Rector who has prime
responsibility for such unity, which he exercises also by involv-
ing the others to the extent possible in meetings of the formation
team. The documents of the Church give the greatest importance
to such unity.21
4.8 CONTINUITY OF ACCOMPANIMENT
102
137. The problem of fragmentation of spiritual accompaniment
has emerged in some way in our survey – the fact that a confrere
ends up by having a series of spiritual guides during the arc of
initial formation.
Is it an ideal to have a single spiritual guide all through the pro-
cess of initial formation? Is not ‘letting go’ also part of the process
of growth and maturity, in spiritual accompaniment as in other
areas of life – both on the part of the one being accompanied and
on the part of the guide himself, who has to be himself attentive
to the temptation of possessiveness?
138. Having said that, it is important to ensure some continuity
in formative accompaniment. A key role can be played here by the
provincial himself through his fatherly concern, and by the provin-
cial formation delegate, through periodic meetings and visits to
houses of initial formation but most especially to houses hosting
practical trainees and confreres in the quinquennium. Meetings
of formators of various phases are also useful in this regard, to
ensure common vision and styles of formation, and to ensure on-
going communication while safeguarding confidentiality. Then, of
course, the willingness on the part of the Salesian in formation to
be open and transparent with his guide, despite the changes, is
something that greatly favours continuity.
139. Special care, as we have said, needs to be taken of the
phases of practical training and the quinquennium, not least by
wise choice of communities capable of providing accompani-
ment. This is the responsibility of the Provincial.
To the Provincial also belongs the responsibility of selecting,
preparing and proposing a certain number of confreres as spiritual
21 See, for example, Optatam Totius 5; Potissimum Institutioni 32; Pastores Dabo Vobis
66; Directives on the Preparation of Educators in Seminaries (1993) 29-32; The Gift of
the Priestly Vocation, Introduction section 3.

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guides for the province. In addition, it would be helpful to propose
some criteria for the choice of spiritual guides on the part of the
confreres in initial formation: the possibility of a monthly meeting
(which means that the guide must be close enough and not very
far away); knowledge, on the part of the guide, of the Salesian
charism and of the formative characteristics of the various phases
of formation; the possibility, on the part of the guide, of participat-
ing in at least some meetings of the formation team.
4.9 ROLE OF COMMUNITY AND MISSION
103
140. Mission and community are constitutive elements of the
Salesian consecrated identity, and emerge as important themes
in the research. The relationship of spiritual accompaniment can-
not but be marked by the mission and by the life of community.
Spiritual accompaniment and community
141. There is a reciprocal relationship between spiritual accom-
paniment and community. We keep in mind that by community
we mean not only the Salesian religious community but also the
educative and pastoral community (EPC) – and this is especially
significant in the phase of practical training.
A good formation journey helps one become more open to oth-
ers and more willing to make a gift of oneself in service.
On the other hand, it is also true that the community ambient has
a great impact on the journey of each one, and on his openness
and ability to benefit from spiritual accompaniment. The physical
ambient is itself educative: the ‘Oratory criterion’ (C 40) must gov-
ern even the architecture and the concern for community spaces.
The practice of community discernment (C 66) becomes a school
for the formation of future communities that are discerning. The
atmosphere of the religious community creates the confidence
and familiarity that mark all the human relationships that consti-
tute it, including that of personal accompaniment. The reverse is
also true, as can be seen especially in the open responses from
certain regions. Further, in all linguistic areas, as we have seen,
our formees ask that their formators be close to them, sharing
their life in informal moments, building relationships of friendship
and confidence. Community and personal accompaniment are di-
alectically related, so that if one suffers, the other is affected too.
It is interesting that the 2018 Synod took the trouble to highlight
this typically Salesian point of view (FD 95-97), as we have seen

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above when dealing with the originality of Don Bosco’s praxis (see
section 3.4).
The culture of the province
142. We must speak here also about the relationship between
initial formation and the ‘culture of the province.’
What is happening to confreres in a formation house, even when
they live in interprovincial communities outside the territory of their
104
province, is not indifferent to the life of the province. The quality of
their formative experience and the way they are accompanied will
determine the life and mission of the province.
The reverse is even more true: the culture of the province is a
central determinant of formation processes. The lifestyle of the
province inevitably has a positive or negative impact on those in
initial formation, who look up to their seniors for example and in-
spiration.
A direct implication is that ‘formation issues’ – such as accom-
paniment – cannot be confined or relegated to the initial formation
communities. If this happens, it is already a sign that something
is not going well in the formation environment that is the culture
of the province.
The peer group
143. As pastor and educator of the young (C 98), every Sale-
sian is called to value the great potential of group experience in
the formation of young people. This general pedagogical principle
is valid also in the context of initial formation. Group experience in
the phases of initial formation has a great impact on the vocation-
al journey of candidates and confreres.
This is true also with regard to Salesian personal accompani-
ment. Companions can encourage or discourage in a way that is
often more influential than what is proposed by formators. This
is yet another element in community accompaniment and the at-
mosphere of the house.
In the digital world of today, furthermore, we cannot forget that
virtual friends on social networks might be even more influential
than companions and colleagues in the community.
In some formation communities, small group interaction be-

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comes a form of spiritual accompaniment. The group creates a
holding environment where sharing about one’s faith journey and
the basic values of Salesian life can take place for the mutual en-
richment of all. In turn, such group experience facilitates the other
forms of accompaniment such as personal spiritual guidance.
The problem of large formation communities
144. The problem of large formation communities also needs
to be mentioned. Even when such communities are ‘peaceful,’
we are becoming increasingly convinced that the quality of inter-
105
action and formative accompaniment is much better in smaller
communities. Division of large communities calls, of course, for
greater investment in terms of formation personnel, and this is not
always easy. To a certain extent, though, group processes of var-
ious kinds (year groups, cluster groups cutting across the years,
etc.) may offset the problem of excessively large communities.
Mission and spiritual accompaniment
145. The community atmosphere and involvement in the apos-
tolic mission are extremely important for growth in those aspects
of our life that are typically Salesian. This is an ever valid area of
interest for the journey of Salesian accompaniment, given that our
aim is to grow precisely as disciples of Christ in the path marked
out by Don Bosco. We have seen already that we need to take
greater care of this dimension, especially in the phases of forma-
tion that follow upon the novitiate (see section 4.2 above).
Besides the friendly talk with the Rector and the possibility of
accessing the sacrament of reconciliation, the community offers
also other forms of accompaniment, such as the pastoral, the in-
tellectual, and the psychological.
Then again, even in the phases of initial formation we need an
initiation to the sharing of the Salesian spirit and mission with lay
people, and to working within an EPC where we are part of the
animating nucleus along with lay mission partners. The weekend
apostolates and the summer apostolates can both be extreme-
ly fruitful if properly accompanied – if formators are capable of
helping young Salesians to ‘learn by experience the meaning of
the Salesian vocation.’ (C 98) Formators and guides will be es-
pecially attentive to help those in formation to learn to meet God
through those to whom they are sent (C 95), and to discern the
voice of the Spirit in every experience, making best formative use
of any situation (C 119) – and their service of formation would

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become even more effective if they are able to participate in some
way in these apostolic experiences. Obviously, such pastoral and
spiritual accompaniment is the indispensable formative moment
of the experience of practical training: without it, practical training
runs the risk of being reduced merely to ‘work.’
The Salesian collaborative style of accompaniment
146. An adequate formative and family environment is essential
to the Salesian style of spiritual accompaniment. Collaboration
106
and teamwork are essential to the creation of such an environ-
ment. The process of formation should not be the heroic effort of
some gifted individual but rather the outcome of effective team-
work. In a world where individualism is so strong, our young Sale-
sians need to know that working together is possible and beauti-
ful. They need to see their older confreres working together.
There is, therefore, the task of building cohesive formation
teams. Obviously, it is not enough to choose a set of gifted and
qualified individuals. They need to be able to blend together into
a good team that can enhance the community atmosphere and
favour meaningful interaction. The selection of formators and the
putting together of cohesive formation teams is a vital task of gov-
ernance at the provincial and interprovincial level.
147. The family spirit is a basic condition for a good formation
journey, and is absolutely the first thing to take care of in the com-
munity. ‘Don Bosco wanted everyone to feel at home in his estab-
lishments. The Salesian house becomes a family when affection is
mutual and when all, both confreres and young people, feel wel-
come and responsible for the common good. In an atmosphere
of mutual trust and daily forgiveness, the need and joy of sharing
everything is experienced, and relationships are governed not so
much by recourse to rules as by faith and the promptings of the
heart. This is a witness that enkindles in the young the desire to
get to know and to follow the Salesian vocation.’ (C 16)
The dialogue of Salesian personal spiritual accompaniment pre-
supposes and builds upon relationships that have been estab-
lished in the context of the community. The whole community and
formation structures offer informal accompaniment, complement-
ing and supporting the formal moments.
148. If each member of the community is responsible for the
family spirit, even more so the Rector, who plays a key role in
creating conditions for a positive community experience and fa-

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vouring personal processes of growth. (See Bay 454) He knows
the importance of the friendly talk, the objective of which is the
good of the confrere himself and also the good running of the
community (C 70), and makes himself available for it. He ensures
that confreres, especially those in initial formation, enjoy a real
freedom to choose their spiritual guide.
149. A good Vice-Rector is also precious in a formation com-
munity, especially if he knows how to support the Rector and take
over matters of discipline and organization, freeing the Rector to
exercise his role as father, animator and guardian of the family
107
spirit.
150. Both the Rector and the other members of the formation
team know the importance of unity and cohesion of the team, and
do their utmost to promote this. The absence of unity is sufficient
to compromise all other efforts at formation.
Connected to the issue of the team is also the fact that that
there are no ‘pure teachers’: every teacher is also a formator. One
who wants to be only a teacher and not a formator is disqualified
for both the former and the latter.
151. The Rector and team also recognize the importance of the
family of origin of the confreres. The more we succeed in ‘walking
together’ with the family, the more the paths of human growth and
faith acquire value and strength.
4.10 RESPECTING CONFIDENTIALITY AND
CREATING TRUST
Spiritual accompaniment
152. In the relationship of spiritual accompaniment, it is im-
portant to create ‘a gentle place’ where one can share intense
feelings, knowing that it is safe. Maintaining confidentiality is the
best way to ensure such a safe environment. ‘Confidentiality is a
gift we can still give to people in a world with few secrets.’22
Without trust, it is not possible to get in touch with the truth
of the person. It is the very nature and purpose of spiritual ac-
companiment to be in touch with the inner truth of the person,
and to help him recognize himself, in order to become slowly
22 Richard Gula, Ethics in Pastoral Ministry (Mahwah NJ: Paulist Press, 1996) 117.

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what God wants him to be.23
The research on accompaniment gives us a strong indication
that, on the side of those being accompanied, freedom is indis-
pensable if accompaniment is to be a path of truth. On the side
of those serving as spiritual guides, instead, the indispensable
condition is trust.
153. In our educational system it is not just a question of en-
trusting oneself to some spiritual master in a monastery or shrine.
108
It is the formation house that is the good ground where the cli-
mate of trust, respect and commitment is communicated, and
that becomes the humus for individuals to flourish and bear fruit.
The results of the survey give the impression that much of what
is proposed by various formation houses is accepted as required
behavioural adjustment. How truly it becomes personal conviction
is not easy to say. From the open answers, especially from prac-
tical trainees and theologians, we see the tendency to ‘spiritual-
ise’ things both on the part of the formators and the formees,
giving ‘official priority’ to ‘spiritual things’ as compared to other
elements in the daily timetable and elsewhere. The periodic eval-
uations base themselves on the externals (e.g., being present at
meditation). The content and impact of these practices can be
processed only in a personal accompaniment that is character-
ized by freedom and trust.
154. In the classical Salesian literature there is a text of incom-
parable force when it comes to the themes of freedom and trust,
confidence and openness – Don Bosco’s 1884 Letter from Rome.
Meditating on it in the light of the results of our survey could be
very illuminating.
The Letter is the mature expression of Don Bosco’s pedagog-
ical and spiritual experience, with a perspective that embraces
a worldwide horizon. Don Bosco knows he is handing over his
heritage and testament, his way of being father and teacher of
youth. It is the same approach he had followed ten years before
when he wrote the Memoirs of the Oratory, at a time when the
23 Discernment can be defined itself as the art through which man understands the
word that has been addressed to him, and in this very word recognises the way he
must follow in order to respond to the Word.... It is therefore a progressive way to
see oneself and the history with the eyes of God, to see how God is present and ac-
complishes his work in me and in others, and how I can dispose myself to partake in
this divine working, so as to become part of the humanity that Christ assumes, and
through which he also assumes creation, to submit everything to the Father (Col 1,24).
Cf. Marko Ivan Rupnik, Discernimento (Roma: Ed. Lipa, 2004).

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Constitutions of the newly born Congregation had finally been
approved and the first missionary expedition was getting ready.
He is convinced that going back to the beginning is the best way
of going forward to the future. The recent Synod on youth and
the orientations given to the whole Church in its wake show how
prophetic are the intuitions contained in that letter written in May
1884 and given to each Salesian along with the Constitutions on
the day of his first profession.
Pope Francis speaks of the same ‘firm and affectionate trust’
with regard to family life: ‘a family marked by a solid and loving
109
trust, come what may, helps its members to be themselves and
spontaneously to reject deceit, falsehood, and lies.’ (AL 115) ‘Mor-
al formation should always take place with active methods and a
dialogue that teaches through sensitivity and by using a language
children can understand. It should also take place inductively, so
that children can learn for themselves the importance of certain
values, principles and norms, rather than by imposing these as
absolute and unquestionable truths.’ (AL 264)
The friendly talk
155. The friendly talk with the Rector is itself protected by a very
high level of confidentiality in all the documents of the Church and
of the Congregation, which is also what is required by the code of
conduct in many helping professions today, such as counselling.
It is enough to quote the Ratio: ‘Guidance at the different levels
of formation requires that those who render the service… must
abide by the principles of prudence and justice which, depending
on the circumstances, imply discretion or absolute respect for a
professional or sacramental secret.’ (FSDB 264) As Fr Paul Albera
says, there is such a close correlation between confidentiality and
trust that even a slight ‘leakage’ in the first causes the almost
complete and immediate loss of the second.24
24 ‘The very nature of the friendly talk with the Rector calls for rigorous secrecy and
confidentiality. “Let the Rector be careful never to reveal to others the faults a confrere
may have, even when they may already know of them through other channels. Let
it be obvious to his subjects that he is able to respect the confidentiality of what is
entrusted to him. It only takes some small indiscretion to weaken and maybe entirely
destroy the confidence they have shown him.” (From the Manual of the Rector of Don
Paolo Albera no. 131) For reasons inherent in your office, you may be asked by the
provincial for your opinion on some confrere or other, and in such a case you have to
give the necessary information objectively and responsibly. But it should be based ex-
clusively on the external behaviour of the confrere concerned and on what others may
say about him. Confidences that may have been given in private talks are protected by
a rigorous secret: nihil, numquam, nulli (nothing, never, about anyone).’ The Salesian
Rector (Rome: Editrice SDB, 1986) 264.

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Even external things, if communicated to the Rector during the
friendly talk, as for example matters of health or a personal dif-
ficulty, are considered confidential, because everyone has the
right to his good name and privacy. They cease to be confidential,
however, if the Rector later comes to know about them in the ex-
ternal forum; but it would be good for him to advise the confrere
on this matter.
Further, since one of the purposes of the friendly talk is also the
good running of the community, however, the Rector has always
110
the possibility, with the permission of the confrere, to act on the
information received.
The secrecy covering the friendly talk – as also personal spiritual
accompaniment – is not, however, absolute, as is the seal of the
sacrament of reconciliation. There are, in fact, grave circumstanc-
es that can supersede it, as, for example, the case of abuse of
minors, homicide or suicide.
Admissions
156. When it comes to admissions, with the exception of the
cases mentioned above (n. 155) the principle formulated by GC19
remains valid: ‘The obligation of secrecy regarding those things
heard in manifestation is the most rigorous. When treating of inti-
mate things the Rector is bound not to reveal anything directly or
indirectly for any motive whatsoever, or at any time whatsoever,
and still less when treating of admission to the vows or to ordina-
tion.’ (GC19 – ASC 244 97-98)
In practice this means that the Rector can neither share infor-
mation from the friendly talk with other members of his Council,
nor can he use it to arrive at his own position. He makes his judg-
ment solely on the basis of his own observations and of those of
his Council.
If it happens that, before the admissions in the local Council,
the Rector judges that someone should not profess or receive or-
ders, he has ‘the grave obligation of conscience to say clearly and
seriously and with all charity to the confrere concerned, that he
cannot and should not – also for his own good – go ahead.’ (ACG
281 p. 893) If, despite this, the confrere makes his application, the
Rector must act in the Council as in any other case. He cannot, in
other words, allow himself to be influenced by his own judgment
and by its communication to the person concerned.

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4.11 RETURNING TO THE PREVENTIVE SYSTEM
The different ‘models of formation’
157. There exists a certain uniformity and commonality in the
way formation is carried out across the world, and this comes
from our shared tradition, the efforts made to implement the Ra-
tio, and the unity that derives from governance and animation at
the world level. However, we must admit – and this is one of the
most obvious findings of our survey – that there are also major
differences.
111
Painting in broad strokes, we could say that in some areas the
dynamic of fraternity is quite visible and predominant, while in
others there persists a certain ‘gap’ between ‘superiors’ and ‘sub-
jects,’ as can be seen even in banal things such as seating in
the refectory. Again, ‘fear’ is reported quite consistently in certain
areas, with a consequent tendency to external conformity (‘for-
malism’) instead of true transformation of motivations, attitudes
and convictions. These are also the areas where, in general, the
formees ask insistently for a distinction between the Rector / in
charge and the spiritual guide (see 2.3.7 above), where the pos-
sibility of freely opening one’s heart and trust receive the lowest
values (see 2.3.4 above), and where the word ‘freedom’ recurs
insistently. Unfortunately, it is again in these areas that personal
meetings are not very regular (see 2.3.5 above), and where the
friendly talk coincides for very many with personal spiritual ac-
companiment and becomes one of the behaviours with which to
conform.
We allow ourselves to speak, therefore, of different prevalent
or operative ‘models’ of formation – even when everyone theo-
retically subscribes to the model defined in and proposed by the
Ratio.
The ‘conformation’ model of formation and its results
158. The prevalent model of formation is a key issue in the
process of formation and in the relationship of personal accompa-
niment, where by ‘prevalent’ we mean, as we have said, not nec-
essarily what is expressed, but that which ‘prevails’ in practice,
that which is operative. It is quite possible, as we know, to say
one thing and do another. It is possible to keep swearing fidelity to
the Preventive System and yet, in practice, be operating in quite
a different way. What we actually do is one thing, what the Pre-
ventive System demands is another, and we are unaware of the

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difference. Further, our unawareness is unexpressed. We have no
language to express what we are doing, so we continue to speak
in terms of reason, religion and loving kindness, and thereby set
into motion a devaluation, distortion, watering down, corruption
of these terms. Such devaluation may occur only in scattered in-
dividuals. But it may occur on a more massive scale, and then the
words are repeated but the meaning is gone. And this is really a
difficult situation – when not just a few individuals, but a whole
group is affected by a devaluation and distortion of the tradition.
112
159. If the prevalent model of formation aims at the acquisition
of a set of behaviours, the results obtained after a considerable
number of years of initial formation will be exactly what has been
pursued: behavioural adaptations, with a set of habiti that have
become customary, and the hope that corresponding internal mo-
tivations have grown. If the model aims somewhat deeper, at the
acquisition of a set of skills needed for the ministry, the result will
be a group of skilled persons. If the model aims at a transfor-
mation of the person himself – his transfiguration into Christ in
the way marked out by Don Bosco – the result will be a group of
persons who have taken personal responsibility for their growth,
and who hopefully keep growing into Christ, both individually and
as a group.
We could talk about a top-down, conformation model of forma-
tion when the goal is, in practice, external conformity. This kind
of model is strong on authority and rules; it tends to be marked
by a distance between those in authority and those subject to au-
thority; and it is not surprising to find strong elements of fear and
anxiety in the formees.
160. Even within the vertical, conformation model of formation,
there have surely been individuals who grew well and even at-
tained sanctity. However, it is unlikely that mere external behav-
ioural adaptation is today a good recipe for Salesian religious life.
The rhythms of life in our local communities quickly consume fidel-
ity, if such fidelity is anchored merely to good behavioural habits.
Only what has become reason, conviction and deep motivation
will remain, and will help to find a new balance and to integrate the
challenges and opportunities that constantly surface. The rhythm
of life today demands much strength and a solid spiritual life, as
well as docility to discern the voice of the Spirit in the events of
each day. (C 119) Once again the importance of a fruitful journey
of personal spiritual accompaniment becomes evident. Person-
al spiritual accompaniment is the main instrument through which
the expressions of our life of prayer can become true paths of

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personal growth that will continue to nurture us regardless of ex-
ternal situations. ‘We have been called to form consciences, not
to replace them.’ (AL 37)
The importance of interiority and transformation of the heart
161. A model of formation that remains merely at the externals
is profoundly dissonant with the Salesian tradition. (McDonnell
51-53) Francis de Sales was sceptical of those who focus on the
exterior: ‘as for myself, I have never been able to approve of the
method of those who, to reform someone, begin with the exterior,
113
with appearance, dress, hair. On the contrary, I feel one needs
to begin with the interior.’ (OEA III 23: McDonnell 51) He was
convinced that ‘those who have Jesus in their hearts will soon
have Him in all their outward ways.’ (OEA III 27: McDonnell 51)
Salesian spirituality underlines the importance of interiority: for
Francis, the heart is central. One of the very first aims of Salesian
spiritual direction is to enable young people to reconnect with the
centre of their being – with their heart. This primacy of the heart is
a mark of the originality of the Christian humanism of St Francis
de Sales. The spiritual journey is an inward journey, a journey to
the heart, and spiritual accompaniment aims at a transformation
of the heart, the configuration of the person to Christ.
Reproduction of what is experienced in initial formation
162. A further reflection about the model of formation is sug-
gested by the remarks made by the 538 Salesian spiritual guides.
In the questionnaire the guides were asked to give a feedback
about their own experience of being accompanied during their in-
itial formation. It is surprising that many of the difficulties pointed
out by the other respondents (from prenovitiate to quinquennium)
are similar – even in percentages! – to the problems faced by the
Salesian guides when they themselves were in initial formation.
This suggests that certain trends are permanent, being somehow
linked to the structures or to the model of formation.
If the experiences of initial formation are marked by severe limi-
tations – e.g., lack of respect for confidentiality – it is difficult and
unlikely that the generations of Salesians who passed through
such ‘filters’ will have the best dispositions and preparation to be
good spiritual guides of their younger confreres. Exceptions are
always possible, as when one is able to learn from one’s nega-
tive experiences, but the most common tendency is to reproduce
what one has ‘gone through.’

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163. Becoming aware of the operative model of formation is,
therefore, important and urgent. By bringing the operative model
to light, we can look at it critically and decide whether it needs to
be changed.
In our opinion, the conformation model of formation is uncom-
fortably close to the Repressive System, and cannot go along
with the Salesian spirit (see Constitutions Chapter 2). We need
to look at it honestly, and have the courage to go back to the
Preventive System. The recommendation of Don Bosco to the
114
young first Rector of the Congregation, Michael Rua – Studia di
farti amare (Strive to make yourself loved) – is inscribed on the
cross given to us at our perpetual profession, and cries to be put
into practice, with the invaluable comment on it that is the Letter
from Rome. Such a striving on the part of Rectors, formators and
spiritual guides, but also every Salesian called to the service of
accompaniment in its various forms, will surely involve a journey
of purification and asceticism, which we learn to accept as our
daily taking up of our cross in our following of Christ.
4.12 LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE
164. Article 98 of our Constitutions gives us a fundamental
methodology of formation: we ‘learn by experience’ the meaning
of the Salesian vocation. This is another way of talking about the
centrality of the heart or of interiority in the tradition of Francis de
Sales.
Learning by experience is not simply ‘having experiences.’ It
involves attending to experiences and reflecting prayerfully on
them, in order to discern in them the voice of the Spirit (C 119). It
is the ‘core skill,’ if we may speak that way, of formation as life-
long. When we live this way, we live really in a permanent attitude
of discernment. (AGC 425 30-33)
165. It is not enough, therefore, to keep our formees busy do-
ing a thousand things. Accompaniment involves helping them fo-
cus attention to what is going on in the depths of the heart, in or-
der to listen to the Spirit. Such accompaniment may take place in
community, and it ought to take place also in smaller groups when
the community is large. It should certainly be the bread and butter
of personal spiritual accompaniment. And we can learn by expe-
rience across the board: the experience of relationships, commu-
nity life, pastoral work, intellectual commitments, the practices of
piety, the life of prayer and so on. Failure to do this is probably

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why many of us can ‘go through’ certain practices of piety, for ex-
ample, all through our initial formation, and not really learn to pray.
We need to remember that the pedagogy of prayer was central
to Don Bosco’s educational proposal: ‘The fundamental area of
accompaniment is formation to prayer which, beginning from the
exercise of the presence of God and the practices of piety, leads
to the acquisition of the spirit of prayer, to union with God and
towards the state of prayer in daily life.’ (Giraudo 124)
115
4.13 SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANIMENT AS HOLISTIC
166. The path of true vocational growth lies in the harmonious
interaction of all the dimensions within each one’s unique life his-
tory. The one who accompanies is called to attune his interaction
to this process of unfolding, healing and flourishing, encountering
the young ‘at their present stage of freedom’ (C 38).
Accompanying young people who intend to follow Christ in the
Salesian Congregation is therefore a holistic process, where com-
munity and individuals are involved in all the aspects of daily liv-
ing. Spiritual accompaniment is concerned with the totality of the
person, and not only with the ‘spiritual’ aspect understood in a
narrow way. We can take inspiration here from the ‘total develop-
ment’ described in C 31: ‘We educate and evangelize according
to a plan for the total well-being of man directed to Christ, the
perfect Man.’
All the dimensions of being human, therefore, enter into the
‘matter’ of spiritual accompaniment. The moment of personal ac-
companiment is most especially a safe and gentle place where the
whole experience of the person can be allowed to emerge: phys-
ical condition and health, the emotional life in its past and pres-
ent, community life, group life and interpersonal relationships, the
educative-intellectual aspect that forms such an important part
of initial formation at certain moments, the formal experiences
of prayer together with life that becomes prayer, pastoral experi-
ences, and the Salesian consecrated vocation as permeating all
these. A good guide will enable the person to gradually bring his
life experience into the relationship of accompaniment and will
help him discover and discern there the voice and action of the
Spirit (C 98, 119).
Such a holistic approach goes well with the basic principle
proposed by Pope Francis, that time is greater than space: ‘This

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principle enables us to work slowly but surely, without being ob-
sessed with immediate results. It helps us patiently to endure dif-
ficult and adverse situations, or inevitable changes in our plans.
It invites us to accept the tension between fullness and limitation,
and to give a priority to time…. Giving priority to time means be-
ing concerned about initiating processes rather than dominating
spaces.’ (EG 222-223)
4.14 PERIODIC PERSONAL ASSESSMENTS AS
116
MEANS FOR GROWTH
167. The sole aim of the periodic personal assessments (scruti-
nies) is to enhance holistic growth. Through them the house Coun-
cil evaluates, encourages, corrects and strengthens the vocation
journey of each person. Ideally, then, these assessments should
be a significant community complement to what takes place in
the friendly talk with the Rector and in personal spiritual accom-
paniment. When done well, assessments can be a very fruitful ex-
perience. However, if they are carried out rashly and imprudently,
they could severely damage the trust relationship between the
confrere in formation and the formation team.25
168. The formation team is invited to reflect carefully on the
purpose and modality of the periodic assessments in order to
guarantee a healthy process that will benefit the candidate in for-
mation. It is worth emphasizing that the assessment is not in itself
a discernment process linked to the admission of a candidate to
the next phase. Such admissions are juridical acts that involve the
province and not only the house Council, while the main purpose
of the periodic assessments is to foster the vocational growth of
the one receiving it, through the qualified contributions offered by
members of the local Council. The formation scrutiny is, instead,
an assessment of the progress made by someone who is in for-
mation. Used during initial formation to personalize the formative
process, it is an instrument of considerable help to the Rector and
the spiritual guide in their work of spiritual accompaniment. Since
each phase has its own specific objectives in the human, spiritual,
intellectual and pastoral dimensions of formation, the formation
personnel – and more specifically, the Rector and the Council of
the community – make use of these objectives to assess the pro-
gress made by their candidates and Salesians in formation. Each
25 30.3% of novices experience the scrutiny as a judgement on what one does rather
than on who one is. In postnovitiate this feeling is even more common – 41.6%. Cf.
‘Valutazione della Practica dello Scrutinio’ in Bay 123, 241, 330, 364.

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assessment will take into account the progress made in respect
of the previous assessments.
169. A suggestion made by the Ratio may be helpful: the di-
rect involvement of the confrere himself in the process of eval-
uation. ‘During the period of initial formation, scrutinies must
be conducted every three months to evaluate and foster each
person’s process of formation. The objectives of the phase and
the progress of the confrere should be examined together, and
his growth in his vocation must be assessed in continuity with
previous assessments. The confrere himself should be involved
117
in the assessment in different ways.’ (FSDB 296)
Above all, the assessments must make constant reference to
‘the way of the Gospel’ set out in the Salesian Constitutions (C
24). They are part of the assistance of our brother Salesians that
we invoke in our formula of profession to keep us faithful day by
day. Our brothers in formation must be helped to remember that
such assistance in living our Gospel way of life is an essential
part of our growth and fidelity.
4.15 TAKING PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR
FORMATION
170. It is not enough to have good formation teams and well
prepared spiritual guides. As our Constitutions say, ‘each Sale-
sian accepts responsibility for his own formation’ (C 99) and
makes a decision to open himself to his guides and ‘let himself
be known, relating to the formators with sincerity and transpar-
ency.’26
The community and the formation guides have their own im-
portant role, and we know that there are no perfect communi-
ties and guides. But nothing can substitute what is entrusted to
each one’s free response. Even the best guide will not be able
to help someone who is not ready to open up, sincerely share
his experience, and embark on a process of growth. Similarly,
if one’s core motivations are not sincere, and pretence is delib-
erately adopted as a way of ‘survival,’ the damage to discern-
ment and to formation process is incalculable, and is the grave
responsibility of the person himself.
When instead there is full availability and readiness to engage
ourselves in response to the call, ‘in dialogue with the Lord,’
26 See The Gift of the Priestly Vocation 45.

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then we learn ‘to make the best formative use of any situation’
(C 119).
171. ‘Vocational Fragility’ (AGC 385) had discussed the roots,
expressions and causes of such fragility, and had gone on to sug-
gest interventions, many of which are reflected in the present doc-
ument: care of vocations to Salesian religious life, attention to the
prenovitiate, a formative methodology that is personalized and that
privileges personal accompaniment, strengthening of formation
teams and communities. ‘Vocational fidelity’ (AGC 410) had invited
118
each confrere to revisit the story of his vocation, strengthen the
awareness of his consecrated identity, take care of his human ma-
turity, spiritual life, apostolic commitment and intellectual formation,
acquire the mentality of lifelong formation, and assume personal re-
sponsibility for this formation that is lifelong. It also pointed out the
vital role of the local and provincial community in vocational fidelity.
The great insistence of the present document on the quality and
formation of formators and guides does not take away the fact that
all formation is ultimately a self formation (PDV 69). In the dynamic
of grace and freedom that is at the core of vocational growth and
the relationship of personal spiritual accompaniment, the responsi-
bility of each confrere remains: he is invited to respond, every day,
to the call of the Lord (C 96; see AGC 416).
4.16 LEARNING THAT SPIRITUAL
ACCOMPANIMENT IS LIFELONG
172. A confrere in initial formation learns that formation is life-
long. He learns that personal spiritual accompaniment is also like-
wise lifelong.
Our Constitutions mention spiritual direction as one of the means
available to all confreres for growing in chastity: ‘he entrusts him-
self with simplicity to a spiritual director’ (C 84). In addition, our
Regulations mention spiritual direction as one of the elements in
lifelong formation. (R 99)
173. GC26 and GC27 invited Salesians to a regular experience
of spiritual accompaniment. GC26 asked each Salesian, in order
to rediscover the significance of the Da mihi animas cetera tolle as
a programme of spiritual and pastoral life, to ‘renew or strengthen
the practice of being accompanied by a spiritual director, look-
ing at Don Bosco’s experience.’ (GC26 20) GC27 proposed that,
in order to become mystics in the Spirit and live the following
of Jesus with passion, we commit ourselves to ‘having a stable

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spiritual director and referring to this person periodically.’ (GC27
67.2) Here we have the great example of Don Bosco himself, who
was guided for almost 30 years by Cafasso, and before that by a
series of directors beginning with the good Calosso.
174. The Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests (2013)
speaks of the necessity of priests seeking spiritual guidance for
themselves:
In order to contribute to the improvement of their spirituality
it is necessary for priests to practice spiritual direction with
119
respect to themselves, because ‘with the assistance of ac-
companiment or spiritual counsel […] it is easier to discern
the action of the Holy Spirit in each person’s life.’ By placing
the formation of their soul in the hands of a wise confrere – the
instrument of the Holy Spirit – they will develop, as of their first
steps in the ministry, their awareness of the importance of not
journeying in solitude along the ways of the spiritual life and
pastoral commitment.27
We are witnessing here and in the teachings of Benedict XVI
and Francis, an expansion of what was said in Vita Consecrata,
where John Paul II had spoken of ‘confident and humble recourse
to spiritual direction’ as of great help on the path of fidelity to the
Gospel ‘especially in the period of formation and at certain other
times in life.’ (VC 95)
Personal spiritual accompaniment it is not meant, therefore,
only for handling crises; its aim is continued growth in Christ. Just
as formation is lifelong, so also personal spiritual accompaniment
is lifelong.
4.17 THE URGENCY OF SELECTING AND
PREPARING SPIRITUAL GUIDES
Careful selection
175. The gift of spiritual accompaniment – or the ‘gift of coun-
sel,’ as it is sometimes called – is part of our patrimony and
charism,28 but that does not mean that all Salesians have this gift.
27 Congregation for the Clergy, Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests, new
edition (Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013) 73. The internal citation
is from Congregation for the Clergy, The Priest, Minister of Divine Mercy. Material for
Confessors and Spiritual Directors (9 March 2011) 98.
28 Don Bosco certainly had the gift of counsel (Ceria’s Don Bosco with God, has a

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Those in authority have, therefore, the task of discerning selection
of spiritual guides. Speaking about the formation of seminarians
and of consecrated persons, the very first insistence of the Synod
on youth regards the choice of formation guides: ‘it is not enough
for them to be academically well qualified; they need to be ca-
pable of fraternal relationships, listening with empathy, profound
inner freedom.’ (FD 163) Earlier the document had presented the
profile of the guide:
A good accompanier is a person who is balanced, a listener, a
120
person of faith and prayer, who has the measure of his own weak-
nesses and frailties. Hence he knows how to be accepting of the
young people he accompanies, without moralizing and without
false indulgence. When necessary he also knows how to offer a
word of fraternal correction.
The awareness that accompanying is a mission that requires
a profound spiritual rootedness will help him to remain free in
his dealings with the young people he accompanies: he will
respect the outcome of their journey, supporting them with
prayer and rejoicing in the fruits that the Spirit produces in
those who open their hearts to him, without seeking to impose
his own will and his own preferences.
Equally he will be capable of placing himself at their service,
not taking centre stage or adopting possessive and manipu-
lative attitudes that create dependence rather than freedom in
others. This profound respect will also be the best guarantee
against any risk of domination or abuse of any kind. (FD 102;
cf. also CV 246)
Clearly, Priest-Salesians and Brother-Salesians can both offer
the service of spiritual accompaniment, given that the service of
spiritual accompaniment is not linked to priestly ordination:
This role is not and cannot be limited to priests and consecrat-
ed life, but the laity should also be empowered to take on such
a role. All such mentors should benefit from being well-formed,
and engage in ongoing formation.29
chapter dedicated to this theme), as did his mentor and guide Don Cafasso (see Buc-
cellato 86).
29 CV 246, citing the Document of the Pre-Synodal Meeting. Cf. also IL 126, and the
Discorso del Santo Padre Francesco ai partecipanti alla plenaria della Congregazione
per gli Istituti di Vita Consacrata e le Società di Vita Apostolica, Saturday, 28 January
2017.

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Specific preparation
176. Careful selection does not make specific preparation of
spiritual guides unnecessary. Those who have the gift will benefit
from specific preparation for their service, just as those bless-
ed with musical gifts benefit greatly from specific training in their
field.
In order to perform this service, the accompanier will need to
cultivate his own spiritual life, nourishing the relationship that links
him to the One who assigned this mission to him…. It is important
121
that he receive a specific formation for this particular ministry….
(FD 103; cf. also CV 246)
Salesian personal accompaniment cannot be improvised: it re-
quires strong roots in the charism and at the same time a con-
stantly updated ability to listen to the new generations that are so
exposed to change.
Ongoing formation of formators
177. Obviously, those offering the service of spiritual accompa-
niment must take care of their own ongoing formation and here, in
the very first place, there must be willingness to care for their own
personal accompaniment. This point is so important that it calls
for a special comment.
Guides who are guided
178. Like all confreres, those offering the service of spiritual
accompaniment also need to be themselves accompanied.
Pope Francis invokes the image of ‘guides who are guided.’30
Evangelii Gaudium is very clear on this point (though unfortu-
nately not in the English translation): ‘Today more than ever we
need guides who, on the basis of their own experience of being
accompanied, are familiar with processes that call for prudence,
understanding, patience and docility to the Spirit.’ (EG 171, our
translation from the Spanish) ‘Our personal experience of allow-
ing ourselves to be accompanied and assisted, our ability to talk
about our life with total sincerity to those who accompany us, will
teach us to be patient and compassionate with others, and to find
the right way to gain their trust, their openness and their readiness
to grow.’ (EG 172, our translation from the Spanish) The teaching
30 Francis, Omelia, 19° Giornata per la Vita Consacrata, 2 febbraio 2015.

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of Pope Francis is taken up in the final document of the 2018
Synod: ‘Once the initial phase of formation is concluded, there is
a need for ongoing formation and accompaniment of priests and
consecrated men and women, especially younger ones, who of-
ten have to face challenges and responsibilities that are quite out
of proportion.’ (FD 100)
Supervision
179. Besides one’s own personal spiritual accompaniment,
there is also need for supervision of the service of spiritual ac-
122
companiment that one offers to others. ‘It is important that [the
guide] … can benefit in his turn from accompaniment and super-
vision.’ (FD 103, emphasis added) Such supervision is needed
because the guide cannot be expected ‘to have all the answers,’
and also so that his own reactions and personal dynamics do not
get in the way of his work of accompaniment.
Supervision is ordinarily done by someone prepared for this
task – e.g., those certified as clinical supervisors. However, peer
supervision is also helpful, with occasional help from an expert.
Finally, self-supervision is something that is not only helpful but
that all those offering spiritual accompaniment must learn to do.
This involves listening to oneself as one is listening to others
(heightened self-awareness), and reviewing sessions soon after
they are done.

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123

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Part three
125
Choosing

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126

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5. The way ahead
5.1 EMERGING SUGGESTIONS
127
180. Our effort of interpretation throws up a whole series of
choices and suggestions for action.
An inculturated formation, for example, calls for formators ca-
pable of entering into dialogue with the culture of the young, and
invites the Congregation to continue its efforts to ensure adequate
communication in widely used languages such as English.
Again, the aspect of configuration to Christ as consecrated
persons inspired by Don Bosco needs to be better highlighted
in spiritual accompaniment. There is also need to invest in the
preparation of formators and spiritual guides. Further, we must be
especially attentive to the dynamic interaction between communi-
ty and personal dimensions of spiritual accompaniment, selecting
and preparing Rectors with care while at the same time ensuring
real freedom of choice of spiritual guide. Yet again, aware of the
great formative impact of our involvement in the Salesian mission,
we are called to select formators with sufficient pastoral experi-
ence.
Most importantly, we are being called to a profound respect for
the dynamic of grace and freedom at the heart of formation and
of spiritual accompaniment. Here we want to ‘start again’ from
the Preventive System, which is not only pedagogy and spirit-
uality but also model of formation, with its deep respect for the
person and its willingness to accompany him with patience, in a
spirit of family, affection and friendship. At the same time, those in
initial formation are reminded of the absolute importance of open-
ness, sincerity and transparency in any process of formation and
spiritual accompaniment.
The critical role of the prenovitiate in initiation to Salesian per-
sonal accompaniment calls for continued attention to this phase
of formation, especially in terms of careful selection and prepara-
tion of the one in charge and of the formation team. On the other

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hand, reflection on the prenovitiate has also made us aware of the
close connection between youth ministry and formation, and of
the need for a continued renewal of Salesian youth ministry and
of the aspirantate.
181. Our exercise of listening to the Spirit speaking through our
confreres leads us to some broad strategies. We present them
here, along with suggestions for action to be further concretized,
contextualized and implemented at regional, provincial and local
levels.
128
5.2 STRATEGIES
5.2.1 Clarifying the nature of Salesian spiritual
accompaniment
182. The first strategy is to clarify the nature of Salesian spiritual
accompaniment.
The present document can be considered part of this pro-
cess, especially in Part II where we have tried to read the signals
coming from the voices of our young candidates and confreres
in initial formation and of the Salesians rendering the service of
spiritual accompaniment, in the light of the magisterium and of
our own Salesian tradition. That is, however, just the beginning of
the journey. Much has to be done by way of deepening, assimilat-
ing and growing in the important area of our life and mission that
is Salesian personal spiritual accompaniment. We will certainly
need to make a generous investment in the formation of formators
and spiritual guides.
5.2.2 Continuing the renewal of vocational youth
ministry and aspirantates
183. Another basic strategy is to continue the renewal of youth
ministry and to ensure that aspirantates are truly experiences of
vocational discernment through community, group and personal
accompaniment. With the ‘Guidelines for the Aspirantate Expe-
rience,’ we envisage attention to the aspirantates as a collabo-
rative endeavour between the Formation and Youth Ministry de-
partments.1
1 See Attard and Cereda, prot. 11/0377 dt. 27 July 2011.

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It will be important to clarify the difference between ‘vocational
recruitment’ and ‘vocational discernment,’ making use of the pro-
nouncements of the Congregation as well as the documents of
the Synod on youth (the Working Document, the Final Document,
and Christus Vivit).
As we have said already (see section 4.5 above), there is a direct
relationship between the quality of youth ministry and vocation
animation, and the processes of initial formation. The more seri-
ous the accompaniment and vocational discernment before entry
into the prenovitiate, the better will be the ability of those in forma-
129
tion to benefit from what is being offered them, including personal
spiritual accompaniment. Similarly, the better the quality of forma-
tion and spiritual accompaniment, the more likely it is that youth
ministry will really be what it is meant to be: the accompaniment
of young people in the discovery and living out of their vocations.
Suggestions for contextualised lines of action
in the regions, provinces and local communities
1. Study and evaluation, by the provincial youth ministry and
formation commissions, of the extent to which Salesian per-
sonal accompaniment is part of the ordinary educative-pasto-
ral ministry of Salesian works.
2. Study and evaluation, by those more directly involved in
youth ministry, vocational animation and initial formation, of vo-
cational animation at provincial and regional level, in the light of
the present orientations.
3. Evaluation of the study of pastoral theology, and of the way
pastoral activities are carried out during specific formation, in
the light of the present orientations. Gradual preparation for
the service of personal accompaniment is a qualifying aspect
of Salesian specific formation.
4. Promoting the regularity and quality of personal spiritual ac-
companiment in the aspirantate, by means of evaluation and
training.
5.2.3 Adopting the Preventive System as our
model of formation
184. To ‘begin again’ from the Preventive System is not so
much a strategy as a process of conversion or spiritual renewal.

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It is going back to our charismatic roots, especially to that most
inspiring testament given by Don Bosco in the letter of Rome of
May 1884.
This leads to a shift from a model of formation that concentrates
on external conformity and modification of behaviour, to a pro-
cess of community and personal accompaniment that recognizes
and respects the dynamics of grace and freedom. Any tendency
to blaming and quick judgment has to give room to valuing and
appreciating the young people entrusted to communities and for-
130
mation teams. Formation is a matter of beginning processes rath-
er than trying to dominate spaces.
Those entrusted with the service of formation are called to in-
vest in ‘self-care’ so that their personalities are a help rather than
a hindrance to the formation process. Those who offer the service
of personal spiritual guidance will remember that such accom-
paniment is a three-way affair, and that they have to learn to play
their secondary role as formators and guides, at the service of the
encounter between grace and freedom.
The accompaniment of consecrated persons following Christ
obedient, poor and chaste touches the deepest level of motiva-
tions and the totality of the vocation journey in its present, past
and future. Without a relationship marked by mutual trust, sharing
at this level cannot take place and little meaningful help can be
rendered and received.
185. The Preventive System also calls us to truly live the fam-
ily spirit. Community accompaniment, both formal and informal,
is the essential counterpart of personal spiritual accompaniment.
Presence and closeness to the formees is also necessary so as
to create the confidence and familiarity that carry over into per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment. This goes along with learning to
listen to the young, not only in one-to-one relationships but also in
communities, provinces, regions and Congregation, passing from
one-way communications to genuine dialogue, and from being
formators who only teach to being formators who also participate
in games and work.

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Suggestions for contextualised lines of action
in the regions, provinces and local communities
1. Freedom, responsibility and trust are key elements for every
journey of growth and vocational response. Tools to enhance a
correct understanding and exercise of freedom, responsibility
and trust (courses, seminars, aids...) could be offered especial-
ly for those who are at the beginning of the journey – aspirants,
prenovices, novices.
2. The formation commission and provincial Council could car-
131
ry out a careful discernment / evaluation of Salesian personnel
to whom candidates and confreres in initial formation can turn
for personal accompaniment (closeness, availability, prepara-
tion, etc.), keeping in mind also the communities with confreres
in practical training.
3. Training sessions for Rectors and confreres engaged in the
ministry of accompaniment can be offered at provincial or
interprovincial levels, so as to understand the difference be-
tween the friendly talk with the Rector and personal spiritual
accompaniment, and to promote each of these valuable means
of growth.
4. The provincial formation commissions could work out ways
of evaluating the level of discretion and respect for confiden-
tiality in the processes of personal accompaniment of candi-
dates and confreres, and of offering training sessions to pro-
mote confidentiality.
5. With the help of the formation commission the provincial
could revise the provincial qualification plan for formators,
evaluating the human relationship skills of the confreres in-
volved and looking in particular at the way they have done their
practical training and quinquennium.
6. Efforts could be made at various levels (universities, centres
for ongoing formation, Salesian study centres, etc.) to reflect
on the renewal of formation in response to generational and
contextual changes, involving also young confreres in initial
formation.

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5.2.4 Taking care of community accompaniment
186. Ensuring adequate community accompaniment in initial
formation involves investing in the formation of Rectors of forma-
tion houses and communities with practical trainees. It also in-
volves helping teachers in our centres for the study of philosophy
and theology to realize that they are always also formators.
187. Formation processes would be very much enriched if they
were to include in some way people from the three states of life,
132
consecrated, priestly and lay, including women and married cou-
ples. (FD 163-164) ‘The make-up of these formation teams, where
different vocations interact, is a small but precious form of syno-
dality, which can have an impact on the minds of young people in
their initial formation.’ (FD 163) Obviously, the Congregation asks
that Brother-Salesians be part of the formation team, with ade-
quate preparation for formation and spiritual guidance.
188. The friendly talk with the Rector is to be recovered in its
full potential as a precious instrument for the building up of the
community, even more when it is proposed in clear distinction from
spiritual direction (see sections 4.7 and 4.9 above). Fatherliness,
however, also involves responsibility, and so for those who have
to make important steps of vocational discernment, the Rector re-
mains a key point of reference, as the promoter and guardian of the
charism in the name of the whole Congregation, and as having a
direct responsibility towards each confrere and his vocation (C 55).
Salesian personal accompaniment cannot, therefore, be re-
duced to a private experience. It will always reflect the life lived in
community, and to this life it will orient each person, encouraging
an ongoing dialogue with the confreres and particularly with the
confrere who has been asked to serve as father of the family.
189. Since a Salesian is not only member of a religious community
but also of an educative and pastoral community,2 the experience
of accompaniment will be conditioned, enriched and shaped by
interaction with our lay mission partners and with all those with
whom we are called to collaborate. The contribution coming
from the different states of life within the Church is precious
and enriching, and we have all to learn how to be members of a
Church that is Communion, in which each state of life has its role
and task in relation to the others. As members of the Salesian
religious community, we have to also learn to play our role as the
2 The Salesian Rector (2019) 121-123.

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‘charismatic point of reference’ within the educative and pastoral
community.
Suggestions for contextualised lines of action
in the regions, provinces and local communities
1. Investing in the formation of Rectors of formation houses,
including those with practical trainees.
2. Making full use of the community plan and the personal plan
of life, community assemblies and local Council meetings, as
133
important instruments and moments of spiritual accompani-
ment of the community.
3. Devoting time during community meetings to reflect on the
quality of community life and of the friendly talk as a tool for
building community.
4. Conducting courses at provincial or interprovincial level for
the formation teams of the aspirantate, prenovitiate and novi-
tiate, to enhance attitudes that create a conducive family envi-
ronment and favour a good level of personal accompaniment.
5. Initiating aspirants, prenovices and novices to personal ac-
companiment and the practice of journaling, through suitable
seminars and pedagogical tools.
6. Proposing capacity building moments for formation teams
for the purpose of improving the way periodic assessments are
carried out.
7. Initiating those in initial formation to apostolic work in Sale-
sian educative and pastoral communities.
8. Indicating in the letter of obedience of confreres appointed
to teach in centres for the study of philosophy and theology,
that they are both teachers and formators.
5.2.5 Guaranteeing freedom in personal spiritual
accompaniment
190. There are several factors involved in guaranteeing that

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freedom is at the heart of the process of spiritual accompaniment:
freedom in the choice of spiritual guide; a model of formation that
is an expression of the Preventive System; the personality and
preparation of the Rector or the one in charge.
Our Constitutions and Regulations, and the Ratio, as we have
seen, are careful to keep open this window of freedom of choice,
but the language they use tends to give weight to the choice of
the Rector as spiritual guide: the Rector is ‘ordinarily’ the guide,
he is proposed not imposed, he functions like the novice mas-
134
ter…. (cf. sections 2.3.7 and 4.6 above). Especially in areas where
formation is more conformation than transformation, this tends
to be interpreted badly both by those exercising the service of
authority and those in initial formation.
191. In order to avoid such situations, which affect the largest
number of formees in our Congregation at the present moment,
we propose the following modifications to the Ratio:
PRESENT TEXT ‘He is responsible for the personal forma-
tion process of each confrere. He is also the spiritual director
proposed to, but not imposed on, the confreres in formation.’
(FSDB 233)
PROPOSED TEXT ‘He is responsible for the personal forma-
tion process of each confrere. If the confrere so wishes, the
Rector may also offer the service of personal spiritual accom-
paniment.’ (FSDB 233)
PRESENT TEXT ‘The Rector [of the postnovitiate] continues
the action of the director of novices. With wisdom and sound
judgement he animates the life and progress of the communi-
ty, following up and helping the postnovices especially through
personal guidance and the friendly talk, the spiritual direction
of conscience and periodical conferences.’ (FSDB 417)
PROPOSED TEXT ‘The Rector [of the postnovitiate] contin-
ues the action of the director of novices. With wisdom and
sound judgement he animates the life and progress of the
community, following up and helping the postnovices espe-
cially through personal guidance and the friendly talk, periodi-
cal conferences, and if the young confrere so wishes, also the
spiritual direction of conscience.’ (FSDB 417)
192. This proposal changes nothing of our venerable Salesian
tradition. It remains true that Don Bosco was not only superior but

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also confessor and spiritual guide of his boys and of his Salesians.
It remains true that this is how he wanted his Rectors to be. It is
also true that, at the behest of the Church, we accepted that Rec-
tors could no longer ordinarily hear the confessions of their sub-
jects, whether young people or confreres. But the Salesian Rector
still remains the spiritual guide of the community, with a special
responsibility towards each confrere, whom he meets regularly
for a friendly talk, and when some confrere freely requests him to
be also his spiritual guide, he willingly accepts this responsibility.
We place our confidence, therefore, in the Preventive System,
135
and want to work towards ever fuller implementation of that won-
derful system, where confidence and trust are earned, not im-
posed. We are making a shift from the rule or recommendation
to the spirit of the Preventive System, a spirit that is wonderfully
embodied in the Letter from Rome.
193. The key point is, therefore, how to change operative styles
of formation so as to make them consonant with the Preventive
System, and how to make it more probable that we have form-
ators and guides who are able to inspire confidence and trust,
while fully respecting the freedom of those entrusted to them. We
need a sustained process of animation and formation of forma-
tors and spiritual guides, and also good governance that decides
to set aside people for the task of formation and guidance, and
invests wisely in their preparation.
This is the core strategy for the vexed problem of the fusion
of roles, the overlap between authority and spiritual accompa-
niment, leading to fear, external conformity, and in general to an
evisceration of the inner meaning and fruitfulness of the process-
es of formation and of spiritual accompaniment in particular.
194. Obviously, guaranteeing freedom of choice of spiritual
guide is only one side of the picture. Unless the person in forma-
tion decides to be open and transparent with his guide, the pro-
cess of personal spiritual accompaniment is vitiated at its core.
In the dynamic of grace and freedom, the responsibility of each
person is never taken away (see section 4.16 above).
195. The free choice of spiritual guide in the prenovitiate is a
particularly delicate point, as we have said already (see section
4.4 above). We need to ensure, first of all, that genuine family spir-
it and the practice of the Preventive System prevails in our preno-
vitiates, most especially through careful attention to the composi-
tion of the formation teams and the prior preparation of formation

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guides, and especially of the one in charge of prenovices. In an
atmosphere of mutual trust, it is possible to win the confidence of
the young, while allowing them a basic freedom to choose their
guide. The Provincial and the provincial formation delegate will do
their part in indicating to the prenovices the delicate and critical
role of the one in charge, especially as far as vocational discern-
ment is concerned.
A related point in ensuring freedom of choice of spiritual guide
is to ensure that the members of the formation team are specifi-
136
cally prepared for spiritual accompaniment, and also that there be
at least one confessor among them who is not part of the local
Council.
196. Should the spiritual guide be chosen from within the for-
mation team, and should he necessarily be a Salesian? Here
again, the basic principle is the same: it is better to place our
trust in the Salesian quality of the formators and of the community
rather than in a rule or directive. It is important to ensure, howev-
er, also two further elements: that the guide chosen is someone
familiar with our charism and spirituality, and that it is possible to
meet him or her regularly. Within a relationship of mutual trust and
confidence, the Rector will find ways of dialoguing and discerning
with the person in formation about his choice of spiritual guide.
5.2.6 Strengthening the figure of the Rector
197. We have said already that the Rector continues to be re-
sponsible for formative accompaniment, both communitarian and
personal, and that he has a particular responsibility for the voca-
tion of each confrere (C 55). The charismatic figure and role of the
Salesian Rector is not to be minimized in any way. Instead, the
Salesianity of his figure must be enhanced, inviting him, along
with his team of formators, to be truly and fully the Salesians they
have professed to be. Ensuring genuine freedom in the choice of
spiritual guide cannot translate into lowering of standards in the
choice of Rectors. The direction to be taken is precisely the op-
posite: all our Rectors, and with greater reason those of formation
communities, are called to exercise their fatherliness and author-
ity in such a way that confreres will be drawn to open their hearts
to them – as used to happen with Francis de Sales, as used to
happen with Don Bosco.
The Provincial and the provincial formation delegate would do
well to present clearly the figure, role and responsibilities of the

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Rector to the confreres in initial formation, while at the same time
ensuring them genuine freedom of choice of spiritual guide. Those
who offer the service of spiritual accompaniment, on their part,
will also know how to suggest, especially in particular moments of
vocational discernment, that the person concerned speak to the
Rector and/or to the Provincial.
Suggestions for contextualised lines of action
in the regions, provinces and local communities
137
1. As Rectors of formation communities, provincials will choose
confreres who are clearly men of faith and sufficient Salesian
pastoral experience, capable of a living communication of the
Salesian ideal and of genuine dialogue with the young con-
freres (C 104), and ensure them an adequate preparation, so
that they can be men who inspire confidence in the formees.
2. The Rector remains the spiritual guide of the community,
animating it through conferences, goodnights, meetings, the
drawing up of the community plan, etc.
3. The Provincial and the Rector will ensure that the charis-
matic dimension of formation be adequately highlighted and
cared for.
4. When requested by a confrere, the Rector will willingly offer
the service of personal spiritual accompaniment.
5. The Rector will regularly convoke meetings of the formation
team, including the spiritual guides, so as to ensure unity of
formation and to give space for the sharing of difficulties and
challenges in the area of formation and accompaniment.
6. Knowing the importance of ‘presence,’ the Rector will take
care not to take up responsibilities that seriously take him away
from the community.
7. The Rector will make sure that he is available for the person-
al talk with the confreres, with those in initial formation (cf. C
70, R 49 and R 79).

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5.2.7 Preparing formators and spiritual guides
198. The formation and training of spiritual guides and of form-
ators in general – Rectors and teams of formation houses, Rec-
tors of practical trainees and of quinquennists, confessors – is
clearly a key strategy for strengthening and improving the quality
of personal spiritual accompaniment. We have seen already that
the Final Document of the Synod on youth insists on the need for
the specific formation of spiritual guides. (FD 103 and above, sec-
tion 4.15) We could even read the three proposals of n. 164 of the
138
Final Document as regarding not just formees but also the forma-
tors themselves: the formation of formation guides along with lay
people and priests, and the quality of their community and pas-
toral experience. Formation guides themselves must develop the
capacity to exercise their role of guidance in an authoritative rath-
er than authoritarian way; they must overcome any tendencies to
clericalism, be able to work in team, have a particular sensitivity
to the poor, transparency of life, and, once again, the willingness
to allow themselves to be accompanied. (FD 163)
199. Though the theme of affectivity and human growth might
not have emerged explicitly in these Orientations and Guidelines,
the whole point of this document is to provide the conditions that
will make it possible for those in formation to speak freely about
the matters of the heart, including affectivity, sexuality and rela-
tionships. Since the last six-year period, the formation depart-
ment has been animating the regions to draw up programs for ed-
ucation to sexuality, affectivity and the vow of chastity. Obviously,
programs alone are not enough; we need formators capable of
implementing them, and above all, formators capable of creating
the safe and gentle spaces where those in formation might find
the courage to open up what is most intimate and personal. The
challenge before the Congregation is not so much speaking about
affectivity and human maturity, as providing the conditions where
such growth might take place.
After having concentrated so much on those in formation, we
are now learning to complete the circle by turning our attention
also to formators, in the belief that formation takes place in the
relationship between formees and formators, in the intricate in-
teraction between personal and communitarian aspects, with our
‘we’ nestling in the We of God.3
3 Extraordinary expression from J. Ratzinger, ‘On the Understanding of “Person” in
Theology,’ Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life, ed. Mi-
chael J. Miller (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011) 195.

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Suggestions for contextualised lines of action
in the regions, provinces and local communities
1. Promoting at congregation, regional and provincial level pro-
cesses and initiatives for the formation of formators with the
following goals and objectives:
- fostering the existential-spiritual interiority of formators and
their ability to engage in dialogue, so that they might find them-
selves more prepared to deal with the human-affective dimen-
sion and with the culture of the formees, which is increasingly
multicultural and digital;
139
- helping formators acquire skills of self-appropriation and
‘learning by experience’ so as to discern there the voice of the
Spirit (C 98, 119);
- helping formators to have a holistic idea of spiritual accom-
paniment, as including the totality of the person in his physical,
emotional-affective, communitarian, intellectual, pastoral and
spiritual dimensions, and preparing them for such accompa-
niment;
- learning to handle affectivity in oneself and in those entrusted
to one’s care.
2. Fostering a ‘Preventive System’ formation culture within the
province, cultivating the following aspects:
- the unity of the formation team around the Rector;
- the need for all confreres, and especially formators and
guides, to have their own spiritual guides, following the exam-
ple of Don Bosco himself, recent ecclesiastical magisterium
(including the Synod on youth), and General Chapters 26 and
27 (see section 4.15 above); this can be a specific point of
evaluation with the members of formation teams during the
canonical visitation;
- clear ideas and convictions about confidentiality as pertain-
ing to various contexts – the sacrament of reconciliation, per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment, the friendly talk, psychological
accompaniment;
- distinction between periodic assessments and admission
procedures, reflecting on the purpose and modality of the as-
sessments, involving formees in the process of evaluation;

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- ensuring that formators and spiritual guides have enough
quality time at their disposal for accompaniment.
3. Some choices involve directly the decision making level in
the provinces:
- selecting formators who have had a good experience of the
practice of the Preventive System in practical training (see C
115), rather than merely those who have done well in philo-
sophical or theological studies;
140
- assigning the best guides to the earlier phases (aspirantate,
prenovitiate), because of the critical nature of these phases.
4. Requesting that the four-month ongoing formation of forma-
tors course at the UPS be offered also in English, preferably in
the first semester.
Salesian School of accompaniment
200. In the area of formation of spiritual guides, a key line of
action at the level of the Congregation is the establishment of
a Salesian school of accompaniment, in synergy with what is
already being offered in various regions. The goal is to activate
itineraries and offer instruments to help confreres and lay mis-
sion partners to become experts in the art of Salesian personal
spiritual accompaniment. The modalities must take into account
the variety of contexts in which the Salesian charism is at work,
making sure that those who qualify in this field become in turn
propagators of the gift in their home environment.
This school will be offered in various languages, and intends
taking full advantage of the charismatic significance of the Sale-
sian heritage sites.
Provincial qualification plans for the preparation of spiritual
guides
201. Provincials and curatoriums of interprovincial formation
houses are requested to carefully select and prepare confreres
(and others) for the service of spiritual accompaniment. This
means preparing spiritual guides, confessors and also Rectors.
Such choices and decisions are not only crucial but also long
term in their impact on Salesian identity and the way we carry
out our mission. In addition, they benefit not only those in initial
formation but also all the confreres of a province. We should not

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have to hear any more the complaint: ‘I don’t know whom to go to
for guidance. We don’t have confreres who are prepared.’
Participating provincials are requested to draw up and period-
ically update qualification plans that include the preparation of
confreres for the service of spiritual accompaniment.
202. The statutes of the curatorium are to be revised so as to
ensure the contribution of all participating provinces in the selec-
tion and preparation of formators, teachers and spiritual guides.
By ‘participating provinces’ is meant those provinces that have
141
made an option for a particular formation house in their provincial
directories. Such options do not exclude the possibility of sending
confreres to other formation houses, but in that case there is no
obligation to participate in the curatorium and to contribute for-
mation personnel.
Policy for appointment of Rectors of formation houses and
novice directors
203. We suggest that the Rector Major and his Council prom-
ulgate a policy that Rectors of formation houses and novice direc-
tors will be appointed only if they have some prior preparation for
the service of formation. The module for their appointment could
reflect this requirement.
Formation plans and processes
204. Through organisms such as the regional formation com-
missions, the formation department will initiate a process of study
and updating of local formation plans so as to ensure the inclusion
of pedagogical processes for growth in faith and in the charism.
5.2.8 Ensuring that spiritual accompaniment is
lifelong
205. If formation is lifelong, personal accompaniment also is
lifelong (see section 4.16 above). All Salesians are therefore in-
vited to have a stable spiritual director and seek regular personal
spiritual accompaniment.
If personal accompaniment is necessary during initial formation,
it is all the more needed when we have finished initial formation,
given that we are now exposed to far more demanding life situ-
ations, with great responsibility for the life and growth of many

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people. Just as supervision is a ‘must’ in the helping professions,
personal accompaniment is the normal way of growing in our vo-
cation, whatever be the particular apostolic task assigned to us.
Once again the experience of our founder is extremely significant.
The presence of Don Cafasso was far more important and rele-
vant for the life and mission of Don Bosco after his priestly or-
dination in 1841 than it was in the period of his initial formation.
This is also the encouragement Pope Francis gave to all priests,
writing to them on 4th August 2019, being the 160th anniversary of
the death of St John Vianney:
142
I would encourage you not to neglect spiritual direction. Look
for a brother with whom you can speak, reflect, discuss and
discern, sharing with complete trust and openness your jour-
ney. A wise brother with whom to share the experience of dis-
cipleship. Find him, meet with him and enjoy his guidance,
accompaniment and counsel. This is an indispensable aid to
carrying out your ministry in obedience to the will of the Father
(cf. Heb 10:9) and letting your heart beat with “the mind that
was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). We can profit from the words
of Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one… One will lift up the
other; but woe to the one who is alone and falls, and does not
have another to help!” (4:9-10).
Despite the insistence of the Church and the Congregation, per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment after the period of initial forma-
tion is still a treasure to be discovered and appropriated by many
confreres and communities. The work of sensitization has to be
carefully planned and carried out at provincial and regional levels.
Above all, many more Salesians have to be initiated and prepared
for this ministry, remembering that the first training is our own
experience of being guided, our willingness to be ‘guides who are
guided.’
5.2.9 Contextualizing the strategies
206. Our study of Salesian personal accompaniment has given
us a very good idea of the diversity that exists in the Congrega-
tion. Such diversity means that all the strategies suggested above
have to be contextualised in the regions and provinces. It is at
these levels that concrete lines of action will be worked out and
responsibilities and time frames assigned.

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We suggest therefore:
1. further study of the results of the research on Salesian personal
accompaniment at the regional and provincial levels;
2. study of the present Orientations and Guidelines regarding
Salesian personal accompaniment with a view to contextualization
and implementation;
3. sharing and exchange of reflections and action plans for
promoting Salesian personal accompaniment between groups of
143
provinces and in formation phases within the same region;
4. dialogue with the regional centres for ongoing formation in
order to work out plans for the formation of formators, in line with
the reflections and action plans about accompaniment.
5. involvement of the provincial formation delegates, provincial
formation commissions and teams of formators, to ensure a
systematic reflection on the present Orientations and Guidelines
in each community, to be carried out together with the young
candidates and confreres in formation. Particular attention
should be given to interprovincial communities, communities
with confreres in practical training and in the quinquennium, and
especially communities of specific formation, which are closest
to the transition from initial formation to full insertion into the
educative and pastoral communities of the province.
207. However, animation alone is not enough: we also need
governance. We bring together various suggestions for govern-
ance that have already been mentioned:
At world level:
1. A suggested new policy for the appointment of Rectors of
formation houses and novice directors (see section 5.2.7 above).
At interprovincial level:
2. Strengthening the curatorium to ensure long-term selection,
preparation and commitment of formators, spiritual guides and
teachers.
At provincial level:
3.  Qualification plans to ensure long-term selection and preparation
of formators, spiritual guides and teachers.

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4.  Ensuring the constitution of formation teams that are qualitatively
and quantitatively consistent, and that are able to work in team.
5. Assigning practical trainees and those in the quinquennium
only to communities where good accompaniment can be ensured.
6.  Ensuring that provincial formation delegates and their commissions
carry out their work of reflection, planning, accompaniment of initial
and post-initial formation, team work and networking with the
Provincial and his Council, other provincial delegates, the regional
144
formation coordinator and the regional commission, and the general
councillor for formation.

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145

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Conclusion
208. Our study focussed on Salesian personal accompaniment
147
with a special emphasis on personal spiritual accompaniment,
keeping in mind that ‘personal accompaniment’ includes other
forms of accompaniment such as the sacrament of reconciliation,
the friendly talk with the Rector, psychological, intellectual, litur-
gical and pastoral accompaniment, as also the periodic assess-
ments or scrutinies.
Given our particular tradition, it was inevitable that the study
should throw light also on the friendly talk with the Rector and its
peculiar relationship to personal spiritual accompaniment.
The study has also indicated a very high level of satisfaction as
regards the sacrament of reconciliation and some dissatisfaction
about community accompaniment and periodic assessments, but
did not enter into the areas of psychological, intellectual, liturgical
and pastoral accompaniment, though it did have something to
say about the ‘practices of piety’ such as the Eucharist, medita-
tion and the liturgy of the hours.
209. The fact that the Congregation, through two of its depart-
ments, has chosen to focus over almost two six-year periods on
personal spiritual accompaniment in youth ministry and in the
processes of formation, as also the collaboration between the
two departments that has resulted in the present Orientations and
guidelines, is in itself indicative of a very important moment in our
history. Felicitously, the Synod on Young People, the Faith and
Vocational Discernment took place precisely during this period
– and even more happily, there has been a dialectical interaction
between the two processes.
We can make our own the exhortation of Pope Francis, that
from the Synod we must learn a method, or better a style of being
Church:

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The fruits of this work are already ‘fermenting’, as does the
juice of grapes in barrels after the harvest. The Synod on youth
was a good harvest, and promises good wine. But I would like
to say that the first fruit of this synodal assembly should be the
example of a method that we tried to follow, right from the pre-
paratory phase. A synodal style that does not have as its main
objective the drafting of a document, which is also precious
and useful. More than the document, however, it is important
to establish a way of being and working together, young and
old, in listening and in discernment, to arrive at pastoral choic-
es that respond to reality.1
148
210. Surely the Spirit is inviting us as a Congregation to a se-
cure retrieval of the jewel in the educative proposal of Don Bosco
that is spiritual accompaniment, in the wonderful richness of its
originality, with its community, group and personal dimensions in
fruitful and dynamic tension. May our efforts to appropriate this
treasure, prepare ourselves for this service, and take the neces-
sary steps in terms of animation and governance, bear fruit in
God’s time for the good of young people and all those who share
Don Bosco’s mission in the great movement that takes its origin
from him.
May Our Lady, the Shepherdess of Don Bosco’s dream, be our
Mother and Teacher; may Don Bosco inspire us with his life and
example, and may all the saintly members of our family intercede
for us – beginning with our great and venerable patron, Francis
de Sales, whose 400th death anniversary we will be celebrating in
2022.
1 See Angelus of 28 October 2018.

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16 Pages 151-160

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Appendix:
questions and hints
for reflection
Ch. 1 THE STUDY OF SALESIAN PERSONAL
151
ACCOMPANIMENT
A . The research on Salesian personal accompaniment gave
evidence of how young people in initial formation are ready and
willing to contribute to the improvement of the formation pro-
cesses, sharing opinions and proposals, when they are genuine-
ly listened to.
What processes of involvement of young people
in formation are already in place in our prov-
ince? What further steps could be taken in this
direction?
B. Growth in the number of confreres in the coming years will
be seen especially in Africa – Madagascar, South Asia and East
Asia – Oceania. The quality of the future will depend on the quality
of formation taking place in each province.
Are we as a province convinced that investment
in formation is the most urgent and important
‘Salesian work’ for the future, one that will have
the strongest impact on our service to the young
people to whom we are sent?
Two direct indications of the value given to formation in the culture
of the province are: [1] how much is invested in the specialization
– qualification of confreres, and the areas of such specialization;
[2] how we balance the relationship between qualification of con-
freres and expansion in terms of new presences.
Are we ready and willing to make a serious dis-
cernment about the choices we make on these two
fronts and, if necessary, change our strategies?
C. The research highlights the multicultural nature of the Con-

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gregation, with a clear prevalence of the English language as a
cultural medium of communication.
What is the quality of interculturality in your
province? And is the learning of languages be-
coming part of the mission and formation you
promote, especially among young confreres?
D. The large majority of young people in formation belong to
the ‘digital natives’ generation, with a growing group born after
152
the year 2000, with cultural and linguistic paradigms that are very
different from those of previous generations. Those who dedicate
themselves to the care of initial formation should be most atten-
tive to this world and to the need for constant updating, if they are
to dialogue with the new generations.
Are our formation teams ready for this process
of constant updating? What steps can be pro-
posed to favour this kind of inculturation today?
a. Young people in formation are not mere recipients but the first
protagonists of their journey of growth.
b. The family spirit and the characteristic dynamism of our mis-
sion make the apostolic contribution of young Salesians particu-
larly valid.
c. Young Salesians are closer to the new generations, are ca-
pable of animation and enthusiasm, and are willing to try out new
solutions.
d. The community, encouraging and guiding this generosity,
helps their apostolic religious growth. (C 46)
Is our provincial community ready and willing to
involve young confreres in processes of discern-
ment and decision-making about the mission
and the life of the community, which will be en-
tirely entrusted to them in the near future? How
actively are they involved in the basic choices
that govern the life of the formation communi-
ties?
Ch. 2 EMERGING TOPICS
A. One of the recurrent appeals in the research, in all phases
and regions, is for greater proximity, presence, dialogue and fa-
miliarity between formators and young people in formation.

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Do our formation teams – including those in
communities with confreres in practical training
– embody the familiarity that lies at the heart
of the Preventive System (see Letter from Rome
of 1884), in their way of interacting with young
people in formation?
B. The research indicates that our young people in formation
make a clear distinction between spiritual accompaniment and
the friendly talk with the Rector. There is also a preference to have
recourse to different persons for each of these services, or at least
a request for real freedom of choice of spiritual guide.
153
How could we activate in the houses of the prov-
ince a careful and thorough reflection on per-
sonal spiritual accompaniment and the talk with
the Rector, in the light of what has emerged from
the research and the indications of the present
Orientations and Guidelines?
C. The fact that 80% indicate the pre-novitiate as the time when
they have begun an experience of personal guidance leads to the
need to carefully check the life of the communities in two direc-
tions.
[1] Is there a good initiation to personal guid-
ance in the aspirantate and prenovitiate, know-
ing that this first experience will greatly influ-
ence the way accompaniment is lived during the
subsequent formation phases?
[2] Does personal accompaniment and voca-
tional discernment form an integral part of youth
ministry in all our educational works? Togeth-
er with the delegate for youth ministry and the
confreres directly involved in youth ministry and
vocational animation, could we start a serious
process of evaluation in this regard?
We could give particular attention to the ‘time factor,’ given that
the research repeatedly makes reference to the fact that Sale-
sians ‘have no time to dedicate to listening’ because they are too
busy with other activities.
D. A risk often underlined in the research is conformism, where
young people undergoing initial formation merely adapt to the de-
mands made on them, not because of maturing convictions and

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motivations, but because there is a strong element of control and
not infrequently of fear. There is a risk that even the most vital
elements of the formation process, such as the life of prayer, be
affected by a formalism that empties them of their value. This risk
is stronger where there is an overlap between the role of authority
and that of personal spiritual accompaniment .
Could we verify, with the involvement of our young
people in formation, the authenticity and sincerity of
the personal involvement of each candidate and of
154
the formators in the formation processes? Could we
also help bring to light and evaluate the type of ap-
proach with which the formation team animates and
guides the community?
E. From the research an alarming signal emerges regarding the
confidentiality of what is shared in the friendly talk and in person-
al spiritual accompaniment, especially in some phases of initial
formation.
How could we make a serious examination on this
front, taking into consideration each community,
in order to correct errors and create the necessary
conditions to foster an authentic climate of trust,
which is the indispensable starting point for Salesian
personal accompaniment and its effectiveness?
F. Quarterly assessments are a form of community support. The
research highlights many elements of concern on this front.
Could we carry out an evaluation of how these exer-
cises are conducted in the formation houses of the
province (communities with confreres in practical
training included), so as to enhance their quality and
effectiveness?
It is important that such verification be done with the involvement
of the young people candidates and confreres. Their vocational
growth is the only reason that motivates the quarterly assessments.
Ch. 3 LIGHT FROM OUR TRADITION
A. The reflection on Don Bosco’s practice of spiritual accompa-
niment helps us understand that care of the community environ-
ment and the personal approach are both fundamental for growth.

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How to foster in the communities of the province
this fruitful blending of community environment and
personal relationships, in view of the growth of each
person, young people as well as formators?
B. Living the Preventive System in the experience of person-
al accompaniment involves investing one’s best energies in the
quality of relationships.
How could we help educators and formators truly
live the Preventive System in the relationship with
each person? How could we help these relationships
155
to be marked by a profound respect for each person
and the ability to listen, sharing with a fatherly and
maternal love in the growth of the individual?
C. The mystagogical dimension is a crucial element of the Pre-
ventive System – which means that a deep life of faith and prayer
lays the foundations of our educational and pastoral service.
Is this the basic horizon cherished among the con-
freres, and does it animate the formative commit-
ment of the Salesians in the province? How could we
revive this fundamental dimension that unites spirit-
uality and educative service also within our forma-
tion houses?
Ch. 4 UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE SPIRIT IS
SAYING
A. In the pre-Synodal meeting, the young people traced an
identikit of the spiritual mentor that was taken up in full by Pope
Francis in Christus Vivit 246: ‘The qualities of such a mentor in-
clude: being a faithful Christian who engages with the Church
and the world; someone who constantly seeks holiness; some-
one who is a confidant without judging. Similarly, someone who
actively listens to the needs of young people and responds in
kind; someone deeply loving and self-aware; someone who
recognizes his or her limits and knows the joys and sorrows of
the spiritual journey. An especially important quality in mentors
is the acknowledgement of their own humanity – the fact that
they are human beings who make mistakes: not perfect peo-
ple but forgiven sinners. Sometimes mentors are put on a ped-
estal, and when they fall, it may have a devastating impact on
young people’s ability to continue to engage with the Church.

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Mentors should not lead young people as passive followers, but
walk alongside them, allowing them to be active participants in
the journey. They should respect the freedom that comes with
a young person’s process of discernment and equip them with
tools to do so well. A mentor should believe wholeheartedly in a
young person’s ability to participate in the life of the Church. A
mentor should therefore nurture the seeds of faith in young peo-
ple, without expecting to immediately see the fruits of the work
of the Holy Spirit. This role is not and cannot be limited to priests
and consecrated life, but the laity should also be empowered to
156
take on such a role. All such mentors should benefit from being
well-formed, and engage in ongoing formation.’
This can be a good stimulus for reflection in the prov-
ince on the profile of the Salesian spiritual guide to-
day, both in youth ministry and within initial forma-
tion communities.
B. Openness to the diversity of cultures, situations, generations
and life stories is required in all formators and spiritual guides to-
day, and is a matter of one’s inner attitudes.
Where do diversities emerge most sharply in our
province, and how do we respond to them? (Mention
good practices, elements of weakness, aspects that
need to be changed.)
C. ‘The spiritual focus of personal accompaniment’ needs to be
matched by ‘charismatic density’ of equal intensity. ’The religious
and apostolic nature of the Salesian calling dictates the specific
direction our formation must take.’ (C 97)
What can we say about the spiritual centeredness
and charismatic density of formation and spiritual
accompaniment in our province? How could we
strengthen these dimensions, both for the guides
and for the young people in initial formation?
D. The quality of youth ministry determines the processes of
formation.
The provincial formation delegate could propose a
joint evaluation of vocation animation in the prov-
ince, to assess whether, in keeping with the Frame
of Reference, such animation is an intrinsic and es-
sential aspect of every youth ministry (FoR 160-161;
256-257). Special attention must be given to the ex-

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periences of aspirantate, evaluating them in the light
of the joint letter of Attard and Cereda on the aspir-
antates (July 2011).
E. Prenovitiate.
Is the province giving enough importance to the
prenovitiate, as it gives to the novitiate, in particular
regarding the choice of the one in charge of prenov-
ices and the team that collaborates with him (FSDB
345)? What is the involvement of lay people in the
formation of prenovices?
157
F. Grace and freedom. This part of the Orientations and Guide-
lines (section 4.6) is the theological foundation of Salesian per-
sonal accompaniment.
Rather than limiting ourselves to a few questions, it
would be better to propose a process of reflection
and study of this section, followed by sharing and
dialogue, in order to verify, together with the forma-
tion teams and also the young people in formation,
whether what is going on in the province is in harmo-
ny with these basic truths. This hopefully will open
the way to processes and itineraries of gradual con-
version.
G. Rector, spiritual guide, confessor.
How are these three figures understood and valued
in the communities in relation to accompaniment?
What kind of preparation has been offered to those
who exercise these ministries? What are the weak-
nesses associated with these roles in our province,
and what remedies could be proposed in the short
and long term?
H. The accompaniment of the community and of the formation
team.
A courageous evaluation can be proposed to the
formators and to the young people in formation
about the formative impact of the community and the
formation team, e.g., by means of a SWOT analysis.
I. The letter from Rome of 1884.

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Taking this letter as the paradigm of what trust and
openness, confidence and familiarity mean in Sale-
sian personal accompaniment, a Salesian lectio
could be proposed with moments of sharing.
J. Models of formation.
We propose a calm and careful reflection on this part
of the document (section 4.11) with an evaluation of
[1] the model we ourselves have experienced at the
158
beginning of our formation journey; [2] the present
model each one follows; [3] what our young people
in formation think about the model of formation they
experience.
K. The trimonthly evaluation exercise as an opportunity for re-
newal.
While verifying and rethinking the way in which scru-
tinies are carried out, a joint process can be activat-
ed that will lead both to the improvement of this in-
strument as well as to a renewal of the relationship
between the formation team and the young people in
formation.
L. Formation of formators: two levels of evaluation are proposed.
[1] On the level of the provincial formation commis-
sion and provincial Council: evaluation of the dis-
cernment process followed for choosing formation
personnel, and of the care with which they are pre-
pared specifically for their service, both initially and
in an ongoing manner.
[2] On the level of the local formation team and indi-
vidual formators: evaluation of each one’s openness
to supervision and willingness to be ‘guides who in
turn are guided’ (section 4.17).
NB: The third part (CHOOSING) is already a set of strategies with a
series of ‘Suggestions for contextualised lines of action in the regions,
provinces and local communities,’ and so it is superfluous to propose
further questions here.

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159

17 Pages 161-170

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Selected bibliography
Church documents
161
Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of
Apostolic Life. New Wine in New Wineskins: The consecrated life
and its ongoing challenges since Vatican II: Guidelines. Rome 2017.
Congregation for the Clergy. The Gift of the Priestly Vocation: Ra-
tio fundamentalis institutionis sacerdotalis. Rome 2016.
Francis. Post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia on
Love in the Family. Rome 2016.
Francis. Post-synodal apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit. Rome
2019.
Francis. Apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium on the Procla-
mation of the Gospel in Today’s World. Rome 2013.
Francis. Apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate on the Call to
Holiness in Today’s World. Rome 2018.
John Paul II. Post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata
on the Consecrated Life and its Mission in the Church and in the
World. Rome 1996.
XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops 2018.
Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment: Final Doc-
ument.
XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops 2018.
Young People, the Faith and Vocational Discernment: Instrumen-
tum Laboris.
Salesian literature
Attard, Fabio and Miguel Ángel García, ed. Spiritual Accompani-

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ment: An Educational and Spiritual Journey with Young People in
the Way of Don Bosco. Bolton: Don Bosco Publications, 2018.
Alburquerque Frutos, Eugenio. ‘Saint Francis de Sales as Spiritual
Director: Spiritual Direction in the Pastoral Praxis of the Bishop of
Geneva.’ 11-22.
Buccellato, Giuseppe. ‘Don Bosco’s Experience of Spiritual Di-
rection as it was practised during his years at the Turin Convitto
Ecclesiastico (1841-1844).’ 75-105.
162
Finnegan, Jack. ‘Spiritual Accompaniment: The Challenges of the
Postmodern and the Postsecular in the Contemporary World.’
147-148.
Giraudo, Aldo. ‘Special Characteristics of the Spiritual Direction
that Don Bosco offered to Young People.’ 107-115.
Giraudo, Aldo. ‘Spiritual Direction in Saint John Bosco. II: Con-
tents and Methods of Spiritual Accompaniment of the Young in
the Praxis of Don Bosco.’ 117-127.
McDonnell, Eunan. ‘Spiritual Direction in Saint Francis de Sales:
Outlines of the Spiritual and Pedagogical Method in View of Sale-
sian Youth Ministry.’ 49-71.
Struś, Józef. ‘St Francis de Sales as Spiritual Director.’ 23-48.
Attard, Fabio and Francesco Cereda. ‘Guidelines for the Aspiran-
tate Experience.’ Prot. 11/0377, dt. 26 July 2011.
Bay, Marco. Giovani salesiani e accompagnamento. Risultati di
una ricerca internazionale. Rome: LAS, 2018.
Cereda, Francesco. ‘La fragilità vocazionale. Avvio alla riflessione
e proposte di intervento.’ ACG 385 (2004) 34-53.
Formation of Salesians of Don Bosco: Ratio fundamentalis institu-
tionis et studiorum. 4th edition, 2016.
Grech, Louis. Salesian Spiritual Companionship with Young Peo-
ple Today inspired by the Thought and Praxis of St John Bosco.
Malta: Horizons, 2018.
Salesian Youth Ministry Department, Salesian Youth Ministry:
Frame of Reference (2014).

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