Introduction to the Retreat

1.Underlying theme

“What God wants is for you all to be holy” (1 Thess 4:3). Thus does Paul write to the Thessalonians from Corinth in 51, a year after their conversion. An attentive and affectionate father (1 Thess 2:11-12), the apostle feared for their perseverance given that as soon as he had founded the community he had to leave it due to hostility from the Jewish colony. “We have been called by God to be holy, not to be immoral". And he concluded with "Anyone who objects is not objecting to a human authority but to God” (1 Thess 4:8). 1 Thesalonians, the apostle's first letter and therefore the first written work of the NT, is testimony that from the beginnings of Christianity, holiness was there as God's will and what his own were called to. (cf. Lv 19:2).

In the first of Don Bosco's circular letters to Salesians, “small masterpieces of spirituality”¹, Don Bosco confessed that he felt the need to speak “frequently to my dear sons” since the Congregation “will probably soon be definitively approved”. “I will begin then by saying something about the purpose of the Society in general… the first purpose of the Society is the sanctification of its members. Therefore let everyone when he enters strip himself of any other thought, any other concern”.² We are not born to do good, but first and per se, to become good…, by doing good.

“Dear Salesians, be holy” was the topic of the first letter that Fr Chávez sent us, “at the dawn of his service”. Other than making Blessed John Paul II's invitation his own³, the Rector Major sought expressly to make “becoming holy a programme of life and governance”, since holiness is “our life's essential task… if we achieve this we achieve everything; if this fails then all is lost”.⁴

Is it a coincidence that the beginnings of the NT, of the Congregation and of Fr Chávez' time as Rector Major were all marked by the appeal to personal holiness? In fact I don't believe so. “Assumption (acceptance) before ascension (effort),”⁵ holiness is always a free gift. God gives us what he demands of us; and he gives it to us before we ask for it, as he gave Mary the Spirit before making her his mother. But as a gift it is neither superfluous nor a matter of choice. “It is not a luxury to be holy, this is needed for the salvation of the world. This is what the Lord asks of us”, Pope Francis reminded the new cardinals last Sunday.⁶ So we owe our holiness to God and the world, young people by preference.

2.The topic to be developed

at the end of his time as Rector Major, Fr Chávez, when he called this Chapter together proposed the radical way of the Gospel, “a fundamental dimension of our life”, as the specific way to holiness. In fact “it involves our whole being, concerns its vital components: the following of Christ and the search for God, fraternal life in community, mission”.⁷

To facilitate this task in facing up to “current and future challenges to Salesian consecrated life and mission in the whole Congregation”, the Rector Major felt the need to draw up a rough copy of “the profile of the new Salesian”,⁸ which concretises the pedagogical journey towards Salesian holiness. The new and holy Salesian is a mystic, “because,", as the Rector Major writes, he has personally encountered Jesus Christ, and like Him and with Him, lives by giving witness to the absolute primacy of God. The Salesian becomes a prophet living and working together with the brother whom God has given him and with who, he shares his mission and vocation. The Salesian becomes a servant of the young, when they become for him as they did for Don Bosco, his sole reason for living and for giving himself to God”.

Mystic, prophet and servant, these three characteristics will be the object of our reflections, the motif for our prayer during the three days of this Retreat.

 By fixing our gaze on Christ Jesus, we will contemplate his unequivocal, heartfelt identification with God, his fatherly will and cause (the kingdom), learning to obey him “although he was his Son” (Heb 5:8).

 By listening to his word we will know that our fraternal life comes not from need of ours but from finding ourselves with him, listening to him, allowing ourselves to be his constant companions so we can become his intimate friends. A common life that comes from listening to Jesus must perforce grow, be nurtured and be defended by carrying out his instructions precisely; called by Him to live as brothers, we must live as He teaches us to.

 By accompanying him from close up, we will learn from him - compassion for his people, and by making our few reserves available to him, He will perform the miracle of feeding the people and evangelising their, and our, hearts. As we become like Him we will agree to become smaller so we can take care of the little ones and become, like them, great in the kingdom of heaven.

3.A method to follow

Retreats, spiritual exercises, as St Ignatius tells us, are more prayer/desire and contemplation/consolation than personal reflections or talks by others. The aim is “to prepare and ready the soul to free itself from all disorderly affections, and after having eliminated them, to seek and find God's will by organising one's life according to the order of the salvation of one's soul.” (E.S. 1). So I beg you to note the sequence well: first, identifying the disorder we live in, so we can remove it; then seek God's will, so we can reorganise our lives.

The content of our prayer is our own life, what is going on now, in all its complexity, ambiguity, light and shadow. Prayer, in this Retreat, is something very personal. We don't pray to ask forgiveness or because we want to improve; It is not a desire for conversion that supports our prayer: what depends on me is not a change wrought by my will, but by supplication! (I can ask God to convert me, I cannot convert myself by my own will). We pray to reorder our lives, And see our life as God sees it (contemplation), so we can want to live it as God wants us to live it (choice).

Personal prayer, the fundamental if not the only exercise, should last “a whole hour, and preferably more rather than less. Indeed the devil seeks every possible way to get us to cut that short.” (E.S. 12). And, most importantly, it should “arouse our affections” (E.S. 3), move us, shake us up, so that when “the one making the exercises feels no spiritual movement in his soul…, nor seems moved by some spirit, he should be asking if he is doing this exercises in the times established and how he is doing them” (E.S. 6). If nothing is happening, or just about nothing, we are doing nothing or just about nothing…

Two further important notes. “It helps a lot if the one doing the exercises tackles them enthusiastically and is open and generous to his Creator and Lord, and makes available to them his entire will and freedom,so the divine majesty can dispose of him and what he has according to his most holy will.” (E. S. 5). God can never be outdone in generosity: he will always give us more, and something better than we could give Him. To this first suggestion on the basic attitude to God of the one making the exercises, a practical one is added on how to pray: “when I find what I want, I pause there, without being in a hurry to keep going, until I am fully satisfied” (E. S. 76). It is not necessary, nor is it advisable, ‘to finish’ the time offered for prayer; we don't pursue completeness in carrying out these exercises, but depth: when the Word touches my heart, it also asks for time.

4.“The beginning and basis”

Saint Ignatius has his exercises begin by focusing on God, the beginning and the basis of all creation, and the attention, and heart of whoever is doing these exercises. it is about entering into ourselves to discover, become aware of what we are and how we live (our entire existence), and what keeps us busy and preoccupies us (all of what we do), what we want to achieve or what we don't have (all of our affections).

This afternoon I invite you to place yourself under God's gaze, right and complete as it is, so we can see ourselves as He sees us. Even more so I want him to see us as he saw Jesus, as beloved sons; and declare him, as Jesus did, as our Father. The account of Jesus' baptism according to Matthew offers us a clear direction for arriving at how God wants us to be and allowing God to be for us what he wants himself to be.

1.Jesus, whom God will proclaim to be his beloved Son “came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John” (Mt 3:13): God declared his Son to be the one who was there amongst sinners who yearned to be converted to God. God found his Son amongst evildoers! Our sin, if recognised, is no impediment to becoming sons of God.

2.Jesus wanted to be baptised, overcoming the Baptist's resistance “it is fitting that we should do this” (Mt 3:15). He is not intimidated by what others think, including the best, but seeks only what matters to God, what is righteous.

3.Immediately after the baptism, God declares himself his loving Father and identifies Jesus as his beloved Son (Mt 3:17). Jesus has done nothing at this point – the Gospel has said nothing about him – to merit such recognition: he is not a son because of what he has done, nor for what he is about to do. He is a son before doing it and in order to do it.

Like Christ himself, the Christian is not identified by what he wants to do or become in life, but rather is recognised and accepted as an undeserved gift from the living God. His existence, his most genuine profile, then, is something given him. He can never define himself or win things over for himself by his own efforts. First God want us this way and thus we are; the he tells us how, and how much, he wants. When we identifying ourselves with what he has said and wants, God leads us to know that we are his sons like His Son.

Juan J. Bartolomé