The Rector Major

RECTOR MAJOR'S ADDRESS

FOR THE OPENING OF GC27

“You must live your whole life according to the Christ

you have received - Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him,

and held firm by the faith you have been taught,

and full of thanksgiving”

(Col 2:6-7)

1.A WORD OF WELCOME AND A GREETING

Your Eminence

Cardinal João Braz de Avis

Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life

Your Eminences

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone

Cardinal Riccardo Ezzati

Cardinal Raffaele Farina

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Marradiaga

Cardinal Joseph Zen

Most Reverend Gino Reali

Bishop of Porto and Santa Rufina

Most Reverend Francesco Brugnaro

Archbishop of Camerino - Salesian Past Pupil

Most Reverend Salesian Archbishops and Bishops

Mother Yvonne Reungoat

Superior General of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians

Dear Leaders of the various Salesian Family Groups

Very Reverend Father David Glenday

Secretary General of the Union of Superiors General

In the name of all Chapter members, a heartfelt thanks for having accepted the invitation to be with us and to share our joy and prayer on the day on which we are opening the 27th General Chapter of the Society of St Francis de Sales. We appreciate your presence as a sign of your fraternal interest and we count on your understanding and prayers for the success of this Assembly. Thank you, all of you.

Dear Chapter members, Provincials and Superiors of Vice Provinces, Provincial Delegates, Observers by invitation from all over the world, taking part in this important gathering of our beloved Congregation.

2.LED BY THE SPIRIT

On Sunday 10 November 2013, the final day of my visit to the Kolkata Province, I had the grace of visiting the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa once again. On the first occasion I was welcomed by Mother Nirmala, but this time it was Mother Prema who received me and came with me to pray beside the bed on which Mother Teresa had breathed her last, in the same room she had occupied up to the moment of her ‘Passover’. Our prayer then continued before her sepulchre, in the chapel at the Mother House.

I must confess that at that moment I felt a deep inspiration, similar to the one I had felt before the Casket of Padre Pio last July, concerning what it implied for our “radical Gospel approach”. The Saints, especially Padre Pio and Mother Teresa, are a testimony, like Don Bosco for how we should live the Gospel radically.

2.1.Following on from the ‘radical approach of the Gospel’

Right then, in those holy places, I prayed for the entire Congregation and for the spiritual and pastoral success of our General Chapter. I so much hope that this particular experience of prayer and reflection may lead us back to Christ to his grammar, which is his Gospel, and to his logic, which is the cross.

I would very much like to say that what concerns us is not the future of the Congregation, almost as if it were a matter of survival, but rather our prophetic capacity, meaning our charismatic identity, our apostolic passion which are our true social and ecclesial relevance, following the criterion which Jesus himself gave us: “By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, that you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

Charismatic identity and apostolic passion come from a “radical Gospel approach”, which is none other than contemplating Christ in such a way that it allows us to become, little by little, a faithful image of him. Our conformation with Christ, on the other hand, consists in making his way of being and acting our own, obedient, poor and chaste, filled with compassion for the poor, loving them and loving poverty. He made this a true beatitude such that it can be lived joyfully, humbly and simply.

2.2.Listening to the Lord

Hence the importance of this Chapter, which is offered us as a kairos, a powerful and graced opportunity in the history of the Congregation, and thus in the history of salvation, inasmuch as the Congregation participates in the communion and mission of the Church, until the Lord comes again.

In the life of the Church

I believe it behoves me here to refer to the captivating and charismatic model which Pope Francis has introduced into the Church. By his gestures, attitudes and interventions he is already profoundly renewing it, seeking to enlighten minds, warm hearts and strengthen the will of all through the light and vigour of the Gospel to make us all courageous witnesses, “missionary disciples of Christ”, sent into the world, fearlessly, to serve the poor and excluded and thus transform this society. I do not believe that as a Congregation we can remain indifferent or detached concerning this; through him, I am convinced, the Spirit is speaking to the Churches and proposing that we undertake a true “personal and pastoral conversion”.

I would highlight especially his attitudes and gestures. These are not simply news items for journalists and newspapers who are emphasising everything he does, and how he does it. They are already communicating his view of the Church, his teaching and way of governing.

Actually, since his very first address to the Cardinals who elected him, Pope Francis has proposed a model of Church in harmony with the great choices of Vatican II - even though he does not mention it so often; in harmony naturally with new evangelisation - even if he has not explicitly emphasised this either - under the influence of Latin American pastoral ministry, from Medellin with its option for the poor, to Aparecida with its choice of a Church made up of disciples, missionaries of Christ, fully part of daily reality.

The first thing to note with Pope Francis is, then, how he pays attention to the everyday, but with exquisite pastoral sensitivity, seeking to contemplate God in everything and look at everything from God's perspective. This way we can discover the need this society has for salvation and the urgency of setting processes of transformation in motion which are suited to making it more human and fraternal, more in keeping with God's plan. He tries to do all this by maintaining and building unity, without exacerbating social dynamics.

This is the Church that Pope Francis feels called to build in fidelity to Jesus and his Gospel: a Church at the service of this world. It is about a Church free from a spiritual worldliness which leads to vanity, arrogance, pride; all things that are really part of idolatry. He wants a Church free from theological narcissism and the temptation to freeze itself within its own institutional framework; free also from the risk of self-reference, a bourgeois mindset, being closed in on itself, from clericalism.

He also wants a Church that is truly the body of the Word incarnate, embodied in our reality as He was, attentive to the poor and suffering; a Church that cannot be reduced to being a small chapel since it is called to be a home for all of humanity; a Church always on the road towards those who are the least and for whom it expresses predilection without abandoning others; a Church that feels comfortable on the frontiers and fringes of society.

This does not mean that the Church must make sons and daughters out of every man and woman in the world nor does it mean that we must force everyone to enter it. Pope Francis' Church wants to offer itself as an open place where everyone can feel at home and meet because there is room in it for dialogue, diversity, acceptance. We should not oblige the world to enter the Church; it is rather the Church which must welcome the world as it is, that is, as a place for salvation.

The current Pope's dream is a Church that gets out on the street to evangelise, gains first-hand experience of people's hearts; a Church ready to serve and that proposes to go out not only to geographical confines but also to people on the edge where our brothers and sisters are often struggling to survive; a poor Church which favours the poor and gives them a voice and that sees in the elderly, the sick or in disabled young people the “wounds of Christ”; a Church that commits itself to overcoming the terrible culture of indifference we are going through, that leads those who feel increasingly let down, exploited and excluded to choose violence; a Church that gives proper attention and relevance to women, both in society and within its own institutions.

We can find many of these things in daily and weekly newspaper reports, or in religious magazines, as if they were simply curious anecdotes. But it is not like this. What the Holy Father is proposing in simple, daily form is part of an abundant magisterium of Gospel novelty! There is a new concept of Church here! There is a new way of thinking about how to govern the Church here! There is so much we can learn from it!

Again, when he was speaking to the Bishops of Brazil, he said that it seems the Church has forgotten that there is nothing more lofty than Jerusalem, stronger than the abasement of the cross, more convincing than kindness, love, the pace of pilgrims; because ours is not a marathon but a pilgrimage. So we need to measure our pace with that of the people we wish to stay beside, find the time to be with those who are walking, be able to accompany them patiently, with a readiness to listen to and understand circumstances that are so different. We should not be travelling so fast that we see nothing around us!

In Rio de Janeiro, speaking to political and cultural leaders the Pope sought to emphasise the importance of the culture of encounter for promoting a society which can make room for everyone, excludes no-one, and which regards no human being as of the throwaway kind. A culture of encounter which should eliminate the social exclusion of the young people who are so often denied possibilities for work and a future.

In his address to the young particularly, he invited them to join the fray themselves, invest their energies in building a Church and a new society, spend their life for things that are worth living for, especially Jesus Christ and service of the poor, not allowing themselves to be stripped of hope and joy nor giving into promises of a cheap paradise of happiness.

At times the Church lacks the vitality, fascination, visibility and credibility for continuing to attract the men and women of our time to itself, especially the new generations. In less than a year through his pontificate, Pope Francis has presented himself as a new wind of the Spirit dusting off the Church, slimming down its bureaucracy, making the Church poorer and more simple, and above all urging it to go out into the world's highways and byways to evangelise. He has made us feel that the Church is a Mother filled with tenderness and love, filled with kindness, humility, patience. He has taught this through his gestures,attitudes and personal choices, his way of relating to the world.

All of this is an outstanding example and a powerful stimulus for us, dear Chapter members! If we want to lead the young to an encounter with the mystery of God, this should happen through great experiences of love which can open hearts and not merely transmit ideas about or knowledge of Him. We need to do this within the limitations of our means. Indeed, as Pope Francis told the Brazilian Bishops, the Church is not an “ocean liner”, but a little boat, a simple fishing boat. This means that God works through poor means. Success does not depend on human sufficiency but on God's energy and creativity. All this is clearly valid for us too.

The Congregation's way forward

It seems to me that it is important to recognise, understand and take up this splendid ecclesial moment we are living through. Without being too pretentious, I would say that the road we are on as a Congregation and a Salesian Family, in preparation for the bicentenary of the birth of our beloved Father and Founder Don Bosco, is in fact along these lines. We are aware, I am sure, as Chapter members, that this event demands the greatest responsibility of everyone, and all of us, if we are to hear the Lord's voice, discern his will and take it up as our project of life. Only this way will we be able to interpret the situation of young people today and deal with it as Don Bosco did yesterday.

I would like to invite you then to put the Word of God at the centre of our Assembly, right from this opening celebration for the GC, so that it will be Him who tells us and gets us to understand what Christ wants of the Congregation today. We know what he asked of Don Bosco and how the latter gave his entire life over “to the glory of God and the salvation of souls” in order to realise God's ‘dream’ and then entrust it to us to continue, extend and consolidate.

Today so many people do not come to believe in Christ because his face has been obscured or even hidden by religious institutions lacking transparency. Over these last 12 years we have suffered much due to many displeasing events confreres and provinces have been involved in. I am certain, however, that with God's help, these ills can be fully overcome and that this sorrowful experience will lead the Congregation to recover its splendour and credibility right where these things have been lacking. At any rate, for this to be possible we need to tackle the problems with humility and courage.

Let's take a step forward now by asking ourselves what, at this moment, is God's will for us as an institution. I am convinced that as it is for the Church, so also is it for the Congregation — that its identity, unity and vitality be the summum desideratum of Christ, who wants his disciples to be “salt of the earth”, “light of the world”, “a city built on a hill-top” (cf. Mt 5:13-16).

Challenges to be faced up to

Thanks be to God the Congregation has thus far not experienced division and has been loved and blessed by the Lord. Thanks be to God it has grown immensely over these 150 years, multiplying its presences throughout the world. Today however there are new and powerful challenges on the horizon. In my view, and with the experience of these 12 years of government, there are three we must pay particular attention to:

Community life

Before he died, in his letter of convocation of GC25, Fr Vecchi maintained that community life was not only a topic to be studied but rather a turning point for renewal of the Congregation's life. He was convinced that if we were able to create communities that were engaging and rich in humanity, at the same time animated by spiritual energy that would urge us to get back amidst young people as companions on their journey, the Congregation would be profoundly renewed.

Life in common does not find its greatest assurance just in numerical consistency, which is not an indifferent factor, but is based especially on our capacity or otherwise to create deep personal relationships. The great challenge, then, is precisely that of shifting from community life to communion of life. Community life sometimes risks deteriorating into a kind of communitarianism: but just because we gather in the same environs, are together at prayer time, or in the workplace, does not necessarily mean sharing what we feel, think and want, things that would truly make us companions on the journey; living together is not yet sharing a charismatic project, an apostolic mission.

In our General Council we set about the renewal of communities, looking for superiors, provincials and rectors who could really be the soul of their communities (provincial or local), and who might firstly be people with a triple focus.

Above all a charismatic focus in the sense that the superior should be the point of reference for everything regarding Salesian identity. His exercising of authority, channelled through a fatherly and benevolent presence amongst the confreres, fosters the building up of a ‘Salesian culture’: Goodnights, selection of readings, the kinds of monthly, quarterly recollections prepared, spiritual accompaniment offered to the confreres.

A second aspect for the rector or provincial, is the particular focus on fraternal life. We need to choose and form superiors who have a real spiritual fatherliness, who are able to create a climate of fellowship, a genuine family spirit, and who are always ready to welcome and accompany confreres.

The third dimension is a pastoral focus. It is our hope that we can have superiors who can really be the heart and soul of the pastoral plan, especially at a time like this when there is much sharing of the mission and important roles with lay people.

To succeed in this we need to be totally dedicated, body and soul. It is not possible to carry out these functions entrusted to us part time, especially in matters that refer to the exercise of authority.

The young

When we hear Pope Francis say that “our church doors should always be open ... doors always wide open ...” and to keep them open and go out “into the street”; that he prefers “a Church involved in an accident on the street to a Church that is unhealthy from being confined”, I feel confirmed in the profound belief that I have been expressing for some time: if we do not go out to meet young people — especially those who do not come to us — if we content ourselves with the thousands of young people who frequent our works and then think that we know and are serving the young, we are making a huge mistake. The great challenge today in fact, is how to reach the young who are furthest from us and most in difficulty, how to truly reach into their world, how to understand their culture, language, needs, expectations. Remaining locked up in our works, the risk is that we think we are pastorally alive while we are suffocating. The young, especially those who do not come looking for us and wander through life without a compass, are our 'homeland', our mission.

Personally, I would like to tell you that one of the great gifts the Lord has given me is to have been called to live amongst the young, to love the young. That is my confession! I cannot understand my life, my ministry without thinking of the young! They have never been just a pastime for me, a stage in the history of my Salesian life, like when I was a practical trainee; indeed it was precisely then, during my practical training, that I began to understand that it was for them that the Lord was calling me to spend my life.

Young people have become a huge challenge for us. The serious risk we run and, at the same time, the great temptation we can be subject to, is that of becoming administrators of our works but ceasing to be pastors and educators of the young. We can be driven to this by age or an incorrect Salesian educational culture or also by the limited way in which we understand mission, often identified with the management of works. If we do not succeed in getting back amongst them and working not only for them but with them, we will not truly succeed in getting to know them, understand them, and especially — the most tragic thing of all — in loving them. “It is enough that you are young for me to love you very much”. This cry of Don Bosco's cannot be suffocated. It has to be continuously transmitted through our life.

When the Pope says that the shepherd must have the smell of the sheep on him, he is reminding us of our Salesian experience, what we have all experienced amongst the kids, playing and sweating with them. It is a very eloquent expression, but one especially in harmony with what Don Bosco experienced and with what so many of us have experienced. In my letter of convocation of the previous GC, I wrote that young people are very sensitive to three values in particular — freedom, life and happiness, and that at times they can be badly understood and this leads to dangerous delinquency. Today I would no longer speak of the dangers young people face; I have arrived, rather, at the belief that for us the challenge is the young people themselves, their world, their culture.

Vocation and formation

The third challenge the Congregation is called to tackle is the point regarding “vocation and formation” of Salesians. I consider this topic to be of vital importance. This is why I wanted to make it the topic of my last letter as Rector Major. I consider the problem of vocation and formation to be a very strategic one!

Unfortunately there are so many confreres, and not only the young ones, who live their Salesian life as if they were part of a volunteer movement. It begins when and where they want to; this is how they interpret it, live it, and leave it because and how they want to. No thought is given to a salvific plan, to God's will that involves me in such a way that it helps me see that it is worth living and making it a reality, giving God a hand – with my very life. Without this faith perspective, but with a merely social motivation, vocation will be experienced as a free and temporary service, in arbitrary form with no reference to some ultimate project.

In the last visit I made to the Kolkata Province I had an opportunity to meet with religious superiors in that region. While I was talking with them I referred to something that had struck me during the Symposium on Consecrated Life organised by the USG and UISG, which was held in Rome. On that occasion a woman theologian representing South Asia, highlighted a problem she had come across in her country. She said that “people, when they want to resolve their particular social needs, usually came to us, but when they needed spiritual experiences, they went elsewhere”. On the same occasion, speaking with the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, she confirmed that this was actually the case. What is killing the more profound meaning of consecrated life is the fact that it is known and appreciated only for the social service rendered by Congregations. And so it happens that consecrated individuals are considered to be social services providers and nothing more. This distorted view is often one of the causes of the fall in vocations.

These two observations have remained very much at heart for me. I think that what continues to be a great challenge for all of us is the grace of unity which harmonises our giving of ourselves to God and our service of our brothers and sisters. Living like Don Bosco, we need to realise in ourselves a splendid accord between nature and Grace, living our consecration to God and at the same time dedicated tirelessly to those to whom we are sent (Cf. how Don Bosco is presented in article 21 of the Constitutions).

In my last letter I wanted, besides, to highlight the fact that ours is, before anything else, a vocation we have received freely from God and that needs to be accepted by nurturing a commitment to ongoing formation. It is already a worrying fact that many who knock on our doors to enter the Congregation do not come from our works, and that means they may not have a suitable Salesian and family background. For many confreres the charism has not been assimilated almost by osmosis, since their pre-teen years, as used happen amongst us in the past. To the contrary, and this is not a rare occurrence, not a few confreres have had experiences that have not been favourable to the choice of Salesian life. To this we need to add the fact that the one selecting candidates does not always choose individuals of a proactive psychological disposition, able to make courageous decisions and order their lives around them.

Today in formation we find ourselves responding to a threefold problem that emerges from psychological fragility, vocational inconsistency and a certain ethical relativism. At our recent Superiors General meeting, Pope Francis insisted on the importance of selection, which needs to be accurate and responsible. We need, he said, to not accept people who are mentally ill or morally corrupt. People who think of themselves above all and do not accept that they are a gift of God for others do not serve our cause.

We Salesians have often been formed prevalently to create a community environment, to lead and animate groups of young people, but have not always been enabled to accompany individuals on their particular human and spiritual journey. Sometimes in our educational settings, but also in formation houses, we take in boys and young men with very different family, social, religious, Salesian backgrounds and with little wisdom in formation terms we put them all together, ignoring whatever they have previously experienced and getting them all to simply do the same things. Evidently all this does not form an individual inwardly, but rather forms him to conform to a setting, situations and external rules. Indeed it is clear that if the Lord is calling me, he is calling me not only with my temperament but with my history, my sensitivities, my qualities, and with the path in life I have already trodden. Forming our young people and confreres, taking account of all this, is very demanding and much more difficult. So I repeat that formation is a key problem and to carry out formation correctly we need new formators able to understand, motivate, correct, accompany, enthuse. So this also posits the question of preparing new formators and re-qualifying those already working in this field.

The Chapter's tasks

Therefore the Congregation is called in this Chapter, which is an extraordinary moment for spiritual and charismatic preparation for celebration of the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, to understand its Founder and Father ever more deeply, to take up his pedagogical experience, his preventive system with conviction and to make its own his spirituality which is marked by pastoral and educative charity. The Congregation is called in this Chapter to renew itself in such a way that it will have the freshness of its origins, the missionary impulse of its teenage years, the energy of its youth, the holiness of its mature years.

We must recover our spiritual fruitfulness by becoming saints, while living the precious gift of our Salesian vocation; a pastoral fruitfulness, while carrying out the Salesian mission on behalf of the young, and a vocational fruitfulness, while helping young people to understand their lives as vocation, discover the beauty of 'being for others' and involve themselves in causes worth espousing. Accompanying them with the same love as Don Bosco had, walking with them, we want to help them to draw up true projects of life.

But unity in the Congregation does not mean uniformity. Salesians are called to embody and inculturate Don Bosco's charism in very different contexts from a social, economic, political, cultural and religious point of view. It is evident therefore that the Chapter must open the doors to a discussion that takes account of all these things. Everyone is free to express his thoughts regarding the Congregation's task today and its more urgent challenges. At the same time, all proposals should take their bearings from the spirit and guidelines of the Gospel, in fidelity to what the Constitutions indicate, since they are our Salesian way of reading and wanting to live the Gospel, and in conformity with what is a healthy tradition of the Congregation, the result of its history.

Certainly, laws and traditions which are purely accidental can be changed, but not every change means progress. We need to discern whether such changes will really contribute to reaffirming our identity, reinforcing our unity, fostering our vitality, and the holiness of the Congregation. We certainly must avoid every change that does not have these positive processes for its criteria.

All this will be possible on condition that we allow the Holy Spirit to continue to enliven and renew our life, to give an impulse to our mission, make our presence fruitful. He transcends any sociological analysis or historical forecast. He overcomes scandals, internal politics, social climbing and other social problems which could obscure the face of Christ, which instead should shine out through the dense clouds of daily complexity.

2.3Reinterpreting the charism for today

At the Union of Superiors General assembly in November 2011 we made an analysis of consecrated life in Europe and this revealed an alarming situation resulting from certain very strong factors. Amongst these, ageing of personnel, weak or no inflow of vocations, the imbalance between people available and works to be run. But this picture, while worrying, was not entirely desperate. New projects and fields of mission are always possible.

One item of data was highlighted: many institutes of religious and apostolic life were founded following the French Revolution, in and for a society which had fragmented, from a spiritual and moral perspective. However what religious need to do is to clarify the basic objectives for their presence in today's world,¹ remaking themselves according to the founding features of their origins.

The urgent need to understand our origins

The invitation of the Superiors General to look back to the origins was not motivated by nostalgia for the past, but by the need to know how founders and religious institutes tackled social challenges and the apostolic needs of their time and responded to them. At the same time they sought to ask themselves how we can respond today – in a renewed fidelity to the original charism - to the challenges of mission, education and evangelisation, in a spiritual and cultural climate which is very similar (in Europe for the moment, but with a constant tendency to extend throughout the world) to the one then. Two eras (that of our Holy Founders in the 19th century and our own) end up having a similar character inasmuch as they have given rise to "major turning points".

The invitation of the Superiors General seems timely and necessary: we need to go to the roots of how so many Congregations came into being. They came into being at a precise historical moment as a response of the Spirit to particular issues in society and the Church. Today it is our task to question ourselves so we can see how to respond in our historical moment to the current needs of the young and demands of society and the Church, without reducing ourselves however to being simple social service providers. We need to do this by "reinvestigating" the charism of our origins to recognise its relevance and capacity to respond to such instances.

Over these three years of preparation for the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, but already since the last Chapter and its appeal to ‘return to Don Bosco’ we have asked ourselves how he went about things in his time. He founded the Congregation at a time when an atmosphere of de-Christianisation was already beginning to assert itself. He knew how to find strategies, approaches and a particular proposal of human and Christian formation to respond to teenagers and young men coming from the countryside and finding themselves in Turin without a roof over their heads, no preparation for a trade, no point of reference, and exposed to exploitation and delinquency.

Like other founders who were his contemporaries, Don Bosco had a profound sense of urgency and the need to form consciences, firstly of people but also of institutions that were central to society. Hence the attention he gave to the world of the young (through school and other settings peculiar to young people), to family (a place of convergence for so many of life's factors), to catechesis (for a Christian and non-superficial education), to preaching (for a relevant proclamation of the Word of God). These were all sectors of apostolate he left us as a legacy. They are all settings we need to tackle professionally and with apostolic passion.

Today, as then, the challenge is the same: bringing the values of the Gospel back into moral, social, cultural, political life through education, not to create a new "Christianity" or even to regain areas or privileges we have lost, but to offer a contribution to forming an individual and collective culture which knows how to foreground the real needs of the human being.

Historical and ecclesial significance of Don Bosco

In my view, Don Bosco's original contribution is to be found, prior to it being in the many "works" and in certain relatively original methodological elements – such as the famous “preventive system of Don Bosco “ – in the intellectual and emotional perception he had of the universal, theological and social import of the problem of "abandoned" youth, that is, of the enormous proportion of young people who nobody was interested in or whose interest was inappropriate, with unsuitable solutions; in his insight into the presence in Turin first of all – later in Italy and the world – of a strong sensitivity, in the civil and political world, regarding the problem of the education of youth and the understanding on the part of intellectuals attentive to social situations and clergy who were open to new responses and, in general, by a large cohort of public opinion.

This contribution is also to be found in his idea of launching much-needed interventions on a large scale in the Catholic and civil world, as a first-order need for the life of the Church and its very survival in the social order,and in his ability to communicate his project and involve large groups of collaborators, benefactors and admirers.

Neither political, nor sociologist, nor trade unionist ante litteram, simply priest and educator, Don Bosco set out from the idea that education could achieve so much, in any situation, if it happened with the best of good will, commitment and the ability to adapt. He set about changing consciences, forming them to honesty in human terms, to civic and political loyalty and in view of this, to "changing" society through education.

He transformed the strong values in which he believed — and which he defended against everyone — into social deeds, concrete gestures, without retreating from the spiritual dimension or the ecclesial setting as an area free from the problems of the world and of life. Indeed with a strong sense of his vocation as a priestly educator, he nurtured a style of daily life that was not without its horizons, but embodied with values and ideals. He did not want it to be a protective niche and a refuge from open encounter but rather a sincere measuring up to wider and more diversified circumstances. His choices were not under the banner of a refusal of every tension, or demanding sacrifice, risk, struggle. He maintained freedom for himself and his Salesians and was proud of his autonomy. He did not want to tie the fate of his works to the unpredictable vagaries of political regimes. The glory of God and the salvation of souls were his only project.

3.THE GENERAL CHAPTER

I chose to put a quotation from the Letter to the Colossians at the head of this opening address, because it seems to me that it expresses very well what we are called to do in this General Chapter.

Actually, by means of a heartfelt exhortation, Paul is telling us that we must live in Christ, remaining faithful to the Gospel against whatever false theory there might be. If the exhortation to ‘walk in the Lord’ is an appeal to a life corresponding to the vocation we have received, the expression “rooted in him and built on him, held firm in the faith”, which uses images taken from nature (‘root’) and the building industry (‘built’), reaffirms the absolute need for an intimate bond with Christ. The conclusion to the comparison “as you have been taught”, in parallel with “you have received”, instead expresses the bond with what is essential and ongoing, not dependent on cultural sensitivities.

If it is true that any General Chapter is an event that in substance goes beyond the merely formal fulfilment of what is prescribed by the Constitutions, then it is even greater reason, I believe, to state that GC27 must be this. It will be a Pentecostal event which will have the Holy Spirit as its main character.

This is why it will take place between memory and prophecy, between faithful recognition of the origins and unconditional openness to the novelty of God. And we will all be active players, with our responsibilities and expectations, abundant experience, ready to listen, discern, accept God's will for the Congregation.

From this point of view GC27 points to something new and unprecedented. The urgency of the radical approach of the Gospel is what is driving us. We are called to return to the essential, to be a poor Congregation for the poor, and to rediscover inspiration from the very apostolic passion of Don Bosco. We are invited to draw on the bountiful wellsprings of the charism and at the same time open ourselves bravely and creatively to new ways of expressing it today.

For us it is how to discover new facets of the same diamond, our charism, which better allow us to respond to the circumstances of the young, to understand and serve their new poverties, to offer new opportunities for their development as human beings and their education, for their journey of faith and their fullness of life.

3.1Attitudes for taking part

So then how are we to live this experience of the Chapter in a constructive way? What kind of commitment should every Chapter member take on board? What are the attitudes one should have when taking part in a General Chapter?

The awareness of being called by God reawakens in us the prophetic spirit which means a sense of dependence on Him and profound acceptance of the mission He entrusts to us. That demands that we allow the Holy Spirit to play chief character because it will be Him who gets us to understand God's will, what is good, what will be pleasing to Him. We are asked to be in a constant attitude of humble, obedient listening, an attitude of discernment and debate concerning the life of the Congregation and our charism, which is a great gift of God for the Church and for the young.

GC27 requires our complete involvement. We are all called to live this event responsibly, to see its vital importance and to refresh our interest and availability each day for the road that the Spirit is leading us to set out on.

This discernment in the light of what the Spirit wants to reveal to us, requires of the assembly and each Chapter member in particular, serious reflection, calm, profound prayer, personal contribution, awareness that we are called individually to be part of it, a readiness to listen to God and ourselves.

I am certain that the days spent at the Becchi and in Turin, the Retreat, and the two days of presentation of the Congregation through reports by Sectors and Regions have contributed to creating this spiritual atmosphere.

The Spirit acts, breathes his yearning for life and scatters his tongues of fire wherever there is a community gathered in the name of Christ and united in love. It is the communion of hearts that calls us together around the same apostolic project, Don Bosco's project, and makes possible unity amidst the diversity of contexts, cultures, languages.

It is the Spirit who lets us hear God's voice in our history. And today the situation of the world and the Church asks us to walk with God in history. The Christian vocation in general and the religious vocation in particular is marked by the prophetic dimension which leads us to be ‘sentinels’ of the world and ‘sensors of history’, able to interpret the signs of the times and set new signs and transforming energies in place in history, and this has to do with our identity, credibility and visibility.

Our openness to the questions, provocations, stimuli and challenges of modern man, in our case those of the young, frees us from every kind of sclerosis, tonelessness, stalemate or bourgeois mentality and sets us on the road “in step with God”. Only this way can we overcome the risk – by no means an imaginary one – of the ‘spiritual worldliness’, self-referentiality, theological narcissism decried by Pope Francis since the beginning of his pontificate.

Historical sensitivity has been a typical element of Don Bosco's and of the Congregation, and today more than ever we cannot overlook this. It makes us attentive to situations in the Church and the world. It sets us “on the way” and “pushes us out” in search of the young. It all needs translating into an essential, courageous Chapter document, one which is able to fill the hearts of the confreres with fire. This is why an interpretation of the “signs of the times” is important, some of which I have pointed out in AGC 413 in the letter of convocation of GC27.

There is no way of becoming ‘witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel’ without being built on Christ. This is the only secure guarantee for building on rock. Amongst the numerous attempts to renew consecrated life over the last 50 years, we have the word ‘refounding’. Well, Paul warns us, “everyone doing the building must work carefully. For the foundation, no one can lay any other than the one which has already been laid, that is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 3:10b-11).

The explanation is very simple: our community and our life cannot be built on any other foundation than Christ nor can it be built with outmoded materials. Many experiences confirm the suspicion that at times, here and there, we have tried to build the house on sand, and not on rock. Every attempt to refound consecrated life which does not lead us back to Christ, the foundation of our life, and which does not make us more faithful to Don Bosco, our founder, is destined to fail.

If we wish to recover the enthusiasm of our origins and be God's presence in the Church and the world, we have to avoid the temptation to conform to a secularised, hedonistic and consumer mentality and allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit who gave rise to consecrated life as a privileged way of following and imitating Christ.

3.2Theme

The theme chosen for GC27 regards testimony to the radical approach of the Gospel, found in the motto “work and temperance” (cf. C. 18) an explicit formulation of Don Bosco's programme of life, the “Da mihi animas cetera tolle”. It is aimed at helping us explore our charismatic identity more deeply, make us aware of our vocation to faithfully live out Don Bosco's apostolic project.

It is a huge topic. This is why we sought to focus the attention of GC27 on four thematic areas: living our Salesian consecrated vocation in the grace of unity and joy since this vocation is God's gift and a personal project of life; having a strong spiritual experience, taking on the way of being and acting of the obedient, poor and chaste Jesus and becoming seekers of God; building fraternity in our communities of life and action; dedicating ourselves generously to the mission, walking with the young to give hope to the world.

Being “witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel” is an appeal addressed to the entire Congregation which finds its Salesian translation in the twofold “work and temperance”. In the well-known dream of the ‘ten diamonds’, in the first part, we are presented with the Salesian ‘sicut esse debet”, marked strongly by theological features — faith, hope and charity — given a particular tone through work and temperance and characterised by a life consecrated to the Lord which finds its support in fasting and prayer.

In the second part of the dream we are presented with a warning of what could happen if our personal, community and institutional life is not up to the measure of the gift of vocation we have received. The image of that worn out and ugly personage could not be more eloquent. This is why we went to the Becchi and Valdocco: not out of nostalgia, but to nurture the flame of enthusiasm and the faithful commitment of those early Salesians.

The theme of the Gospel and its radical approach can be well illustrated by taking into consideration a semantic and etymological perspective. Actually, the word 'radical' is connected with 'root', putting down roots. To understand things better we could use the image of a plant and its seed. Let us look at the features and value of the roots:

Stability and firmness of the plant tell us that a tree without roots will dry up or collapse. In this sense the image is analogous — not equal — to a building without foundations.

Vitality, since the substances that nurture a plant come from the roots above all, even if it is clear that air, sun, etc. are also involved.

“Planted in the ground”, meaning that their natural place is underground, they are “hidden”.

In this sense the title of our theme, “witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel”, expresses an interesting paradox in itself. On the one hand the word witnesses speaks of public manifestation, so visibility, “sacramentality”, while paradoxically the term “radical” alludes precisely to what is not seen, to what is hidden, “buried”.

I believe that often when we speak of being radical, we start out from the semantic idea of the word, emphasising the significance of it being unconditional, of absolute fidelity, choice without compromise, of the desire to be “all of one piece”, etc., overlooking the more valuable etymological meaning.

At times there is a tendency to identify our being radical with perfection or seeking it, but it is not so: we do not expect fruit from a small plant, and even more so from a seed just planted in the ground, but that it puts down good, deep roots. For someone who wants to enter Salesian life, or religious life in general, we cannot demand that he be "holy" (unfortunately, at times, not even after many years of consecrated life) unless he is well-rooted/radical in his life choices.

I believe this has implications for formation, in first place for the initial formation stage, where I would emphasise two aspects along the semantic lines of this word ‘radical’. The first is depth (typical for a root) of life, inviting young confreres to row against the current, since they are part of a culture that places more emphasis on the superficial and outward appearances than the ability to see deep down what is true, just, valid and noble for human life, and even more so for the religious. The second aspect refers to a much forgotten virtue in our day, perhaps because it is often misunderstood: humility. We know that the roots of this word come from humus…. Humus and root are inseparable. Humility is none other than “life hidden in Christ”, from which and only from which, can spiritual, apostolic and vocational fertility (fruits!) spring forth.

So for all of us, being radical is a fruitful return to Christ, the Gospel, being faithful to the sequela Christi and is also a return to the specifics of our charism. Going to the roots of our Congregation's birth means thanking God for Don Bosco, for his spiritual maturity and the apostolic path he set out on; questioning ourselves on the call that God gives us now and responding at this historical moment, faithfully and generously to the needs of the young and the demands of society and the Church.

3.3Aims and results

GC27 aims to help every confrere and every community to faithfully live out Don Bosco's apostolic project. GC27 desires then, in continuity with GC26, to further strengthen our charismatic identity. This aim is presented in the initial articles of the Constitutions: we Salesians are called to “carry out the Founder’s apostolic plan in a specific form of religious life” (C. 2); also in our specific form of life, “Our apostolic mission, our fraternal community and the practice of the evangelical counsels are the inseparable elements of our consecration which we live in a single movement of love towards God and towards our brothers” (C. 3).

As a result of GC27 we expect to make our Salesian life still more authentic and thus visible, credible and fruitful. That is possible when it is profoundly and vitally built on God, courageously and convincingly rooted in Christ and in his Gospel. The logical consequence is the strengthening of its identity. For the same reason, over the last six years we have committed ourselves to returning to Don Bosco, reawakening the heart of every confrere with the passion of the “Da mihi animas, cetera tolle”.

Living Don Bosco's apostolic project with fidelity, or in other words our charismatic identity, makes us more authentic; from our lived identity, then, comes clearer visibility, more convincing credibility and renewed vocational fruitfulness. Visibility is not principally looking to our image, but it is a beautiful testimony to our vocation. If we give witness joyfully, generously and faithfully to Don Bosco's apostolic project, that is, the consecrated Salesian vocation, then our life will become attractive, fascinating, especially for the young and then we will see a new vocational fruitfulness everywhere.

4.CONCLUSION

My dear confreres and Chapter members, on 25 March 2008 I was re-elected as Rector Major by GC26 and on the days that followed the Vicar and other Sector and Regional Councillors were elected, with the task of animating and governing the Congregation for the six year period, 2008-2014. Over these six years we have sought to live this task intensely, investing our best energies in it.

Thanks be to God over these six years we have not experienced the death of any member of the General Council – including myself. I overcome a critical moment of illness, and have been graced and blessed by the Lord who has given me the necessary health, energy, enthusiasm and serenity to bring the mandate entrusted to me to its natural conclusion.

Nevertheless circumstances have not been wanting that have led to the need for changes in the make-up of the Council. Firstly a serious heart problem led Fr Stefan Turansky to the decision to offer his resignation as the Regional for the North Europe Region on 21 July 2010. To take his place, and with the consent of the General Council, six days later on 27 July 2010, I appointed Fr Marek Chrzan, then provincial in Krakow Province.

Then just 6 months later, on 26 January 2011, the Economer General, Bro. Claudio Marangio, left his role to undertake a period of discernment accompanied by myself, which concluded on 10 October 2011 with an indult to leave the Salesian Congregation, dispensation from his vows and the obligations of religious profession. And again with the consent of the General Council, on 25 January 2011, I appointed Bro. Jean Paul Muller, then Director of the Bonn Mission Office, as the new Economer General. In both cases we made a choice of someone who had already been indicated as a candidate for these roles at GC26.

While I thank each of the Councillors for their closeness and loyal, generous and expert collaboration in the various roles entrusted to them, today is the day to give the word once more to the Chapter Assembly, the highest expression of authority in the life of the Congregation. Over to you, then, dear confreres, but yours is also the invitation to open your hearts to the Spirit, the great inner Teacher who always guides us to the truth and fullness of life.

I conclude by entrusting this Pentecostal event of our Congregation to Our Lady, to Mary the Immaculate Help of Christians. She has always been there in our history and her presence and help will not be lacking at this time.

As she did in the Upper Room Mary, who is an expert in the Spirit, will teach us to let ourselves be guided by him "to discover the will of God, and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.” (Rm 12:2b).

Rome, 3 March 2013

Fr Pascual Chávez Villanueva

Rector Major