MESSAGES

APPENDIX 14

MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO THE LAITY

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We, the members of the GC24, at the end of a week which has seen us working side by side with eminent representatives of lay people from salesian settings around the world, feel that it was a gift and inspiration of Providence that led us to choose as the theme of the Chapter the relationship between Salesians and Laity, and to have called, for the first time in the history of our General Chapters, a group of lay men and women to take part in it and bring us the rich contribution of their views and sensitivities in a theme which concerns them directly.

With regard to these views which we have had the good fortune to hear, we are particularly grateful;

- for the empathy and friendship of those who expressed them;

- for the sincerity and frankness which characterized them;

- for the validity of the points which were effectively made.

They provided a spontaneous and convincing interpretation of the new sensitivity of church, and have called for a fuller response on the part of the Congregation.

In this sense we intend through them to assure the very many lay people, men and women, who enjoy Don Bosco's friendship and have become his collaborators, that we Salesians:

- already have a high appreciation of their generosity and the quality of their presence, for which we thank them most sincerely;

- intend to develop more deeply practical ways of sharing with them in a fuller and more fruitful manner in every field of the salesian mission;

- want in particular to have them alongside us as protagonists in the Educative and Pastoral Community, providing space for their complementary contributions which are indispensable;

- mean finally to improve the atmosphere of our encounters and collaboration, so that it approaches more closely family warmth and the ideal of "communion".

At the same time we ask them fraternally for:

- their patience in this process which is so exacting for both us and them;

- the will to improve our ability for understanding and sharing, accepting ways and periods of a new formation;

- the desire to approach more closely to the great heart of Don Bosco, so as to be further infected by it and express a new generosity and ardour for young people who have greater need of him.

Meanwhile we recognize the significant reality of lay collaboration which is already evident in salesian history through:

- the Lay Groups of the Salesian Family (and first among them the Cooperators), bearers with us of the same values, animated by the same spirituality and interpreters of the same mission, albeit in different forms and characteristics, according to the originality of each group;

- the young people of the Salesian Youth Movement who, with an original protagonism enlivened by salesian spirituality, become missionaries of their peers through a characteristic salesian educative option;

- the Friends of Don Bosco, of widely differing physiognomies, who have experienced a fascination for him and despite their differences of origin, culture, social class and religious belief, are at one with him in their willingness to use their energies, time and resources for the benefit of the young;

- the Women, called to "affirm the true genius of women in every aspect of the life of society" (EV 99), and specifically in the typically educative aspects of the salesian mission, recognizing their new relevance and "new place in thought and action" (ibid.);

- all lay people included in the "vast movement of persons who in different ways work for the salvation of the young" (C 5).

We are moving together, Laity and Salesians, towards the third Millennium which is already at the door, laden with contradictions but also with promise, with our specific commitment "to be in the Church signs and bearers of the love of God for young people, especially those who are poor" (C 2). This has been already realized in splendid fashion by many Salesians and laity from Don Bosco's time right down to the present day. But "you have not only a glorious history to remember and to recount, but also a great history still to be accomplished" declares the Pope to us Salesians, but also analogically to you lay people who participate in our mission (VC 110). The challenge is before us. We can meet it by intelligence in planning, perseverance in keeping going, courage in adopting new means.

Thanks to the intuitions and stimuli of this GC24, there is also for you Laity a strong and renewed appeal from Don Bosco to be, in different and gradual ways, a living part of his mission in the Church to the young and the poor. And so Don Bosco thanks you; he calls on you to increase in number; he promises you once again, with witty but wise simplicity, "bread, work and heaven" (MB 18, 420).

May Mary Help of Christians, the assiduous aid of those in need, be once again your Mother and Guide.

With fraternal greetings.

The Members of the GC24

APPENDIX 15

MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO YOUNG PEOPLE

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Dear young people,

150 years ago on 12 April 1846, Easter Sunday, Don Bosco moved with his youngsters to Valdocco. There the Oratory took root, grew and bore fruit, to such an extent that eventually it served youngsters all over the world.

We Salesians, gathered in our General Chapter and inspired by this event, want to make contact with you, the members of the Salesian Youth Movement, animators, volunteers and all who in one way or another have cme to know and love Don Bosco.

Thank you for your requests

First of all we want to thank you for what you said to us in reply to the questionnaire we sent you in preparation for the General Chapter:

- you asked us insistently to be present among you spontaneously to a greater extent, to share your life in an informal manner;

- you want us to accompany you and help you in attaining a deeper formation;

- you want to be given the possibility of playing an effective part in the work of education and evangelization;

- you want to see us as consistent witnesses of the Gospel by our religious life: men of prayer who are truly poor and able to live and work as a community.

The experience of the 24th General Chapter

For us the GC24 has been an extraordinary experience of salesianity. We have touched almost physically the universal nature of the salesian charism and mission, the drawing force still exerted by Don Bosco at the present day, and the communion that exists between us and so many people of good will, of every religion and culture, and especially with the Salesian Family.

We have heard your voice and that of the lay people who work with us: one and all ask us for openness and participation; they want to be involved in the salesian mission as protagonists. Don Bosco, who from the very beginning was able to involve youngsters in his enterprise and lead them to put themselves at the service of their peers, is for us an example and stimulus.

We have studied more deeply our vision of the Church as a communion of vocations at the service of the Kingdom in the world.

We have gained a better knowledge, and for this we thank God, of your work in the field of animation and evangelization in so many forms and different places. We have experienced the great joy of sharing with you the salesian mission.

This is already a realization of the communion and sharing between Salesians and lay people in the spirit and mission of Don Bosco, the theme of the Chapter itself.

Our response

We accept the challenge which reaches us through the Chapter.

Though well aware of our limitations, we join hands with you in a common journey, and we commit ourselves to making our communities and works open to all of you.

Like Don Bosco, with you we want to live, with you we want to stay, with you we want to work for the salvation of the young, especially those who are poor and most in need.

We propose to you a journey of faith, made concrete in salesian youth spirituality, of which we want to be living witnesses among you.

We want to see you as young people with strong interior convictions, seeking God and open to him.

We want to prompt you to make of your life a service to others, especially to those who are most abandoned, and to be bearers of solidarity and hope.

We encourage you to be missionaries among the young.

We ask you to live an intense friendship with Christ.

We invite you to make holiness your goal.

And in all this, please count on our accompaniment and support.

A common commitment

Don Bosco used to say: "If I had with me a group of youngsters who think as I do, we could conquer the world". With the same trust and confidence we invite you to work with us for the education and evangelization of young people the whole world over.

Let us live the experience of preparing ourselves together to continue the journey of faith, and bring Don Bosco to life again as the century draws to an end, giving him as a living person to the new generations of youth!

This will be our concrete form of taking part in the great project of the jubilee year, to which the Pope is calling us.

Let us place these desires and commitments in the hands of Mary Help of Christians, the Mother and Teacher of Don Bosco and of youth, so that they may become a joyful reality.

The Members of the GC24

Rome, 20 April 1996

APPENDIX 16

MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO THE SALESIAN COOPERATORS

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Dear Cooperators,

We are approaching the end of our General Chapter, and it is fitting that we send you our greetings and a word of thanks both for your fraternal prayers and for your message, so rich in salesian content.

In these days we have renewed our awareness of being in the Church as children of a Father who wanted to unite all forces moved by the desire to do good. He wanted to involve all of them in his plan of life: to go to poor and abandoned youth to show them that God loves them.

You Cooperators, with us SDBs and the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, as the central groups of the Salesian Family (cf. Common Identity Card, art.2), have an important responsibility in the common salesian mission.

Today the mission is facing a greater challenge than ever before: poverty and emargination are becoming ever more widespread in the world and affecting many youngsters. We believe with the Church of Vatican II that this is a time when we must be united to be consistent with our charism, the mission and the signs of the times. While respecting and exploiting every particular vocation, we must close our ranks in unity, provide mutual support to each other, and become integrated and organized in a more fluid relationship and communication.

The Chapter theme has made us want to involve in our spirit and mission the greatest possible number of the laity. We believe that in this you Cooperators have an eminent role to play (cf.SGC 741). The RAL, in fact, presents the Salesian Cooperator as the prototype of the lay person, sharing the educative and pastoral experience of Don Bosco throughout the course of time.

We thank God for what you are and for your original vocation within the Salesian Family, so indispensable for the mission. At the same time we want to remain at your side so that we may grow and proceed together in the animation and formation of lay people who form part of the Salesian Movement.

We want to commit ourselves also to the gaining of a deeper and better knowledge of our mutual identities, so as to promote a reciprocal ongoing formation and carry out together a significant pastoral work for vocations.

The conclusion of the Diocesan Process for the beatification of Mamma Margaret (22 April 1996) makes us think of the radical nature of evangelical life in the first community of Valdocco. The Holy Spirit brought about among those who gave form to the first oratory experience, of which we celebrated the 150th anniversary on 12 April last, a kind of relationship able to lead to holiness. For this reason, as we approach the jubilee of the year 2000 we want to repropose to you Cooperators in particular and to all members of the Salesian Family, the goal of a holiness constructed together so as to give to young people the best possible gift they can expect from us.

May Mary Help of Christians be our support!

Rome, 20 April 1996

The Members of the GC24

APPENDIX 17

MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO THE PAST-PUPILS, MEN AND WOMEN, OF DON BOSCO

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Dear Past-pupils of Don Bosco,

1.We send to all of you our most cordial greetings and our thanks for the contributions which many of your Federations, and in particular the World Confederation, sent to us in preparation for our General Chapter. We also listened attentively to the message which your representatives offered us at the beginning of the Chapter and in the course of the week which saw Salesians and laity working together. Your contribution has highlighted the vitality of the Past-pupils movement within world cultures; the organizing ability of the Federations, the good they do in daily life and the projects to which they intend to commit themselves in the future. Difficulties are not lacking, but we are sure of the good will of the Salesians and the Past-pupils in overcoming them.

2.We appreciated the tranquil approach, the objective nature and the frankness of the analysis made by the Confederation of the Past-pupils of Don Bosco. It helped us to understand more deeply our own share in the responsibility for relations with committed Past-pupils: assiduous attention to the rapport between the past-pupils and the local salesian community, the help asked of Salesians in the formation of leaders and directive personnel, especially of the young; greater stability for the salesian delegates; greater and more significant space for the past-pupils in the CEP (the educative and pastoral community) in salesian works, the particular animation of young past-pupils (GEX), the authentic hope for continuity and deep renewal.

3.We thank the Lord for your presence in the Salesian Family, and with you we want to renew our fidelity to Don Bosco. Full of trust in Providence and under the guidance of Mary Help of Christians, he gathered lay people around him - adults and younger persons, men and women, and lots of people of good will - in the task of saving poor and abandoned youngsters. We are convinced that, in fidelity to your religious and confessional identity and in dialogue and tolerance with those who profess other faiths and religions, you can make your valid contribution to the educative work of the SDBs, your own educators.

We reconfirm and wish to share with you our commitment to:

a. ensure an integral education for young people in our works: this, in fact, is the principal and fundamental criterion for the future of the Don Bosco Past-pupils Association, which takes up the values of the preventive system as a humanistic point of reference in the midst of other secular commitments in social life (culture, politics, employment, economy, and the life of faith itself);

b. foster the animation and formation of other past-pupils, striving to share responsibility and work for the ongoing formation of leaders;

c. create and develop together opportunities for the presence and witness of past-pupils in our works through the programming and activities of the CEP, and in society through the defence of life values, of the family, of the woman, of human rights, of social justice, of peace and solidarity, and the service of those most in need.

4.We ask you to work for the development of your own life as an association. At the same time we suggest that you accept involvement and shared responsibility, according to your possibilities, in the work which from now on the Salesians want to offer to the salesian mission, working with the laity. At local and provincial level your Association should promote convocation and collaboration, expanding the salesian charism in this way into a vast movement, and creating a network of friendship and empathy with so many 'friends' of the salesian work and of Don Bosco.

Our Father and Teacher continues to call you and invite you to live with us in the communion and sharing of his spirit and his mission, and thanks you for the good that has already been done.

May Mary most holy continue to be your Helper, that you may be always and everywhere diffusers of joy, optimism and kindness.

The Members of the GC24

APPENDIX 18

MESSAGE OF THE GC24 TO THE DON BOSCO VOLUNTEERS

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The members of the 24th General Chapter, gathered in Rome from all parts of the world, address themselves to you, dear Volunteers of Don Bosco, who were born and have grown up in his Salesian Family. We send you our fraternal greetings and our sincere thanks for having accompanied us in this event. The contribution you sent us enriched our reflections; we are grateful for your presence on the day the Chapter was inaugurated and during the week of work with other lay representatives.

In our capitular discussions, which were aimed at a better understanding of the reciprocal relationships which bind us together in the common salesian mission and spirit, we have recalled the elements which serve to deepen and strengthen our collaboration and sharing, so as to arrive at a "vast movement of persons" united in the desire to evangelize by educating, in Don Bosco's spirit.

Your specific vocation in the Church and the Salesian Family helps us to a better understanding of how to be a living sign of Christ in the world, as also of the contribution of the woman in the Church and the world.

During the Chapter we endorsed the deep conviction that "consecrated persons are 'in mission' by virtue of their very consecration" (VC 72). In this case it is the life itself "which becomes educative, because it speaks of itself and raises questions". The statement refers also to your own consecration, lived in a harmonic synthesis with the values of the world. We appreciate your simple but demanding manner of bearing witness to the radical nature of love, so important for people of today who have ever greater need of visible signs if they are to believe.

In the contribution you sent us you wrote: "Through our immersion in the secular world we can pass on to you the sensitivity derived from our experience of those to whom our mission is directed". By indicating to us the problems of society which you live at first hand, you can help us to update our educative and pastoral work. This too is a gift for us at a time when we are reflecting on the 'secular dimension' of the Church, of the Congregation and of the charismata born in it for the world.

As salesian women, you share fully in Don Bosco's charism, but in a unique manner with a sensitivity that derives precisely from the fact that you are women. You are often able to approach directly those with whom we are primarily concerned, supporting the mission by your professional competence. In this way you are present in the Salesian Family with attitudes of creativity and self-sacrificing generosity, albeit silently and sometimes in a hidden manner.

Dear Volunteers, six years ago, during the 23rd General Chapter, we shared the joy of the beatification of your Founder and third successor of Don Bosco, Fr Philip Rinaldi. Today we renew once again our gratitude to God for a Saint who is our teacher in promoting collaboration with the laity. Like Fr Rinaldi, we too want to find in each of you "a collaborator and an animator of salesian commitment". (E.Viganò)

In various circumstances you have asked for our help in formation and spiritual animation. We assure you of our willingness to provide this fraternal service. We also want to learn something from you who are consecrated Salesians in the world; we want to learn fidelity to the salesian charism, so that we may have the same "thirst for souls" lived by Fr Philip Rinaldi, to whom we entrust the promising beginnings of the male branch, for which we share with you our prayers and hopes.

May Mary Help of Christians be our guide in our common commitment of consecration and mission.

Rome, 20 April 1996

The Members of the GC24

APPENDIX 19

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MESSAGE FROM THE LAITY PRESENT AT THE GC24

TO ALL OTHER LAY MEMBERS OF THE SALESIAN FAMILY

Dear Friends,

We lay men and women, present at the General Chapter, are living an historically important moment, because this is the first time that lay people have taken part in a Salesian General Chapter.

We have felt quite at home as we have shared in moments of prayer and work, and in the community life, because the Chapter members have welcomed us as brothers and sisters in Don Bosco. We are honoured to have taken part and to have been able to contribute to the discussions and reflections on the Chapter theme: "Salesians and Lay people: communion and sharing in the spirit and mission of Don Bosco".

This occasion has been for us a great responsibility, but as lay people we have accepted the challenge.

The experience of sharing responsibility which we have lived through at first hand has been of importance and great value, and represents an example to be followed by laity and Salesians the world over, because it extends Don Bosco's spirit throughout all the Salesian Movement.

After living this experience of commitment in a typically salesian atmosphere of joy and serenity, we invite all the members of the Salesian Family to repeat this kind of encounter at local level throughout the world, so as to promote greater opportunities for involvement and communion between Salesians and Laity.

We are well aware that this is far from easy, and we confidently invite you to have trust in the future which will provide us with new opportunities, because God has given the richness of Don Bosco's charism to the Church and the whole world.

Affectionately from your friends:

Oliviero Zoli, Ken Greaney, Carlos Escobar, Andreu Ibarz, Maria Victoria Bernal, Isaac Tunez Fiñana, Giuseppe Bracco, Paul Lawry, Ortensia Barbarino, Maria Spackova,

Marco Belfiori, Abraham Feliciano, Griselda Medina, Robert Hannigan, Gabi Holzinger, Jimenez Ignacio Marin, José Bernardini Campos, Antonio Gomes da Costa, Dominique De Lat, Rodolfo Trillini, Elisa de Rodriguez Azpurua.