Launching of the Centenary Celebrations
of Salesian Presence In India
(Homily at the Inaugural Mass – New Delhi, 28 Feb 2005)
My dear Provincials, my dear confreres, my dear Salesian family members,
I am very happy to be celebrating this Eucharist with you at the beginning of this jubilee, this year of grace which is the centenary of the Salesian presence in India. One hundred years have elapsed since the arrival of the first Salesians, and we cannot but be amazed at the enormous expansion of Don Bosco’s charism, the flowering of vocations, the development of the Salesian Family to the point where we can today say that the Congregation has an Indian face.
I am convinced that no one could have imagined a hundred years ago such a fruitful implanting of the Salesian vocation. It was God himself who prepared this field, so rich in culture and religions, readying it to receive and make fruitful a hundredfold the seed that was sown. We give him thanks and praise, then.
Like the rest of the story of the Congregation, this one of India too is witness to the maternal presence of Mary Help of Christians who has gone before us, accompanied us and protected us. We express our gratitude with the affection that children show.
“Thank you India, from the bottom of our heart” – is what I would like to say to civil and church authorities, to families and young people – since India has opened its doors and welcomed the sons of Don Bosco, who felt at home here from the beginning, such that it seems that India is for Don Bosco and Don Bosco is for India.
Our thanks too to the missionary confreres, especially the founders, beginning from Fr Giorgio Tomatis and the other four Salesians who arrived with him in Mumbai on 6th January 1906. But also to those great pioneers, like Fr Louis Mathias, Fr Mederlet, Fr Ferrando, Fr Carreno, Fr Pianazzi and all those who over these hundred years have come from various parts of the world –even from Mexico, as we see in the person of Bishop Louis Laravoire Morrow – and who took root here with a view to becoming part of the people while at the same time implanting the Salesian charism.
Thanks to the numerous generations of Indian Salesians who faithfully received, then handed on Don Bosco’s charism, and who with genuine missionary zeal have contributed not only to its inculturation but also to its growth. They too are part of this miraculous epic story.
Thank you, finally, to the young people who are the reason for our being and our mission. They are part of our heritage which the Lord has reserved for us. We have been lucky, because he has given us a treasure.
The presence of the Rector Major at the opening of the Centenary and the celebrations has a threefold purpose: in the first place, to contemplate the past, together with you, with gratitude; then to tackle the present with trust; and finally to plan the future boldly.
To have reached a hundred years means that, as Salesians, we already have a wonderful story to tell and we do this gladly because it is a way of creating and strengthening memory. But as an institution we have centuries in front of us to build and we want to take up this new stage with renewed freshness, spiritual vigour and missionary outlook. This is our prophecy.
Today the social, political, cultural and religious situation of India is very different from that of a hundred years ago. India now is the largest democracy in the world and finds itself a part of a deep and accelerated process of change, but with social problems, like the caste system, political problems, as in Kashmir, and religious problems, such as Hindu and Muslim fundamentalism.
Today the sensitivities of young people are equally different form those which the first missionaries found. But we are convinced that Don Bosco’s Preventive system is more valid and current today than ever, precisely because it puts the person of the young at the centre of it all and seeks only to answer his or her needs, enabling the young person to be the chief actor in his or her own human development, and offering the young person a religious and educative and pastoral community to accompany the adventure of carrying out a project and achieving its aims.
Today education and evangelisation cannot happen as they did one hundred years ago. There is need for a new education and a new evangelisation. The first is characterised by its capacity to make the young person the centre of educational experience, by its capacity to interact with other educational agencies which play a determining role in forming the thinking and being of young people (for example, the mass media – so today we speak of educommunication). But it is characterised too by its capacity for interacting with a community that, as a kind of microclimate, favours the vital communication of those values, feelings and ideals which generate strong, open and committed personalities, aware of being called to find their place in the society which they need to build. The second is drawn, especially in India, from inter-religious dialogue, from commitment to human development, from creating a rich culture of values inspired by the Gospel.
New education and new evangelisation naturally suppose new educators and new evangelisers, in line with what our recent General Chapters, the new Ratio and the Manual for Youth Ministry have sought to offer. This implies a spiritual renewal, professional updating and educational competence.
Today I want to dream the future with you, just like that great dreamer, our beloved Don Bosco, would do. And I am telling you how I see the Salesian India of the future.
I dream of a Salesian India which offers the Congregation the richness of Don Bosco’s charism, faithfully inculturated, with a strong identity, marked by the passion of the da mihi animas which is a passion for God and a passion for the young.
I dream of a Salesian India which collaborates in the transformation of the nation starting, like Don Bosco, from the poorest of young people, and re-enacting the spiritual and apostolic experiences of Valdocco through the loving kindness of the Preventive System.
I dream of a Salesian India which is decisively missionary, within the country and in the mission ad gentes, in the same way that other countries have done in the past when they experienced strong vocational growth.
I dream of a Salesian India with educational and pastoral presences of quality, with communities of the right quality and number who, while being a pledge of hope for the poorest young people and those in a situation of risk, will at the same time become a stimulus for integration in this nation in the midst of its diversity of regions and peoples.
I dream of a Salesian India with a span of works answering the multiple needs of those to whom our mission is directed, works which show, inasmuch as they can, all the dimensions of the Salesian vocation and mission, and will be at the service of evangelisation, with a capacity for fostering inter-religious dialogue, having the Madonna as their Mother and Teacher.
Which is why we are celebrating the votive mass of Mary Help of Christians, to whom I have entrusted the Congregation, the Salesian Family and the young people of the world. I entrust all of you to Her.
I would like this Eucharist therefore to express our combined gratitude to God for the motherly presence of Mary in the world and in the Church, in India and its provinces, and in each one of us.
“His mother said: ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (Jn 2,5). God’s word sheds light on our devotion because it makes us see Mary as God’s chosen instrument for our salvation. She is the woman clothed with the sun and fighting against the dragon. She is the woman who willingly collaborated with God in the mystery of the incarnation of his son so that he could share fully in our human condition and make us adopted sons. She is the woman whose faith restores joy to those who have lost it, or the meaning to life when this no longer exists, like the wine at the marriage-feast at Cana, which then gave rise to the faith of the disciples.
The Gospel story presents Mary to us as a true woman, full of kindness and attentive to small details; she notices the lack of wine, and realizes that there is a danger of joy turning to sorrow. Mary’s greatness consists, for the evangelist, in her ability to discern not only the distress of the couple caught unawares but the presence of Jesus, and to direct others to him: “Do whatever he tells you” (Jn 2,5).
Mary appears at Cana as a believer and one who generates faith, as a developer of the faith of the disciples in virtue of her own faith which led her to induce Jesus to give the sign which revealed the presence of God and his salvation. John says, in fact, in the Gospel text, that because of the miracle worked through Mary’s intercession, the disciples believed in him.
At the school of Cana, Mary teaches us four important attitudes for our life:
In the first place, to share the ups and downs of men and women. The form in which the story begins is eloquent in its simplicity: “there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there”. The implication is that we should participate in the trials and sadness, the hopes and joys of our contemporaries.
Secondly, to be attentive to the needs of others. The fact that the wine was running out and that Mary was concerned about it – “the mother of Jesus said to him: ‘They have not wine’” – is a proof of her ability to note what is lacking. It means knowing the situation and its implications” the lack of wine would have put at risk the continuation of the festivities, and would have meant the end of the joyful atmosphere.
In the third place she teaches us to discern the presence of Jesus and to turn to him, as the only one capable of responding to our deepest needs and real life problems. After she had told the servers to “do what he tells you”, Mary disappeared from the scene. It means that we must leave to Jesus the place which is his: he is the Messiah, the Christ, the one who provides the good wine in abundance, the meaning of life and its fullness in love.
And fourthly, to be believers who are credible, so that our own faith may be such as to make possible the faith of others. John adds a small note to the text which might be considered no more than an editorial comment but which, in fact, has catechetical force: “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory: and his disciples believed in him.” It means using our own faith in such a way that others may attain to faith.
I invite you all, dear Brothers and Sisters, to take Mary into your own provinces and communities and homes, as did the beloved disciple, so that she may be for us, as she was for him and for Don Bosco, a mother and teacher who will enable us too to be helpers of the young.
Don Pascual Chavez V.
New Delhi, February 28th 2005
