SALESIANS AND LAITY: COMMUNION AND SHARING

IN THE SPIRIT AND IN THE MISSION OF DON BOSCO

INTRODUCTION

THE EVENT OF GRACE OF 12 APRIL 1846

"There was a shed there, belonging to Joseph Pinardi. Come and we will draw up a contract.

On the following Sunday, which was Easter Sunday, all the church furniture and the equipment for recreation were brought there,and we went to take possession of our new place".

(John Bosco, Memoirs of the Oratory of St Francis de Sales from 1815 to 1855, Don Bosco Publications, New Rochelle, pp.256-7).

[1]

A happy anniversary

The happy event of the 150th anniversary of Don Bosco's arrival at Valdocco, celebrated during the General Chapter, made us more attentive to our origins.

Don Bosco describes them in moving fashion. He reveals his heart, so similar to that of the Good Shepherd: his zeal for education, his apostolic temerity, his sufferings under trial, the uncertainty of the future, his abandonment to Providence, his joy at unexpected help.

We are struck with wonder at the marvels of the Spirit, but provoked by them as well. It seems almost as if Don Bosco is inviting us to enter the world he himself created, which then developed around him: a world of communion in spirit and mission.

There he is, surrounded by a huge crowd of youngsters, in the middle of a meadow which he must leave without any idea of where to go or what to do. And then suddenly arrives a certain Pancrazio Soave, with a suggestion from a Mr. Giuseppe Pinardi: there is a place where he can gather the boys together, a modest shed which can become a chapel and around it a strip of land for a playground. On the following Sunday two women will come forward with the first donations to help him. Later Mamma Margaret will arrive,,.. and there will be others as well.

It is the story of a love which is contagious and spreads, drawing many people into its light and strength, a Family, a Movement!

We Salesians, the successors of those first boys who wanted to stay with Don Bosco for ever, find ourselves in the company of many lay people, men and women of our time, who feel the same kind of call and ask to be able to work with the heart and manner of the Father and Teacher of youth.

To enter that circle of light and strength is what we propose to do through our Chapter reflections:

- starting from the present situation of the relationship between SDBs and Laity (first part);

- proposing a rich dynamism stemming from Don Bosco's charism (second part);

- which projects us towards the future through concrete commitments for sharing in his spirit and mission (third part).

We want to celebrate the memory of that event with grateful praise:

[2]

To you, Father, our praise is due

for Don Bosco

the dream that inspired him

the trials that tempered him

and the signs that guided him;

for those who have shared

his indomitable zeal

men and women, religious and lay,

in every time and place;

for the humble beginnings at Valdocco

and for every educative environment

called to be a revelation

and gift of your love;

for the immense ranks of young people

who invade our life

and disturb our heart

prompting it to imitate that of the Good Shepherd.

To you, Father, our praise is due:

With Mary

our powerful Helper

in the Holy Spirit

through the Risen Christ.

Amen

"On that evening as I ran my eyes over the crowd of children playing, I thought of its rich harvest awaiting my priestly ministry.

My God, I exclaimed, why do you not show me where you want me to gather these children. Oh, let me know; show me what I must do. (Memoirs, p.255)

FIRST PART

SALESIANS AND LAITY TODAY

THE SITUATION

CHAPTER 1

Elements for an understanding of the situation (nn 3 - 18)

CHAPTER 2

Situation of the relationship between SDBs and Laity (nn 19 - 31)

CHAPTER 3

Perspectives and prospects (nn 52 - 56)

CHAPTER 1

ELEMENTS FOR AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SITUATION

1. The horizon: together in spirit and in mission

for the service of the young

[3]

The beginning and the model

At the beginning of salesian history we find Don Bosco's love of predilection for poor youngsters and his concern for the working classes living in densely populated areas. Animated by the charity of the Good Shepherd he gathered around himself a large number of other persons because the new condition of the young, as it seemed to him in the city of Turin, needed a new and immediate response.

So was born the Valdocco Oratory, a true 'laboratory' or workshop in which Don Bosco, other priests, adult laymen, youngsters and some women, first among them Mamma Margaret, lived the original and genial style of predilection for the young known as the preventive system. This system, lived first at Valdocco and then later at Mornese and other places, became a true spirituality, bringing educators and pupils together in the same movement towards holiness.

It is a spirituality which lives in a quite special manner in the heart and activity of the members of the Salesian Family and of a vast movement of persons, as a gift to the Church for the salvation of the young and for the holiness of its adherents.

[4]

Secular and prophetic dimension of the charism

The mission to the young and the poor has a particular secular dimension "because it is a charism that has been raised up in the Church for the world" (AGC 350, p.16).

The charism of Don Bosco, precisely because it is educative and ranged on the side of culture, creates a singular harmony with tasks proper to lay people.

It is for this reason that on becoming a mission it extends beyond SDB communities and the works themselves. Mission and works, in fact, are not the same thing, even though the work may be necessary as a setting for the convocation and formation of the vast movement of those who work for the young, within and outside salesian structures, in the Church and in the institutions of civil society.

This mission has also a prophetic dimension because of its significance with regard to educational and social problems and because of the new perspectives of existence which it opens up. Evangelizing by educating and educating by evangelizing become a message of hope, light and leaven, since it does not reach immediately every individual, nor does it cover materially every space and activity in human life (cf. Vecchi Report n.297).

Attention to secular values was so much alive in Don Bosco that it led him to invent an original figure of the consecrated layman, the salesian coadjutor brother; the latter develops in himself a genial propensity to be an apostolic ferment within secular realities taken up in their autonomous consistency, on account of which the salesian community, "enriched by its lay dimension, can meet the world in a way that is apostolically more efficacious" (GC21, 178).

[5]

Efficacious mediations: CEP and PEPS

The mission is one and only, but it can be realized in different ways, as many in fact as are the historical, geographical, religious and cultural situations and contexts in which young people are living.

The salesian educative and pastoral project (PEPS) is the historical mediation and the practical instrument used in all latitudes and cultures of the same mission. The project therefore is not just a technical fact but a cultural horizon for constant reference, and is demanded by the necessary inculturation of the charism.

It is specified and realized in every salesian work by a community which we call the educative and pastoral community (CEP). This is the group of people (youngsters and adults, parents and educators, religious and lay, representatives of other ecclesial and civil institutions, including also those belonging to other religions, and men and women of good will) who work together for the education and evangelization of the young, and especially those who are poorer.

2, The context: World and Church

[6]

Incarnation of the charism

The salesian charism, raised up in the Church for the world, must become incarnated in the different cultural situations in order to express its powers of service to the young and the poor. In contact with the different cultures it can illustrate its vitality and acquire new and enriching characteristics.

2.1 In today's world

[7]

A new scenario

After the events which marked the end of the East-West conflict, the '90s presented a new economic, political, social and cultural scenario, and some of its tendencies have a particular influence on our life and activity.

[8]

Primacy of economic factors

The economic and political system followed by the new liberal ideology increases impoverishment, injustice and social imbalance in the greater part of the world, with the result that big trans-national economic groups make enormous profits and bring about the exclusion of the poorest parts of the earth, with a consequent increase in new forms of want.

The absolute priority given to the economic factor provokes grave consequences: the elimination of economic frontiers, the difficulty of defending social gains of the workers and elbow room for small productive units, unemployment, fall in income, the need to emigrate, limitation of expression and possibility of action on the part of ethnic minorities and groups living in various ways on the fringe of society.

Progressive economic and social exclusion, moreover, provokes forms of "anthropological impoverishment", which appear as a widespread feeling of inferiority affecting social classes and entire peoples, culturally oppressed by the dominant ideology ("culturicide").

The massive and incessant presentation of different models creates modifications in mental processes and criteria of evaluation, increases the difficulties of building a human and Christian identity, and amplifies uncertainty about the future. At the same time the new possibilities for information, intercommunication and action bring about a different structure of society and public life.

Economic globalization and the new groupings of countries in blocks can have social and cultural consequences of kinds that are still uncertain and difficult to foretell.

[9]

Ambivalence of communication

The emergence of a global culture, on a massive scale and with a pluralist character, conditions the perception one has of the world and the Church, and even earlier of the very sense of life.

The challenge of interpersonal communication is made more difficult by the weakening of cultural values, and by the proliferation of languages and growing forms of incommunicability. Communication passes through new channels: multimedial languages, means of social communication, access to information, cybernetics. All this provokes modifications of mentality and calls for new ways of learning. And these need new abilities and qualifications.

The power of knowledge, modern and post-modern codes, learning to work in groups, access to information, the critical use of the means of social communication, are some of the factors which require of Salesians and laity greater competence and continual updating.

[10]

Family and education

The family and the traditional agencies of education seem to lose their privileged position of former times with respect to the maturing of the individual. Nevertheless the fundamental importance of the family in the field of education is still acknowledged.

In the new cultural situation a subjective interpretation of sexuality is being spread abroad; new forms of family organization are appearing as affective nuclei, to the detriment of the traditional model of marriage and the family. This renders uncertain and problematic educative processes, the integration of educative factors and the very educative capacity of adults.

In this family situation, the question put by Fr Egidio Viganò makes us think: "We have to ask ourselves: can an educator at the present day form the person of his youngsters without the deepening, clarifying and reliving of family vales?" (AGC 349, p.6).

[11]

Youthful discomfort

The uneasiness tends to become deeper because of the shortcomings of the institutions (especially in the family, school, Church etc.) and of their difficulties in communication in the languages of the young, and in coping with their superficiality and the absence of values. In some contexts the youthful misgivings are caused by new and old forms of poverty, the lack of prospects in life, of social opportunities, and by ethnic, cultural or religious forms of racism.

We detect in all this a sign of the times and hence an appeal from God to renew our educative mission.

[12]

The presence of women

In every setting of social life, the woman is acquiring an important presence which fosters the recognition of her rights. In the Church, the woman feels the call to take up a role of participation and shared responsibility.

In every field attention is being given to specifically feminine elements, because of the contribution they can make to a better quality of life and an enrichment of values at every level.

[13]

We note the continuation of a process of secularization which involves not only specifically religious matters but also fundamental aspects of life: family, education, moral conscience, customs, cultural expressions. In some contexts it almost seems that anything divine is being totally eclipsed. And at the same time we are nevertheless assisting at a new sensitivity for spiritual values and the seeking of new forms of relationship with the Transcendent, especially among the young.

On the other hand the religious phenomenon is taking on multiple facets, some of them uncertain and frequently ambiguous.

Emerging also is a widespread religious indifference, especially in what regards institutional aspects, with a tendency to privatization.

This hunger for the spiritual draws many persons, especially among the young, towards sects and movements which offer intense experiences which are nonetheless problematic, because they lack an integral vision of the person and of an objective content of truth.

We find parallel manifestations of religious syncretism, of superstitions and other expressions with an esoteric and reincarnationist slant. Particularly alluring at the present day seems to be the movement called New Age.

Alongside all this one notes a demand for interior reality and a thirst for the spiritual, attention to ecumenical dialogue, the eagerness for prayer meetings between the great religions for justice and peace in the world.

[14]

Signs of hope

The new economic, social, political and cultural scenario, gives us a glimpse nevertheless at world wide level of tendencies of substantially positive value, even though they must be redeemed from the historical ambiguity with which they are presented

We note, in fact, the emergence of new transversal sensitivities which concentrate the attention of the world community and mobilize its energies. The vast list of mega-events, with which the United Nations are sealing the closure of the twentieth century, are a proof and sign of this.¹

These are supranational events which indicate, as path to be followed in the future, some presuppositions for the taking up of a new ethical, social and political standpoint. They constitute a practical perspective for a "global social response" which can redeem personal respect, communal participation and social justice in face of the uncertainty of the present moment in history.

These appear, therefore, as obligatory points of reference which give consistency and legitimacy to the so-called new social and political subjects: the child, the young person, the woman, the individual, the family, non-government organizations, social and ethnic minorities, the excluded, etc.

This new sensitivity extends, in fact, to the most harrowing problems of humanity: the recognition of the dignity of the human person, education, demographic policy, ecology, development, unemployment and social exclusion, peaceful living together in pluriethnic and plurireligious societies, and peace.

It is within this conflictual and ambivalent frame of reference that the Church, like the Congregation, strives to identify the great objectives and to work out relevant practical strategies, so as to be a source of solidarity and hope.

2.2 In the Church

[15]

The new way of the Church

In this world context on the threshold of the Third Millennium, the Church is living ever more consciously the new ecclesiological atmosphere born of Vatican II, replanning her presence in the contemporary world, with an intense effort at inculturation and active involvement on the part of all her components.

The starting point is the self-understanding which the Church has of herself as the People of God, called to be leaven in history. Within this People the protagonism of the Laity is becoming ever more evident as a sign of the times.

It is especially the Exhortation Christifideles Laici which authoritatively asserts the secular identity of the lay person, as the subject of evangelization with full rights within the People of God. At the same time, reflection and pastoral practice are reconsidering the figure of ordained ministers to recover the genuine aspect of the pastor: he is the one who is at the service of all vocations so that they become transformed into ministries; he thus builds up ecclesial communion, while educating all to share the mission for the salvation of the world. The Apostolic Exhortation Pastores dabo vobis has given a new impulse to the ordained ministry, placed at the service of a Church which is wholly ministerial.

Consecrated persons too in the post-conciliar process, of which the most recent stage is represented by the Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, have managed to clarify their identity in the Church and to mature the conviction that their charism can be shared with the laity. For this reason the latter are invited "to share more intensely inn the spirituality and mission of these Institutes" (VC 54), thus beginning "a new chapter, rich in hope, in the history of relations between consecrated persons and the laity" (ib.). The same Exhortation recognizes that communion and collaboration with the laity is one of the fruits of the doctrine of the Church as communion (ib.)

[16]

The challenge of the New Evangelization

The progressive impoverishment taking place in the world, the spreading of a post-modern culture, and the recognition of emerging cultures in general when compared with the message of Jesus and the reflections of Vatican II, have led the Church to make a qualitative pastoral option in the New Evangelization. It is characterized by the proclamation of Jesus Christ, by human advancement and the inculturation of the Gospel, in the perspective of an option for the young and the poor. This obliges the Church herself to a process of conversion, so that poverty and freedom may become signs which render credible the Gospel of the beatitudes.

In the spirit of the New Evangelization - which demands new enthusiasm, new methods and new expressions - the Church has experimented in the last ten years with a strong social commitment, thanks to the prophetic appeal of so many Christians, to the Magisterium and Episcopal Assemblies in various continents.²

A new style is spreading of being Church. It is moving towards man, sharing his joys and hopes (GS 1); it is respectful of cultures, has at heart humanity's future, justice and peace, the family, life and ethical values, ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue, politics and economy, young people and education.³

The New Evangelization therefore appears as a global project of new missionary commitment, a concrete response to the appeal of the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio.

[17]

Path of the Salesian Congregation

The Congregation feels as its own the concerns and hopes of the young and of the Church, of which it wants to be an efficacious sign while serving the world to which it has been sent.

Motives of joy for the Congregation at the present day are:

* its missionary expansion in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia;

* the participation and sharing of Don Bosco's charism and mission by innumerable lay people, in and outside salesian works;

* the presence of lay volunteers in some sectors of the Salesian Movement;

* the earnest desire in many SDBs for a deeper spirituality, a growth in the quality of pastoral work for youth and a greater integration in the pastoral work of the local Churches.

The Congregation also feels the effects of secularization and other ambiguous aspects of the contemporary world:

* the falling off, drastic at times, in the number of vocations (especially of Brothers) in many traditionally Christian countries;

* the spiritual superficiality which, to the extent that it accepts forms of an easy life, provokes a cooling off of pastoral thrust and the inability to penetrate the world of the young;

* the presence of symptoms of individualism, manifested in personal projects without reference to the communal project;

* the little exploitation of the educative and apostolic energies of the laity, and especially women, due to a lack of knowledge of the theology of the lay state and a certain difficulty in understanding the feminine ethos.

The Congregation in its recent General Chapters, beginning especially with the SGC⁴, has acquire an ever greater awareness of itself and of its mission in the Church and in the world.

At the same time, as regards its mission among the young and the poor it is committed to the involvement in a single vast movement of persons, especially lay people, attracted by the charism and spirituality of Don Bosco.

[18]

GC 24

If on the one hand the GC24 constitutes a significant stage in the process of renewal, on the other it wants to be a point of departure: the Salesian Congregation intends to approach the Third Millennium with a new look, involving in its spirit and mission the greatest possible number of men and women who, by educating and evangelizing, want to work with it for the Kingdom.