The theme of the 26th General Chapter “Da mihi animas, cetera tolle” has its subtitle the phrase “charismatic identity and apostolic passion”. After all, the deep renewal which we need at this historic moment of the Congregation, and which the General Chapter sought, depend on the above two inseparably united elements. According to me, it is imperative, first of all, to overcome, the classical dilemma between “charismatic identity and social relevance”. In reality it is a pseudo-problem. We do not treat these two factors independently, and their opposition can lead to ideological tendencies that can distort consecrated life, cause unnecessary tensions, result in sterile efforts, and give rise to a sense of failure. But I wonder then, where do we find the Salesian identity, which guarantees the social relevance of the Congregation, as manifested in the “Salesian phenomenon”, as said by Pope Paul VI, fruit of the incredible vocational growth and its global expansion?
What is happening to us is lived by the Church today. She stands before two sacred imperatives, which she maintains as an insuperable tension. On the one hand it is linked to the living memory, the theoretical assimilation and the historic response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, which is the origin and foundation of her existence. On the other hand it is related to the generous communication of salvation offered by God to all peoples. It reaches them through the work of evangelization, celebration of sacraments, living witness, and the generous collaborations of each of her members. Both the care of the identity and the exercise of the mission are equally sacred. When the fidelity to the origins and the concerns for the identity are disproportionate or excessive, the Church becomes a sect or succumbs to fundamentalism. When the concern of the Church is for relevance in society and the common cause of the humankind which when brought to the extreme, she forgets the source of her own origin and the Church then will reach the point of dissolution and finally to insignificance.1
Here then are the two constitutive elements of the Church, which are true also for the Congregation: her identity which consists in being disciples of Jesus Christ, and her mission which is centred on the work of the salvation of humankind, in our case that of young people. The obsessive pre-occupation with identity leads to fundamentalism and thus she loses her relevance. The preoccupation about social relevance in the fulfilment of the mission at any cost, will lead to loss of identity, which in turn will bring about disintegration, “of being the Church”.
This implies that fidelity for the Church, and all the more for the Congregation, depends on the union of the two inseparable factors: charismatic identity and social relevance. Often presenting these elements as opposed to each other or as irreconcilable or separate, “either identity or relevance”, we can fall into an erroneous conception of consecrated life, thinking that if there is too much of identity and charism, it can make our social involvement suffer and consequently there would be little significance for our life. We forget that faith without woks is dead (Js 2: 20). We do not speak here of an alternative but an integration.
Speaking about renewal of religious life in no.2 of Perfectae Caritatis, the Second Vatican Council presents us this basic guideline: “To update the renewal of religious life comprises both a constant return to the sources of the whole Christian life and to the primitive inspiration of the institute and their adaptation to the changed conditions of our times”
There are three references to this programme of renewal: 1) a continuous return to the sources of all Christian life, 2) a continuous return to the original inspiration of the institutes, and 3) an adaptation of the institutes to the changing conditions of the times. However, there is a criterion, which becomes a norm, that is to say, the three requirements of reform go together and simultaneously. There cannot be any adequate renewal only from one perspective alone. Perhaps this has been the mistake made by some failed attempts at renewal of religious life. In the immediate post-counciliar period while some emphasized the original inspiration of the institute through a strong identity, others opted for adaptation to the changed situation of the contemporary world with a stronger social involvement. Thus both the polarizations remained barren without genuine conviction.
I have often shared my deep impression, after my visit to the Mother house of the Missionaries of Charity of Calcutta, that Mother Teresa knew how to transmit to her sisters her singular conviction: the more you give to those whom none bothers about, the poorest of the poor and the needy, the more you express the difference, the fundamental reason for the concern which is Jesus Crucified. The only way in which the witness of religious life becomes clear is when one has the capacity to reveal that Deus caritas est (God is love). Mother Teresa wrote: “A deeper prayer will take you to a faith which is more vibrant, a faith more vibrant to a more expansive love, a more expansive love to greater altruism, and greater altruism to a lasting peace”.
The identification with the contemporary society without a profound identification with Jesus Christ will lose its symbolic meaning and power of inspiration. Only such an inspiration will make possible a difference, which the society needs. A mere identification with a particular social group or with a specific political programme, even if it has great social impact, will not be any more eloquent or credible. For this purpose there are other institutions and organizations in the world of today.
See how well Don Bosco knew to do things in an extraordinary way. It is authoritatively presented in the text of our Constitutions article 21, which while speaking about Don Bosco as Father and Teacher gives him to us as model. The reasons for the presentation are three:
a) He succeeded in realizing in his own life a splendid blend of nature and grace, deeply human and deeply a man of God, rich in the qualities of his people and filled with the Holy Spirit, he was open to the realties of the world, and living as if seeing him who is invisible. Here then is his identity.
b) These two aspects are fused into a creative and closely knit project of life, the service of the young. He realized his aim with firmness and constancy, through obstacles and fatigue with the sensibility of a generous heart. He took no step, said no word, took up no task that was not directed to the salvation of the young. Here is his relevance.
c) In reality, the only concern of his heart was for souls, totally consecrated to God and fully committed to the young, educating through evangelization and evangelizing through education. Here is the grace of unity.
Today the congregation is in need of this conversion, which will make us recapture at the same time our charismatic identity and apostolic zeal. Our commitment to the salvation of the young, especially the poorest, necessarily depends on our charismatic identification.
In Don Bosco sanctity was shone in his works, and it is true. But the works were only an expression of his life of faith. Union with God is living one’s life with God; it is being at his presence; it means to participate in the divine life, which is within us. Don Bosco made the revelation of God and His love the reason of his life, according to the logic of the theological virtues: a faith which became an attractive sign for the young people, a hope which was an illuminating word for them, a charity which was a sign of love towards them.
The article 196 with which our Constitutions conclude refers to the essential element of our chrism, rather to the Christian faith. It reminds us that our Rule of life is not primarily a written document but a person whose is the centre and the meaning of our existence: the Lord Jesus whom we encounter in the life of the Church and in the example of our Father Don Bosco.
It may be interesting to establish a link between this article of our Rules with the Strenna for the year 2010, which is centred on a verse from Saint John’s Gospel, “We want to see Jesus”. It treats the desire of a group of Greeks, probably Diaspora Jews or Gentiles who were sympathetic towards Judaism, who present themselves to Apostle Philip.
John the evangelist with a few strokes gives us the profile of this apostle. Philip enters the scene at the beginning of the Gospel when after having met Jesus, invites Nathaniel to follow Jesus (Cf Jn 1: 45ff). Then we see Philip in the scene of the multiplication of the loaves, when Jesus, manifesting his friendship and his confidence in him, asked him, “Where can we buy bread, so that these people may eat?” (Jn 6:5).
Later, during the feast at Jerusalem a group of Greeks turn to Philip with a request: “Sir, we want to see Jesus”, and he together with Andrew, goes to tell Jesus about it (Jn 12,20-22). Finally, at the solemn moment of the Last supper Philip asks Jesus, “Lord show us the Father and we shall be satisfied”, and Jesus told him: “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn14: 8-9a). It seems to me that Philip constitutes a beautiful icon of the Salesian, also in his humility and simplicity.
The picture that emerges from these short texts is that of an apostle friend of Jesus and who engages in a personal dialogue with Him and to whom the Lord asks his opinion; he is especially an apostle who acts as a mediator between Jesus and others: from Nathanial to the group of Geeks. Precisely for this Philip asks with simplicity to show the Father. In other words, he desires to have an experience of God for communicating to others the same sublime richness.
Such a request of Philip, on the other hand, is inseparable from the dialogue between Jesus, and Thomas, which immediately precedes it. Thomas asks him: ‘Lord we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him” I am the way, and the truth and the lie’ none can come to the Father except thorough me” (Jn 14, 5-6). Jesus does not ‘show’ the path to go the Father; he himself is the way towards the fullness of truth and life, towards happiness.
The final phrase of the article of the Constitutions, “a way that leads to love’, is not an alternative to encountering God, but on the contrary it speaks to us of the identity of the God of Jesus Christ, which is Love in person. Only a God who is love can constitute the fullness of life and truth, of happiness of a being that has been created for love and to be loved. This is valid also for each one of us, for all our brothers and sisters of the world, for each of our boys and girls, especially for those who understand with difficulty this Love of God in their life.
This should not led us to think that Love constitutes only the end of the journey; in reality it is already the beginning; rather Love always precedes us, because God in Christ “has chosen us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph 1:4). This project of God takes concrete form in the life of each one of us; our vocation expresses the “predilection of the Lord Jesus, who has called us by name”. This we recall in the rite of Baptism. The question, which is apparently trivial, is asked to our parents and to the God parents by the minister in the name of the child to be baptized, expresses this conviction: if we exist it is because we have been called personally by God, from the abyss of nothingness, so that we can always enjoy his Love as sons and daughters of the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In this sense we can say that our Rule of life is “a way born of Love”.
Such an expression evokes a phrase from psalm 118. “I will walk in the way of your commandments, because you have expanded (dilated) my heart”. Commenting on this verse Saint Augustine writes: “I would not have walked the way if you had not dilated my heart […]. The enlargement of the heart is the delight of justice; and it is a gift, which God grants us because we may not turn away from his precepts because of fear of punishment, but we are dilated instead by the love and the satisfaction of justice. This enlargement of heart he promises us when it says: ‘I will live in them and walk among them”. How vast is the place where God walks! In this vastness spreads the charity in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (St Augustine S.Agostino, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 118, Sermone X, n. 6).
The instruction of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life on formation in religious institutes, “Potissimum Institutioni”, uses three adjectives for indicating religious vocation: “a call which is unrepeatable, personal, and unique”. Undoubtedly, our vocation, inasmuch it is a call for a mission, indicates also the concern of God for the young, especially the poorest and the abandoned, but it would be dangerous to forget the fundamental dimension of vocation inasmuch it is an expression of the personal love of the Lord Jesus who has chosen us and has called us. Only from this fundamental experience of being with Jesus can emerge our response of love without reserve in the fulfilment of the mission, as Pope John Paul II has said, using an incisive expression in his Apostolic Exhortation “Redemptionis Donum”: “the nuptial love must become redeeming love’
On this path we shall not walk alone: Jesus himself accompanies us, as he did with the disciples of Emmaus; the Virgin Mary accompanies us and guides us as she guided Don Bosco in the realization of the Salesian mission (cf.C.8); our confreres in communities accompany us, as we have affirmed in the prayer of religious profession. Undoubtedly, the young people are also close to us, as the Constitutions say: “We walk side by side with the young so as to lead them to the risen Lord, and so discover in him and in his Gospel the deepest meaning of their own existence, and thus grow into new men” (C.34)
The first article of the Constitutions states: “From the active presence of the Holy Spirit we draw strength for our fidelity and support for our hope”. In the last article, with a marvellous inclusion, hope appears again, but now we are constituted as mediators of God for the young which cannot be substituted; we are the “pledge and hope for the little ones and the poor”. The young people will trust us only for experiencing the saving love of God; also they, like the Greeks, cry to us, “Sir we want to see Jesus!” We should not be insensitive to their cry. We should not disappoint their deepest hope.
The Constitutions are lived by us in our personal life, in our service to the Congregation and in our being Council; they are our Rule of life, the way that leads to love, also in our daily work. In the Congregation there appears in a manner that is visible, attractive and prophetic the witness of our life of apostolic consecration in all its aspects, in the dedication to the mission, in fraternal life, in the following of Christ, obedient, poor and chaste.
Fr. Pascual Chàvez SDB
Rector Major
Turin, 18th December 2009.
1 O. González de Cardenal, Ratzinger y Juan Pablo II. La Iglesia entre dos milenios, Ed. Sígueme, Salamanca 2005, pp. 224 ss.
