THE RENEWED TEXT

OF OUR RULE OF LIFE

Introduction - 1 The turning point of the Second Vatican Council - 2 The four general-chapter stages. - 3. New perspectives in the rewritten text: Nature of the Constitutions; Emphasis on the charismatic aspect of our vocation; Reference to the Founder; Adaptation to the new Code of Canon Law; Concrete nature and compass of our Rule of life. - 4. General structure of the Constitutions Foreword: Don Bosco; 1st Part: Identity; 2nd Part: Commitments made at profession; 3rd Part; Formation; 4th Part: Animation and government; Conclusion Our particular law and fidelity - 5. Religious profession at the embryonic stage of a new era. - 6 Some principles providing inspiration for renewal: Apostolic consecration; The oratory criterion; The necessary community aspect; Familiarity with Jesus Christ; Formation to unity in a plurality of cultures; The 'form' of our Society and the guide of the community; Perseverance in the way that leads to Love - 7. The urgent need for a concrete and methodical plan. Conclusion The Marian date of the promulgation.

Rome, 29 October 1984 Liturgical commemoration of Blessed Michael Rua

My dear confreres,

We are beginning a six-year period of service during which the principal goal to be reached is the knowledge, love and practice of the renewed Constitutions and Regulations. We might define it as “the period of the relaunching of our 'Rule of Life”'.

The main part of this circular letter is being finished on the day, 29 October, when in the liturgy we commemorate Blessed Michael Rua, Don Bosco's Vicar in the last years of his life, and by divine providence also his first successor. The great Pope Paul VI told us that Don Rua “has been beatified and glorified precisely because he was the successor of Don Bosco in the sense that he was also his continuation as son, disciple and imitator; he made (with others, it is true, but he was first among them) of the example of the Saint a school; of his personal work a widespread institution covering, one might say, the whole world; of his life an epic, of his rule a spirit; of his sanctity an archetype or model; he turned a spring into a stream and then into a river.”¹

This penetrating description of the Beatus spotlights our program for the six years now ahead of us. We look with gratitude to Don Rua, the faithful witness, the “personification of the Rule”, and we entrust with confidence to his intercession our task of getting to know and assimilating the Constitutions and Regulations so as to make of our Rule of Life, as Paul VI suggested, a “spirit”.

It is encouraging for us to look at our saints and servants of God and so many confreres who achieved holiness precisely by making of the Rule a “spirit”. The salesian Rule has not changed. The text of the present Constitutions has been rewritten so as to present to us in a better and more updated way the same original plan which has already produced such fruits of holiness.² It is the “fair copy” of the earlier Constitutions; they have their roots in our living traditions; they keep alive the original Valdocco experience; they preserve its heart and spirit, its genuine charism. The renewed Constitutions will be a spur for us too along the road to holiness!

And now to dispose minds and hearts to a better acquaintance with the rewritten text, I offer you some reflections concerning the vital importance of the Constitutions and general Regulations.

Fundamentally, what has provoked the work of elaboration is the turning-point or crossroads that characterizes our present age, and it is from this situation that we must begin if we want a correct and stimulating understanding of our plan of life.