1. LETTER OF THE RECTOR MAJOR

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“EXPERTS, WITNESSES AND CRAFTSMEN OF COMMUNION”¹

The salesian community – animating nucleus

Introduction.

- I. A new phase in our community life.

- 1. Strong expectations.

- 2. Animating nucleus.

- 3. The goal.

- 4. The present moment.

- 5. The model for reference.

- II. A community process for becoming an animating nucleus.

- 1. Redesigning the mission.

- 2. A way of life for communicating a spirituality.

- 3. Making the salesian community a “family” able to arouse communion around the salesian mission.

- 4. Giving to our educative activity and to that of the EPC the missionary dynamism of “Da mihi animas”.

- 5. Fraternal life and pastoral work for growth.

- Conclusion.

Rome, 25 March 1998

My dear confreres,

The year 1998 sees all the provinces engaged in preparing and holding Provincial Chapters. This is a grace from the Lord generously offered to all of our ninety-one circumscriptions, which will have its effect on the life of the whole Congregation. We do not see these Chapters as legal formalities nor as merely deliberative assemblies. For us they are experiences, celebrations and occasions for re-launching the communion which unites us in our religious consecration and our mission to young people.

The Provincial Chapters will reflect and manifest working methods for lay participation in the salesian charism and hence for the greater responsibility for animation which is being shaped for us. In this way they are called to make a contribution which will be indicative for our future.

This Congregational event fits into a process within the Church which can be clearly seen in the six synods which precede the Jubilee: the visible and practical fulfilment of communion according to the new horizons of the Church and the world. I had personal experience of this in the American Synod in which I took part with others.

It was this which suggested the theme for this letter which I offer you as a stimulus to reflection rather than as a complete treatment of the topic, given its breadth and complexity.

My recent visit to Africa for the erection of two new Vice-provinces,² has been a new proof, if proof were needed, of the potentialities inherent in “salesian” fraternal life, i.e. life according to the spirit and style of the origins, codified today in the Constitutions and Regulations: potentialities for each one of us, for our mission, for the young people in our environments, for those disposed to work with us, and for people in general. It is therefore only right to give them special attention at this juncture.

I. A new phase in our community life.

1. Strong expectations.

Recent General Chapters have formulated guidelines and organic indications for educating young people to the faith³ and for involving lay people in the salesian mission.⁴ The fulfilment of such proposals requires the creation of some realities closely connected with them: the establishment of the educative and pastoral community, its animation on the part of the group of Salesians, the understanding of the current situation and mentality of young people, and the formulation of an educative pastoral plan. All this constitutes the “model” for pastoral ministry, which we intend to follow with practical proposals to deal with the current situation while remaining faithful to the principles of the preventive system.

Reading these guidelines, even cursorily, one immediately becomes aware that the possibility of putting them into practice depends upon an element that is considered sound and almost taken for granted: the salesian community.

The community, in fact, is invited to recognize the challenges which the young people pose and to think about what suggestions to offer them so that their faith may mature. The community is called to live and communicate a spirituality, without which efforts to put the young people in contact with the mystery of Jesus would be ineffective. It is to the community that the task is given of bringing the lay people together, getting them involved, giving them responsibilities and training them.

The presence of the community is always presumed in the guidelines, even though not always mentioned explicitly. To its members the indications are primarily addressed. To them the project is entrusted.

There is constant reference to it in meetings and documents in which the situation of our vocational fruitfulness, of our impact and our renewal are studied. After considering what can be done about some problem, and deciding how to do it, when it comes down to who should do it, there is the constant refrain: “it needs a community which…”, and then come the requirements.

To which community do these expectations refer? To the local community, to the provincial community or to the world community? The three levels which work together and in harmony are always understood, as the Constitutions indicate: “Local communities are a living part of the provincial community”;⁵ “Religious profession incorporates the Salesian in the Society, making him a participant in the communion of spirit, witness and service that is its life within the Universal Church”,⁶ i.e. in the world community.

Looking more closely, however, at the deliberations of the last two General Chapters it becomes clear that the focal point, from which one starts and to which one returns is the local community. Assigned to it are the greater number and the more specific tasks. The Province is asked to ensure that conditions are such that the local communities are able to function, to plan the mission in the whole area, animating, giving support and encouragement and setting up enriching contacts between the local communities.

There is no question about the identity, the organization at world level, the guidelines which ensure our unity, or the creative possibilities for the individual provinces. The amount of encouragement, directives and aids produced by Chapters and by the General Council is not only abundant, but faithfully reflects the renewal in the Church and appears suited to the time in which we live.

What we look at in the first place, and use as a yardstick, is the vitality, the ability to respond of what we might call the cells or the basic organisms of the Congregation: the local communities, and in reference to these, the provincial communities.

It is not difficult to see why. The local communities are the places where we are at work every day: where we live out our consecrated lives and express the quality of our commitment to education. They are in direct contact with the youngsters and the people: they experience their situations at first hand and have to think of bearing witness by their lives and of finding apostolic initiatives to respond to the needs. It is in the local communities that guidelines are tried out and tested: to see whether they are valid and practicable in our current situations.

There is another reason too. Only by involving the local communities is it possible to bring all or at least most of the confreres into the task of rethinking a method of faith education and a new community approach. Few confreres are involved at provincial and world level, even though their roles are of great importance and influence.

The community, therefore, in which we live our daily life and especially if it is directly exposed to the public gaze, is the place where the greatest expectations regarding significance and apostolic effectiveness are to be found.

The expectations in this regard are well stated in the theological expressions which abound in both the document “Fraternal life in Community”,⁷ and the part of the Apostolic Exhortation Consecrated Life entitled “Signum fraternitatis”. They are pages to be meditated on in order to find in them ever new spiritual and practical guidance: the image of the Trinity, a sign of communion with the Church, a prophetic expression of following the call, a school of Christian love, the place where one experiences God.

“Salesian” expectations have also been expressed in notions which immediately give the idea of the requirements and the results: the community is a family and is built up as such; it becomes a sign, a school and an environment of faith; we think of it as a special place for ongoing formation.

In line with these ideas the GC24 drew out very forcefully one which corresponds to the phase of renewal in which we are at present engaged; it is in fact its keystone, its driving force: the animating nucleus.

It is on this that I want to concentrate in this letter, and from this standpoint to consider other aspects of the community.

2. Animating nucleus.

This is already a familiar expression in our vocabulary. It represents a benchmark in our current way of understanding pastoral activity, intimately connected with others no less important, such as the participation of lay people in the mission, the development of the educative community, the formulation of the project, the sharing in pedagogical style, and the communication of salesian spirituality.

With these it becomes a “system”, which would not be possible for them alone without the action of the animating nucleus. Similarly, it is not possible to understand the purpose and the practical meaning of the expression itself in separation from the whole “system”. Article 5 of the General Regulations puts it well, when it inserts it among the guidelines for our pedagogical and pastoral practice. “The application of the plan requires that in all our works and settings we establish the educative and pastoral community, whose animating nucleus is the salesian community”.⁸

The frequent use of the expression in GC23 and GC24, the hopes expressed regarding its understanding and its functioning, have rightly drawn the confreres’ attention to it. They have come to understand that it is important to set about putting the Chapter declarations into practice. And being still at the stage of sorting out the idea, they raise questions about both the concept and its application.

I consider as perfectly justified the many requests for clarification made to me and to the members of the Council when we have the opportunity to meet. I willingly respond to some of these questions noting, however, that the answers do not provide immediate and universal solutions. Rather they are useful as points of understanding, as some experiences already realized, as an encouragement to continue the research, the experimentation and the codification of practice.

What do we mean by “animating nucleus”? It is a group of people who identify themselves with the salesian mission, educational system and spirituality, and together take up the task of assembling, motivating, and involving all those who are concerned with a work, so as to form with them the educative community and to carry out a plan for the evangelization and education of the young.

The reference point for this group is the salesian community. That means that the Salesians, all of them, are a permanent part of the animating nucleus. Each one, young or old, directly engaged in a working role or retired, makes the contribution which his preparation or his situation permits.

This also means that the lay people are part of it in accordance with the circumstances already mentioned.

It even means that the local nucleus could be formed principally by lay people, always having behind them adequate support, on the spot or within the province, from the Salesians. This happens in places where recently we have had to animate through a guardianship, patronage, or legal requirement.

It needs to be emphasized that the “salesian” community, its spiritual heritage, its educational method, its brotherly relationships, and co-responsibility for the mission, provide in each case the guiding model for the pastoral identity of the animating nucleus.

The type we are dealing with here, which ought to lead to the implementation of provincial plans for relocation and redimensioning, is one in which the salesian community is present in sufficient numbers and in quality to animate, together with some lay people, an educative community and project, accepting that this allows of a variety of styles of implementation depending on the number of confreres and roles.

The other kind, the one in which only lay people make up the immediate animating nucleus is complementary: it is a possibility which could answer certain particular problems of either personnel or initiatives, and always looks to the “salesian nucleus” as the inspirational model to inspire it and in which to find support.

3. The goal.

In the light of the above indications, it has been asked whether it is a matter of necessity or choice. It must be said that the process of the Church, the changes that have taken place in society with their repercussions in the field of education, our own periods of rethinking and verification, have coalesced in the concept of community – animating nucleus through force of evidence. There is now no longer any question about convictions or orientations is this regard; it is now a matter of its concrete realization and our ability to bring it about.

It may be helpful to recall, albeit briefly, the motives underlying the options; they may suggest useful attitudes.

Nowadays educative and pastoral initiatives have become open and are based on criteria of participation. Numerous lay people are at work in this field, and their numbers have increased in recent years to such an extent that they now constitute a numerical majority; they include parents and collaborators; they are linked with civil organisms and other educational agencies; they are open to the locality and linked with a network of friends and supporters: it is a complex world of management in which not everything can be done directly and there is need of complementary responsibility and skills of various kinds.

While traditional educational environments are acquiring new dimensions, settings for reaching the young with programs to meet their different situations are becoming more numerous and diversified. On the one hand there are requests to take on the management of ever bigger, more complex and intricate works; and on the other there is a call for new educative fields provoked by the present needs and prevailing poverty. This has led and is still leading to the demand not only for more personnel, but for personnel with specific qualifications and for linkages in all directions in line with the complex nature of society.

But all this is only the beginning of the matter. The decisive reason which has led us to conceive the community as an animating nucleus is the new season through which the Church is living. It reveals an acute awareness of communion with God and among men, and sees communion as the principal way for the realization of man’s salvation.

This is bound to bring about notable modifications in pastoral practice. Everything acquires its meaning and dimension in the light of communion. Ecclesial communities become solidly subjects of the mission. Within them the vocations of the religious, the ordained ministers and the laity are turned to account, in line with the specific gift given by the Spirit to each one. Their respective experiences interact to their mutual enrichment and become committed together in evangelization, which becomes “new” also because of this fresh element: the ecclesial subject which accomplishes it, and in this the importance of the laity emerges at the present day.

The process has not been a short one by any means. The travail in the pre-conciliar period, the reflections in the Council itself, the efforts to set up in a new way both ecclesial life and pastoral work after the Council, the doctrinal synthesis and praxis which have matured in these years leading up to the Jubilee, the Synods (on the laity, ordained ministries and consecrated life), and the Apostolic Exhortations which followed them, have clarified how the different vocations complete each other, enrich each other, and are coordinated; indeed, they could not have an original identity apart from mutual reference within ecclesial communion.

For our part, we see this form of being religious and of working for the young from the very beginnings of the Salesian Family. From the outset Don Bosco involved many persons through his witness and the novelty of his work, and gained support from both ecclesiastics and lay people; he attracted to his work both men and women who helped him to teach catechism, to build schools and workshops, to animate playgrounds, to obtain work for needy boys with upright employers. With them he started up groups and occasional forms of cooperation.

When he saw the need to provide a home for some of the boys, he created a family with the collaboration of Mamma Margaret, with whom he shared the running of the house. His aim was to unite all good people and extend their collaboration to the maximum. He dreamed of their collaboration, suggested it to them, and set about realizing it by word of mouth, friendship and through letter-writing.⁹

Soon he became convinced of the need for consecrated personnel: and this not only because the continuity of the work called for persons available full-time for the young, but because the religious quality of the education he had so much at heart needed to have a priest in charge of it. It was not just a matter of rescuing the youngsters from a situation of economic poverty, or preparing them for life through study or the learning of a trade, nor even of educating their religious sense or conscience, but of bringing them into contact with the living Christ through the grace of faith, the efficacy of the sacraments and participation in the ecclesial community.

Vocations to a consecrated life were to be found among the youngsters themselves. And so he began to gather some of them together and invited them to form a Society; he asked them to stay with him permanently, to commit themselves full-time and with all their strength to a work of charity, to dedicate their whole life to following the poor, chaste and obedient Christ in a faithful service to God and the young.

Our charism therefore was born in a context of communion of a family and educative kind, animated by an almost unlimited openness in collaborating in doing good to various groups, with the specific aim of creating cooperation, solidarity and communion.

4. The present moment.

In recent times a great deal of reflection has been given to the consecrated community.

Of interest is the quality of fraternal life with reference to the lawful demands now emerging in communities, to the conditions of life they call for, and to the new possibilities of rapport and communication which arise as a consequence of culture, of renewal in the Church, and of present personal sensitivities.

Of interest too, and very much so, is the service to human and Christian communion which consecrated communities are called upon to provide in today’s Church (evangelization, ecumenism, interreligious dialogue) and the prevailing world climate (peace, communication, reconciliation, ethnic conflicts, the intercultural character of society, and globalization).

The two levels are intertwined; they are interdependent: we become experts in community through an experience of brotherhood in Christ. And so one leads to the other; both have to be reawakened and renewed in a stage in which the community must come to terms with certain conditions.

One of these is its present composition: the number of members in the individual communities is falling and in some cases can go no lower. As well as being greatly reduced in number, there is sometimes a preponderance of those who are aged or at least getting on in years. This is not always a disadvantage, especially if seen in a positive manner as making it possible to give greater responsibility to individuals because of the smaller numbers, or as an opportunity for exchange and charismatic experience between generations if the aged are in the majority. Such a composition, nevertheless, requires a new ability for relationships and adaptation of various kinds.

A second element to be considered is the relationship being created between the community and apostolic work. In some places we no longer have exclusive responsibility for the work; not all the members of the religious community are involved in it; often they are distributed over several sectors with little communication between them. One feels a disproportion between the religious personnel and the dimensions of the work. A consequence of this is that there is an abundance of exchanging of ideas and sharing of responsibility between the religious who are still active and the lay collaborators, but much less with the members of the religious community. In many cases too, many confreres become so overburdened by their various duties that they cannot follow the regular rhythm of community meetings.

A third element is the greater insertion of the community into the dynamics of the Church and a greater openness to the social context. Consecrated life is seen not as a withdrawal from questions which concern man, but as being inserted in them with an original contribution and specific mission. As a result there is a multiplication of relationships and exchanges with what is external. The time available for community matters is cut back and is less tranquil and protected, more invaded by the complexity of life and stimulus from the neighbourhood. The complexity, events, trends and images penetrate through the ever more individualized means of social communication, and challenge not only the quality and frequency of relationships but also the community’s ability to make judgements in line with the Gospel.

But the most important fact concerns the change from insistence on life in common to that of brotherhood determined by the circumstances of work and of the new demands of the individual.

The two terms, common life, and fraternal life in community convey the idea immediately, and it is not difficult to distinguish between their implications. “Common life” means “living together in a particular and lawfully constituted religious house”, and performing the same actions (praying, eating, working, etc.) in accordance with the same norms. For common life it is important to come together physically.

“Fraternal life in community” means primarily acceptance of the individual, quality of interpersonal relationships, friendship, the possibility of real affection, the joy of being and working together, the active participation of everyone in the life of the group. Nowadays we are more concerned about the union of persons, the depth of relationships, mutual help and support, making the most of each one’s capabilities and active role, and the convergence of intents and objectives.

Common life and fraternal life are linked. “It is clear that ‘fraternal life’ will not automatically be achieved by the observance of the norms which regulate common life; but it is evident that common life is designed to favour fraternal life to a great extent”.¹⁰

A balance has to be found: not purely communion of spirit which would do away with all manifestations of common life; but not such great legal insistence on common life as would make subordinate the more substantial aspects of fraternity in Christ: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples”.¹¹

Our Constitutions help us to understand and establish this balance and fusion of the two aspects. They tell us of the moments we have in common: they characterize the family spirit,¹² they tend to create a mature rapport among us, to open us to communication, to make us able to share “joys and sorrows (…), apostolic plans and experiences”.¹³

Good order and balance between the two elements brings about the desire and need to form true communities, in line with the conditions of each group and individual aspirations; deeply renewed communities, be they small, medium-sized or large, which have to animate traditional works or be inserted in more lively fashion among the people, must nevertheless be always able to help individuals to grow from both a human and religious standpoint, to express with greater transparency what they believe, and stir up the desire to become members: in other words, communities with vocational ability.

5. Our community model.

All forms of religious life have an indispensable element in the community. But each realizes it in its own way which differs from that of others.

Our community life is in the first place a reflection of that lived by Jesus with the Apostles He chose them “to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons”.¹⁴ From this moment onwards, and by virtue of this call, they formed a solid group in fidelity to the Master and his cause. Together they enjoyed familiarity with Jesus, and heard from him exclusive explanations about the mystery of the Kingdom. Together they were direct witnesses of certain episodes and participants in central events of Jesus’ life. Together they learned from him how to pray in solitude and in contact with men; they were given as a group the task of getting the crowd arranged at the multiplication of the loaves, and all of them were sent (albeit to different villages) to prepare for the arrival of Jesus and to proclaim the Gospel. They gathered round Christ to report on their adventures, and even had some brief discussions on the nature of the Kingdom and their participation in Christ’s cause. Jesus taught them the attitudes necessary for following him and for building unity among themselves: service, forgiveness, humility in their needs, not judging others, selfless generosity. Together with the preaching of the Gospel and “so that the world may believe”,¹⁵ he commanded them to live in unity; he prayed for them “that they may all be one”.¹⁶ Together, with Mary, they received the Spirit and began to set up the community, animating it by the word, the Eucharist, and the service of authority.

This apostolic model is mediated for us through the charismatic experience of our beginnings. Don Bosco, following Christ the Good Shepherd, gathered young disciples around him who grew fond of him as they shared with him the service of the oratories. He asked them to stay with him and devote themselves full time to wholehearted work for the young. With them he extended his gaze to distant places which led to the expansion of the Congregation and refined the spiritual traits which gave a characteristic physiognomy to his family.

It is a community not only for the young but with the young: it shares their life and is adapted to their needs. The presence of the young determines the timetable, the style of work and the manner of praying. Staying with Don Bosco means staying with youngsters, offering them all we have and are: heart, mind and will; friendship and work; sympathy and service. In this relationship and environment the identity of both the community and its individual members matures.

It is a community highly charged spiritually, characterized by “Da mihi animas”. Don Bosco shaped his first collaborators, with simplicity and tangibility, according to the program: work, prayer and temperance. He asked them to carry out a “work of charity” for the benefit of their neighbour. Love of Jesus Christ and trust in his grace was what lay behind his concern for the good of the boys, beginning with their human and spiritual needs. Even the most abandoned were helped to make contact with God and the Church, and those who showed particular dispositions were led explicitly towards holiness. The nearness of God and the presence of Mary most Holy were almost sensibly felt.

The community was in no way extraordinary; it was formed of youngsters long on enthusiasm but short on experience, some with outstanding qualities and others with normal and even quite modest endowments, but it was a community led by Don Bosco, with his understanding of each one’s capabilities, in a “mission” felt by all to be unique and one in which they were all involved. There were different roles, tasks and work to be done in widely different ways; but there was a definite and general sense of membership of the oratory and belonging to Don Bosco. It was in no way diminished or obscured by the variety of roles or commitments, or the dimensions of skills and settings.

Despite the moments of tension and difficulty that we know of, the Valdocco community appeared united around a plan of action and the person of its director, something Don Bosco considered fundamental for its apostolic efficacy. He made every effort, therefore, to foster creativity and involve everyone through spontaneous or established forms of participation, so as to ensure unity in activity, harmony among individuals and consistency of criteria.

In this way the community became the soul of an environment which attracted and won over the hearts of the youngsters: it produced a climate of familiarity, which encouraged spontaneity and led to confidence; it expressed that “pedagogical charity”, the kindness which gives rise to loving attachment and arouses a parallel feeling.¹⁷ Don Bosco presented it in his Introduction to the Rule in these words: “When this brotherly love reigns in a community towards one another, and all rejoice in another’s good just as though it were their own, then that house becomes heaven itself”.

The youthful oratory community was neither closed nor isolated. It had relationships with persons of significance, various religious and civil associations, and with the general context of the city. From the beginning Don Bosco’s idea was that it should be linked with the Cooperators’ Association as being two branches of the same tree. And so he wrote in the Regulations for the Cooperators: “This Congregation, being definitively approved by the Church, can serve as a sure and stable bond for Salesian Cooperators, In fact, it has for its primary purpose the carrying out of works for the benefit of youth upon whom rests the good or bad state of future society. By putting forward such a proposal, we do not mean that this is the only means for providing for such a need, since there are hundreds of others which we highly recommend, for they are doing good work. We on our part propose one, and it is the work of Salesian Cooperators”.¹⁸

At the centre of that lively and open world that was Valdocco, Don Bosco, led by the Lord, wanted consecrated persons who would pull in other apostolic forces involved in the same project, a guarantee of development and of the continuation of the mission.

The mission, carried on with the same spirit of Valdocco, provides our communities with the criterion for resolving tensions that may arise. This does not lessen any aspect of fraternity but, in fact, gives it its concrete form. If the meaning of our educative mission to the young were to fall away, our own fraternity would lose its originality and force of communication. It would no longer be the hive of activity that the oratory was, but only a fixed reproduction of it.

The mission, on the other hand, is not an individual insertion from which one returns to the community only occasionally or to pray and rest: we share its life and also the responsibility for its apostolic work: “to live and work together is for us Salesians a fundamental requirement and a sure way of fulfilling our vocation”.¹⁹

The salesian mission is of its nature a community one. The Constitutions say so with great clarity,²⁰ with the force of a definition: the mission is entrusted to a community, provincial and local.²¹

It is a mission to youth: it aims at the growth of young people in line with the energies God has given to each individual and the grace Christ has communicated to the world. The preventive system, which is a synthesis of its content and praxis, requires a family atmosphere and hence a network of relationships. We are not tutors of individuals, nor specialized coaches: we work in and through a community and try to create broad youthful environments. The ensemble of content and experiences which educational praxis recognizes as adequate for the human development and growth in faith of the young, calls for a convergent synergy of interventions which cannot be realized by a single person working alone.

We may add, moreover, that youngsters must be guided towards maturity in relationships and social life with all its implications; and that the process of faith which we suggest has as its objective the leading of them to an experience of Christian community lived in line with its characteristic dimensions.

Communion and fraternity therefore, the community and family, are the condition, process and substantial part of the mission. This is something that prompts us to make of it an authentic experience and to become its expert craftsmen.

II. A community process for becoming an animating nucleus.

The above reflections give rise to further questions: How does the salesian community become competent as the animating nucleus of a large group of individuals, who are frequently professionally prepared? What does being an animating nucleus call for from the community? What weight does religious consecration have in the animation of an educative community?

We shall try to respond by analyzing certain perspectives more deeply and exploring some other possibilities. We shall concentrate our attention not only on the reality of animation as already presented by the GC24, and on the manner, methods and content of animation which have been frequently repeated, but also on what renders the animating nucleus competent for carrying out its service.

1. Redesigning the mission.