S TRENNA 2008

by Pascual Chávez Villanueva

E DUCATING WITH THE HEART

OF DB

AN

EDUCATIVE/PASTORAL SERVICE

“An educator needs to approach his work with seriousness and mental alertness. He needs to be aware of all the currents that influence young people and help them to assess them and make choices [...] It is not enough to know, one has to communicate. It is not enough just to communicate, one has to communicate oneself. Someone who communicates an idea but not himself, teaches but does not educate [...] We need to love what we communicate and the person to whom we communicate.”¹

More than the works, what is important are the people to whom we are sent and to whom we have to give a sound service from the educational and pastoral points of view. For Don Bosco “the young were his masters” that he had to get to know and to save. Formation, therefore is the primary requirement for his vocation and his mission, because one needs to be in form – from the educative, religious and pastoral points of view – in the face of whatever kind of situation the young may find themselves in. So that the educational service provided may be of high quality, it is necessary to invest in people, resources, and time in the formation of those involved; and it is necessary to form not only the minds and intelligence but also the hearts. On this account, as educators we need to appreciate our educational vocation in all its dignity. We really need to be in form in order to respond to the “problem of education” as a challenge to our professional competence and not as an excuse to hold back, to give up our educational role. The “quality” of our daily lives ought to be the chosen platform for formation.

☻ For someone who is an educator by vocation, educational activity is “the special place for a meeting with God.”² Therefore it is not a matter of something marginal to our lives. Being with the young is a spiritual experience and the pastoral focus of the educator according to the heart of Don Bosco. If this unifying centre crumbles, the way is open for individualism, activism or opportunism which constitute a dangerous temptation for educational institutions. Pastoral charity is the motor of an educational spirituality that is the result of effort, dedication, reflection, study and continual and vigilant attention; but its roots are in a union with God (as though seeing the Invisible), and it is translated into prayer and action, into spiritual life and asceticism. In this way it leads to the sanctification of the educator and at the same time of the young. Jesus wants to share his life with them, and the Holy Spirit becomes present in them in order to build the human and Christian community. Educators and young people walk side by side on the same path of holiness. For this reason one needs to accept the challenge of being, through education, missionaries to today’s young people. The service offered by Salesian education is total and complete because it takes account of each and every one of the dimensions of the individual, seeking the total good of the young “here and for eternity,” the honest citizen and the good Christian as expressed in the three terms: health, knowledge, holiness. This educational service suits everyone. It is meant for the masses and for each individual, for any setting and every educational situation, given that the principles and the techniques that govern it can be put into practice by ordinary educators who possess – and this is necessary – a deep Christian spirit and are gifted with great pastoral charity towards the students.

☻ Don Bosco, a practical man, knew that the real value of any educational method is measured by its capacity to motivate those who are discouraged, to recover those who have thrown in the sponge, to offer to society, as honest and skilled professionals, those youngsters he had gathered together from the streets and the squares, exposed to all the dangers of a large city. His method prepared men for a life that was profoundly human through a profession, useful to themselves and to society. Don Bosco was always an educator: in the playground, in the dining-room, in the class-room, in the work-shop, in the chapel. Because of this, the Salesian educational project is not limited by any structure. Education is a relationship between people and this is possible equally in formal settings as in the youngsters’ free time. Body and soul, the individual and the group, culture and physical health: everything is included in this approach to education, adapted to all settings, to all geographical, social and religious contexts, to every kind of individual student and especially to all educators who sincerely have the good of the youngsters at heart. We can conclude by saying that educational and pastoral service can take many forms, as determined by the needs of those to whom it is offered. Sensitive to the signs of the times and attentive to the needs of the place and of the Church, we renew our structures with creativity and constant flexibility, seeking to be everywhere missionaries of the young, bearers of the Gospel to today’s youth. The Salesian educator is a always a son of Don Bosco who declared himself ready for anything, even to “tipping his hat to the devil”³, in order to save the souls of his boys. ☻