THE SALESIAN RECTOR: GUIDE IN SPIRITUAL AND PASTORAL MATTERS FOR THE EXTENDED COMMUNITY
This brief initial reflection is simple in its purpose: to help you discover your mission of community animation as a mission entrusted to you by God, to become aware of its importance and value, and to re-awaken your real desire to do what is in fact God’s will for you.
We are left in no doubt, by the accumulated force of General Chapters over the last 25 years, that the Rector’s main task is to be a guide, in virtue of his priestly identity in spiritual; and pastoral matters for a community that today we probably have to call the extended community.
The Salesian community always had young people at the center of its mission and GC23 presented what is still one of the best Chapter documents ever: the journey of faith of young people and its implications for the Salesian community. GC24 which reminded us of the lay dimension to community also reminded us that the Salesian community was the fundamental and crucial issue for giving a new educative and pastoral quality to a Salesian presence.
Fr. Vecchi, convoking GC25 said: ‘The Salesian community is in fact the subject entrusted with carrying out the important deliberations of the last two General Chapters. The journey of faith which we offer to young people and which we make with them demands the witness of a community in constant renewal… The animation of the educative community and of the SF presupposes a Salesian nucleus living fraternally, working in solidarity and which constantly brings its criteria for intervention into line’.
SPIRITUAL AND FRATERNAL QUALITY OF COMMUNITY
Every Salesian presence must have a face, a soul, an ability to make suggestions and call together, rather than to simply organize lots of things. Today our interest is in being a reference point for a new style of living, maybe even a little less efficient than before, but more human just the same. Young people also definitely need the witness of a group who can demonstrate a new way of living in a tough, hard world; they need to be able to see that it is worthwhile living together in love.
Evangelisation is only effective if it is witnessed to by someone that people can look up to – the logic of evangelization today is ‘come and see’…come and see this way of living, come and see these persons, come and see this leader who attracts rather than just holds people in thrall.
So a Salesian presence, to present this kind of new face, to be family for those without a family, to be more than just an efficient service organization, needs a powerful dynamic at its center: communion, intense family life, the Gospel, a spirituality that manifests Jesus as living and present, source of life and humanity. It’s interesting to note that the FMA at their last GC focused on communion as the unifying element between the experience of God, the spirituality of communion and education as a way to citizenship.
Our community life is the first gift we offer to the young. ‘We are’ for the young before ‘we do’ for the young. At the center of the Salesian mission is this strong, family-oriented community.
AND AT THE CENTRE OF THIS – THE RECTOR
We know that at Valdocco DB created a unique community style, around himself as the first Rector. Personal relationships of friendship and trust, an open community not just for the young but with the young. This is not just an example but it is the charismatic heart of the Society of St. Francis de Sales. My talks will focus on this by drawing almost solely on DB’s own account of this, and on other texts where he was involved in guiding and at times correcting this community style already at a time when it had another rector….and his concern was to pass on this community style so that when he was gone the Rector would be DB alive in the community. You Rectors have been called to re-live Don Bosco’s fatherliness in the community, able to bring about a dynamic of communion and sharing around the mission, beginning with the confreres. (cf. Cost.55). To relive his fatherliness, his sense of family and communion.
Whether it’s the charismatic, the pastoral or the fraternal focus, we describe the action of the Rector as ‘animation’. Or better as ‘community animation’. And in carrying it, the Rector brings into play his priestly charism. When C. 12 says that the rector must be a priest, this is not a simple juridical requirement. It refers to the fact that the rector, as conceived by DB, lives his priesthood in and for his religious and educative community – a parish priest for his religious community and for the pastoral and educative community it creates around it. This is how GC25 presents it – and we will look at that in one of the talks too.
OUR KIND OF ANIMATION
The kind of community animation we engage in as rectors is not basically of the administrative and organizational kind but is charismatic and spiritual – you could find appropriate scriptural texts for it such as Paul who is in labour once again until Christ is formed in people. But we can find a similar image in Francis de Sales’ explanation of animation which I will touch on tomorrow – he describes at as a labour but one which brings rich rewards like the reaper or harvester experiences.
However you image it or describe it, the task is clear – the rector is the spiritual animator of everyone associated with that community who shares in the Salesian mission…and that’s likely to be much wider than just the confreres. There’s the SF, the EPC, the Friends of Don Bosco, that whole vast movement called Salesian as it relates to our community.
The task then presupposes a ministry involving:
the nourishment of spiritual life, faith, vocation. Rectors form and accompany those who form and accompany!
defining fraternity – giving it depth and reality in this community, so people belong, feel part of the family, a place, as I shall say tomorrow, where the soul feels free to appear.
promoting a passion for education and therefore being the guarantor and witness to what Salesian pastoral ministry has to offer.
keeping a desire for evangelization alive and effective….turning the young towards the Church by ensuring that the wider community of Salesian environment IS Church for them in shared holiness, Word and sacrament.
Alone we could not do all this. Our first resource is Jesus – we are following the love of the Good Shepherd who goes seeking his sheep rather than waiting for them to come to him. This love extends to us. We must believe that Jesus seeks us out too with his love.
In the light of this love, we should:
Overcome the temptation to allow ourselves to be carried along by the feeling that we are not up to the task, escaping and seeking out other more gratifying services to render.
Overcoming the temptation also to lack trust in confreres and for this reason not proposing commitment to them, or not confronting situations, letting things go by; even the most difficult confrere has the Spirit working in him and stimulating him to grow in his vocation, but he needs someone who trusts and helps him.
Overcoming the temptation to wanting to do too much ourselves, without appreciating the gifts of confreres and close helpers, as if one is the "saviour" of the community and of situations.
If, over the next few days, I can be part of the energy and courage you need to overcome these temptations, then I shall be a happy man. That is why I have entitled my entire approach: The Courage to Lead: the spiritual mission of the Salesian Rector. Enough for tonight. Thank you.
