RECTOR MAJOR’S COMMENTS – OPEN FORUM - TEAM VISIT 2005
DAY 1 : Deepening of the spiritual life
We have singled out the biggest challenges of our spiritual life (cf. document on province sharing. These can be summed up thus:
From outside (culture): secularism, consumerism, materialism-individualism…infiltration causing us to live as if God does not really exist. Result is that everything depends on us. We are most professional in our work but the danger is of becoming social workers. Instead we are called to make visible the efficacious salvation of Christ. Materialism leads us to live religious life - ‘professionally’ in the way we run our schools, our training centres etc. It means not proposing models which are alternative to our culture. Consumerism is always looking for the best; it lacks a soul.
From within (weak Salesian identity): living more as a status of life than as a project of life; looking for status, but a project of life speaks rather of dynamics – we end up living without conviction, motivation. It all comes out of generic life style, or superficial way of life.
The lack of quality formation – does mean to disregard [continuous] formation, the loss of vocation. Just another side of the coin. Vocation is God’s gift, formation is our responsibility. It is the best response we can make to the gift. Formation enables us to follow Jesus, live mystically, live in charity, otherwise we end up following nobody. It keeps our life motivated, ascetic in our following of Jesus. It in fact produces a cultural revolution. (Phil 3:I count….as rubbish). Formation is the only way to suitably live a charismatic life…and without Charism (= gift of the Holy Spirit) there is no Religious Life. Beware the temptation to renounce formation.
Lack of interior sense of things: living as Pharisee, superficially in other words. What is important is the external aspect – our activities as pastors, our practices of piety. Remember 1Cor 13 – the greatest gift is love.
If we look seriously at the challenges above, only then does Fr Cereda’s intervnetion make sense. The new style of Religious Life requires people of passion, mystics, people of fire, love as the most powerful of driving forces.
Read the 2 volume series written by Fr Braido (Don Bosco - Prete dei giovani nel secolo delle libertà). Here you see DB with passion in any of life’s endeavours. His main mission was passion. Let’s leave the Holy Spirit to be our leader!
Nietzsche: If you have a ‘why’ you can live any ‘how’. Without convictions and motivation there is no energy, progress, change or journey to growth.
After preparing a letter about the North European region, I was impressed by the number of martyrs during World War II – 200 in Slovenia alone! During communist times they managed to transmit the Charism to others. If you have a why you can face any how!
I am appreciative of Fr Cereda’s talk and of your own sharing. The most important thing we face is to help confreres to find their motivation for life.
To this topic we can add spiritual direction: this was a topic often referred to in the general assembly today. Recall Fr. Rua? ‘Do in MIrabello, as you have seen done in Valdocco!’ – Rector at 25 years of age. His task was to hand over his spiritual experience. If we have no experience, we have nothing to hand over!
We need to help people (rectors) to listen better, to clearly listen to the voice of God now, to help confreres to more generously answer according to what God wants us to be! Rectors are not managers, and not only leaders. They are Fathers, Brothers, Friends and have the task of understanding and incarnating the spiritual role.
Day 2: Planning mentality
Rector Major’s Intervention Day Two – TEAM VISIT 2005,March 8
For a proper situationer of the planning mentality, we need to appreciate the present-day powerful challenges:
cultural challenge: individualism – nobody wants to be menaced in his freedom – neoliberalism that is complete freedom, no limits, no borders, nevertheless it expresses a very poor anthropology since man is really in relationship with other human beings as well as a very false theology because we, believers, are convinced of a God who is community – in fact everything for us is community. Individualism causes sectorialist inside the world. Everyone wants to be the head – give me my place and role and where I am meant to be king. It causes life-fragmentation because there is a lack of center of unity. Don Bosco was a man with a single cause to live for. And the best men and women of the world are those who have this single cause – one dream. Don Rua said this about Don Bosco: salvation of the young, not falling between two lovers. Confreres seek for their niche in order to know when is their free time when as consecrated we are always full time.
personal challenge: activitism. This causes three things – physical tiredness, psychological stress and spiritual emptiness. Confreres are burnt out, stressed and empty. This is because we give primacy to doing rather than to being. This is not mission because our mission is to be signs and bearers for the young not to do. Many of what we do, does not reflect the spiritual backbone of the Salesian charism. This puts at risk also community life – Const.49 is very indicative on this point because it states that in our community we find an answer to our deepest needs.
institutional challenge: a resistance or reluctance to look honestly to the reality and situation of the young – for example to the challenges they are putting to us in terms of our presences. St Ignatius Loyola says that the way the demon tempts people is to offer to people so many things to do that leads to self-destruction. If we need to truly respond to needs of the young, we need to do planning since there are great changes around us. To move from a style of doing education to a planning mentality is the challenge because society has changed! 40 years were different. Society was quite unified – family and school fostered similar values and even societies were made to protect those values. Now, no more. Families are split and the categories are very different. Schools are only for a transfer of knowledge because there is no time to truly take care of the spiritual needs of the young. Society is a free market. So how can we bring together the different pieces of the puzzle? That is why we need a planning mentality because we run the risk of doing things but they are no longer meaningful and significant. Thus, if the families are so fragmented we need to create community with the kids, therefore educative-pastoral communities bringing together parents, teachers, administrative personnel and salesians – or else we not truly be helpful for the young.
Thus the planning mentality is not a slogan of the Rector Major or the General Chapter but an urgent need of the times. So we need a planning mentality which point to our choices, interventions. We need then to convince our confreres that this is the only way.
Day 4: EAO Vision – Mission & Missionary Animation
We are concluding this day of the Team Visit and may be the hardest. But if by tomorrow we can succeed to define our vision for the Region and name the mission we desire for this reality, it would mean a lot. Why? Because this is the first Team Visit of the Region.
In some provinces of this region, there has been a movement from one region to another, e.g. in 1996 the shift of AUL from the English speaking region to AustralAsia region and then in 2002 to the East Asia Oceania Region.
This region is marked by strong cultural differences, something very normal. But this could lead that every province remains pegged to work on its own needs and problems – which case would be a true impoverishment or loss of the opportunity for enrichment. Another huge barrier is the language and so there could be confreres who could not express what they wish to say. For this reason, I accept and understand this situation.
However what could be differences can also be harnessed as a rich resource. Which means that through networking this could happen in different fields like formation, ministry, missions and material resources.
For this reason, I would think that there should be a real insistence on the learning of English as common language of the region.
Three great challenges of the Region:
religious challenge – different contexts means a different religious challenge. However I dare to name some. Example the post-christianity challenge: a society that in the past was built up on Christian values but today are seen only as a scaffolding in the building up of the human society. Now that it is finished, we just take it away not only because it is useless but also it makes ugly the human edifice. In other contexts, there is the atheism of the State like China and Vietnam. From this point of view yours is one of the most complicated region. There are the nations with the Great Religions, eg. Indonesia with 220 Millions people as the largest Moslem state in the world.
social challenge – we have here in your region very developed countries, technologically high and with a good welfare state, and yet the problem posed is the meaning of life. Other countries are faced with great poverty, discrimination eg. the role of woman and the rights of children in the different contexts. Another challenge is the lack of freedom – without the possibility of mobility
cultural challenge – some countries are characterized by postmodernism, that attitude where people are pragmatists and do not believe in anything any more. Everything is relative, no permanent realities. Some others the existence of materialistic mentality where production is the all and end-all. Other countries are in a status quo where the government controls everything or like in Buddhism to just stay in one’s present state
I am trying to reflect on your region’s contexts and challenges because I see that the only thing we can offer to this situation is evangelization and education. And for us Salesians, education is a way of evangelization.
Education is not just schooling or skills development but the transformation of values. In some places of this region, we can only educate because we cannot explicitly evangelize.
Thus the main effort is to educate while evangelizing and evangelize by educating.
And why should we evangelize/educate?
Because Jesus sent us to the farthest regions of the world (Mt 28,18-20).
The track record of the Gospel is that it has transformed cultures and we need to believe in it.
Here and there are a lot of young people. It is enough to say that you are young that Don Bosco is need to be present in this region.
What does evangelization mean?
According to Fr Alencherry, we cannot anymore look at it as it was taken to mean in the past. As if we need to start tabula rasa. Today, evangelization is human development – to help people to pass from inhuman condition to more and more human conditions. Evangelization is to transform the culture – trying to touch the core of each culture by way of inter-religious dialogue
The Holy Father speaks of the third millennium as the evangelization of Asia. In this region there are also populations that are baptized but are not evangelized, people not committed to the living out of the evangelical values. In other places there is also a lot syncretism and thus we need to present in some crystal way what is the core of the Christian life.
We need to relieve millions of people here in your region from poverty.
Day 5: Conclusion - Open forum March 11th, 2005
Q 1: What about evangelical poverty in EAO region? Does not seem to be the crucial element of our witness. How to overcome the difficulties regarding hospitality and evangelical poverty?
RM: No doubt that evangelical poverty is the most convincing sign of solidarity, of witness (natural sense of solidarity is this cultural area). Like the evangelical question of Jesus approached by the young man (Mt 19 – give your money to the poor and follow me!). I don't’ like to find the values in his words. I like to find the sense more in Jesus Life, that speaks more than his words!!
The most evangelical vow is obedience (in the temple: To fulfil the will of the Father – 12 years old until the Cross. You can find it in Phil 2:5-11 (Have the same feeling and heart of Jesus!). To be identified with the historic journey of Christ. From this point of view
to love persons more than things: Our treasure is not in anything but in persons! The first sign of NO evangelical poverty is the gathering of many things/ objects; things are to be used/ persons are to be loved. Only one to be adored – God. Phil 2:5-11 is talking about Jesus who did everything possible to be like a common person, to overcome everything that separates us from others.
In EAO evangelical poverty should be the most striking point of our witness.
I would like to remind us of the dream of 10 diamonds: the feature of a model Salesian for us. The best picture of DB, it mirrors the spiritual makeup of Don Bosco. There is the whole of Salesian spirituality. Keeping in mind this dream:
The face of the Salesian: the FACE is a civil one, like other citizens. We can appear to all people as civil beings, characterized by work and temperance. All should see that we work hard, we have good control of ourselves.IN ORDER to be available to youth and others. The most important diamonds are visible: Work, Work,Work!
At the same time should be known as people of faith, completely oriented to ultimate hope, burning with love. DB with his feet on the ground, looking to heaven. We can overcome evil by good! – This is our deep conviction! The backbone of the Salesian is religious! – that makes possible what we do! Poverty, chastity and obedience, with diamonds of fast and reward – always to be completely free, fast is a kind of element to practice to be more available. Reward - A bit of paradise will settle everything! - help of Fr. Joaquim from the assembly.
WE need to be really very well known by these 10 elements, translated into a very simple lifestyle. Like Don Rua was asked to take the last money of DB before dying. Don Bosco was a little bit disappointed before his death – he believed SDBs should be more detached. He liked a Spartan life style. He dreamt about us – very serene, joyful, but Spartan lifestyle.
HOW to overcome the difficulties?
With a clear preference for poor and abandoned youth! For DB “poor” = means social poverty! Just poor. Therefore because of the poverty eternal happiness can be at risk. ‘Abandoned’ speaks about less affection (lack of affection – even in affluent society – going for sex, drugs, suicide! It is a different poverty! ‘AT RISK’ – because of the age we live in (adolescents, family background – prefer the streets, living context, put at risk their health, growth, eternal salvation(more moral)In different contexts different stresses.
HOW to reconcile hospitality and the evangelical poverty? (I know the hosting province wished to offer the best. I don’t see it as ‘scandalous’. Everything depends on our personal discipline. But always try to balance both (poverty and hospitality
Q 2: How can we coexist in the present context? (terror, reaction to American imperialism, background of Christianity to western imperialism) – some impact on our evangelization in EAO? – challenge to live DB’s Charism in this context?
RM: In fact the political impact of the USA is strong in Latin America (stronger), a completely different way of understanding (a single humanity in the diversity of people) While Europe tries to put all countries at the same level (richer are helping the poorer), in US it is the opposite trend.
Clash of civilization (book of Hamilton; Samuel P.Huntington?) you know it. Koffi Annan called a group of wise men in order to prevent it! Asked by the UN to avoid this clash. This confrontation between East /West is still possible.But without doubt the clash of fundamentalism of various religious groups is here. It has happened in many places in Asia
WE should learn to be more tolerant towards differences.
WE should educate to be peace-makers, not peace keepers! It is a big difference to try keep peace by force, than by education. JP II is asking the minimum of ethical standard accepted by everybody in the SINGLE, ONE, UNIQUE world!
HOW TO LIVE OUR CHARISM in this context? Like Fr. Vigano saying: “Il pianeta giovane e il mondo salesiano! Wherever are youngsters the Salesian life should grow!” WE need to believe in youth! We are still complaining. I believe DB never would complain! DB’s most radical expression: “Even in the most bad of the boys, there are seeds of goods, and the task of educators is to help to re-construct their lives!”
Fr. Vecchi used to say: “L’oratorio e la Patria del Carisma Salesiano!” Because Oratory is not a structure, is to put the young at the centre of our life! And they should feel they are loved! Invite you to believe in the value of education – like the recent Cardinal Ratzinger’s answer to the Salesians (SDB in Europe: November 2005) –“You give the PROPHECY OF EDUCATION! – Give Europe back its soul!”
WE need to take a chance on Salesian/ education & to enhance the preventive system, to create a preventive culture.
Q 3: And what about post-modernity in Europe, what impression did you got? The prevailing attitude is a life without Christian values, Christ out of the life?
RM: About post Christianity – yesterdays talk [ndr: Missionary challenges of EAO] post modernity is different. The Congregation of the Faith is studying the impact of the NEW age on youth! – It is creating syncretism: psychological, religious, with a lot of disaffection to the commitment.
For example: in French newspaper - among the youth there is a nothing of eroticism, but they are looking for suicide. I imagine the way for the youth - to appreciate life. I know, it is not easy for poor, marginalized kids to be grateful for their life, but…… . DB s prayer “I thank you God, for you have created me, made me Christian – the first gift for DB is always LIFE”. WE are called to help them to discover their life as a gift, to open their capabilities. Now youngsters don't believe in absolute values, it is difficult for them. [ expressions: ‘I like it , I don't’ like, It is pleasant, It is interesting or not interesting). It is very difficult to present the CROSS – as Nietzsche 100 years ago to present the Cross a sign of happiness, more a sign of a paradox.
So now youth should be helped to have EXPERIENCE of values, help them to discover that service is beautiful. Help them to discover, that consecration to GOD is worthwhile. You remember the Companion of Youth (Il giovane proveduto, 1847) There are mention TWO TEMPTATIONS: (1) religion is boring! (2) delay to think about the future – Then I will convert myself! - The situation is not much different today!
Q 4: Dealing with planning. We feel still two difficulties: (1) language of planning: taken from capitalistic economy – Vision mission is taken from the Gospel – there is a danger we take our own set of terminology. (2) Should we be more conformed to the Gospel? Plan of life: when I see Jesus on the cross, as a symbol of failure. Is not our planning too human, should we not be taking more God’s initiative. Is not enough to be abandoned as Jesus?
RM: This experience of language taken from other (civil) society was done since the 1st century AD (Liturgy taken from the Roman Empire). The problem is to assume a kind of mentality behind the words.
Planning in the Congregation: already many years – Fr. Vecchi produced many years ago a series about YM [series of sussidi] – about planning motivation (fragmentation to be brought together, resources pooled together). IT is nothing new.
Regarding the language issue, for me there is more perplexity concerning the “leader” instead of a “rector” – according Don Bosco: ‘Call me father and I’m happy.’ For him moral authority was more important. Of course now we run more enterprises, should run them well, with professional competence. But when we talk about SDB community, the rector is a FATHER, BROTHER and FRIEND.
Plan of life – already Fr. Vigano talks (1981; ACG 303) about planning our sanctity! I like to ready Fr. Vigano’s life plan. Just in four sentences he expressed the ideal of the Salesian priest! There are very beautiful expression – with a very clear project of life. You can read clearly HIS OPTION! I like to communicate at a very deep level. It can be useful for us to cultivate our evangelical attitudes, our holiness!
Q: The future of our Congregation? When looking at Spain- they are well organized, all strategies, but also their Salesian, religious life is flat – very few vocations. Thinking about the Filipinos in Italy – where some local communities were enlivened by the presence of these Filipino workers. Should we receive the input from these advanced countries? They pass on these ideas which might not to respond to our vision of life, Charism? WHAT is the future of the Congregation?
RM: Father [XY]… is already asking a report for the next GC 26! I’m an optimist, not because an optimist is a badly informed pessimist!
Its true in Europe the SDB vocations decreasing, average age is high, but those who are leaving are not so many (South Asia has the least). No vocations can mean that YM is not well done. But there is also no “raw material” – young people getting fewer. It is a problem for the large society, getting too aged. The few working people have to maintain all increasing numbers of the old people! Influence of Religious Life is big too (Letter about the ‘Western Europe Region’, Sept 2004). We will be less, but for sure NOT disappear. Like FMA in Italy with about 7000 sisters were in Italy in 22 provinces. Now they are merging into 7 provinces of 5000 sisters (For example creating some mega-provinces like Piedmont with 1250 FMA one single province! Three other provinces are with 900 FMA– all of them with very high age – Piedmont only with 50 sisters below 50 years of age. Also we in Italy not so many, but our average age is not so high). We are going to concentrate, be prepared for the new scenario, to be less, there are still many youngsters in Western Europe and many of them are immigrants! This was my invitation for all the European provinces.
In the other parts of the Congregation: In America – both regions maintaining numbers, slightly decreasing (Argentina decreasing; Uruguay). The South Asia region is increasing, just India has now 10 Provinces. Europe is still getting vocations from Eastern part of Europe. And your Region of EAO – you have some provinces with many vocations (ITM, VIE). We need to do much more in the Philippines! Africa is also a resource of vocations.
