austraLasia #3384
GC27 due to formally begin!
ROME: 4 March 2014 -- Any official communications on sessions within GC27 now underway, you can follow through ANS and sdb.org, while austraLasia shall continue its service as an unofficial adjunct and accompaniment, like an appetiser, or dessert if you wish, or, if your tastes are different, like a little sip of Laphroaig to give you a 'peaty' taste to events in Rome!
How Monday morning, 3 March unfolded
Morning
7.30 a.m. Concelebration - Mass of the Holy Spirit
Fr Pascual Chávez presided - "Let us ask God for the gift par excellence, “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”. He witnesses to Jesus and makes us in turn witnesses of the Christ. May he guide us through this Chapter Assembly. We need him to come, as he did at Pentecost, and personally and pastorally convert us, transform us from being closed and self-certain individuals to being open and courageous disciples, profoundly renewed so that we become “witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel”. See complete homily.
10.30 a.m. Prayer of invocation to the Holy Spirit, the Veni, Creator Spiritus
The Word of God enthroned
Fr Pascual Chávez' opening address. Here are key excerpts:
Opening gambit
On Sunday 10 November 2013, the final day of my visit to the Kolkata Province, I had the grace of visiting the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa once again. On the first occasion I was welcomed by Mother Nirmala, but this time it was Mother Prema who received me and came with me to pray beside the bed on which Mother Teresa had breathed her last, in the same room she had occupied up to the moment of her ‘Passover’. Our prayer then continued before her sepulchre, in the chapel at the Mother House. I must confess that at that moment I felt a deep inspiration, similar to the one I had felt before the Casket of Padre Pio last July, concerning what it implied for our “radical Gospel approach”. The Saints, especially Padre Pio and Mother Teresa, are a testimony, like Don Bosco for how we should live the Gospel radically ...
I would very much like to say that what concerns us is not the future of the Congregation, almost as if it were a matter of survival, but rather our prophetic capacity, meaning our charismatic identity, our apostolic passion ...
Pope Francis
I believe it behoves me here to refer to the captivating and charismatic model which Pope Francis has introduced into the Church. By his gestures, attitudes and interventions he is already profoundly renewing it, seeking to enlighten minds, warm hearts and strengthen the will of all through the light and vigour of the Gospel to make us all courageous witnesses, “missionary disciples of Christ”, sent into the world, fearlessly, to serve the poor and excluded and thus transform this society. I do not believe that as a Congregation we can remain indifferent or detached concerning this; through him, I am convinced, the Spirit is speaking to the Church ...
The Congregation's way forward
It seems to me that it is important to recognise, understand and take up this splendid ecclesial moment we are living through. Without being too pretentious, I would say that the road we are on as a Congregation and a Salesian Family, in preparation for the bicentenary of the birth of our beloved Father and Founder Don Bosco, is in fact along these lines. ...
Let's take a step forward now by asking ourselves what, at this moment, is God's will for us as an institution ...
Challenges to be faced up to
Thanks be to God the Congregation has thus far not experienced division and has been loved and blessed by the Lord. Thanks be to God it has grown immensely over these 150 years, multiplying its presences throughout the world. Today however there are new and powerful challenges on the horizon. In my view, and with the experience of these 12 years of government, there are three we must pay particular attention to:
Community life
Before he died, in his letter of convocation of GC25, Fr Vecchi maintained that community life was not only a topic to be studied but rather a turning point for renewal of the Congregation's life ...
The young
Young people have become a huge challenge for us. The serious risk we run and, at the same time, the great temptation we can be subject to, is that of becoming administrators of our works but ceasing to be pastors and educators of the young ...
Vocation and formation
The third challenge the Congregation is called to tackle is the point regarding “vocation and formation” of Salesians. I consider this topic to be of vital importance. This is why I wanted to make it the topic of my last letter as Rector Major. I consider the problem of vocation and formation to be a very strategic one! ...
The Chapter's tasks
Therefore the Congregation is called in this Chapter, which is an extraordinary moment for spiritual and charismatic preparation for celebration of the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, to understand its Founder and Father ever more deeply, to take up his pedagogical experience, his preventive system with conviction and to make its own his spirituality which is marked by pastoral and educative charity ...
The urgent need to understand our origins
Over these three years of preparation for the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, but already since the last Chapter and its appeal to ‘return to Don Bosco’ we have asked ourselves how he went about things in his time. Today, as then, the challenge is the same: bringing the values of the Gospel back into moral, social, cultural, political life through education, not to create a new "Christianity" or even to regain areas or privileges we have lost, but to offer a contribution to forming an individual and collective culture which knows how to foreground the real needs of the human being.
Historical and ecclesial significance of Don Bosco
In my view, Don Bosco's original contribution is to be found, prior to it being in the many "works" and in certain relatively original methodological elements – such as the famous “preventive system of Don Bosco “ – in the intellectual and emotional perception he had of the universal, theological and social import of the problem of "abandoned" youth.
The General Chapter
We are called to return to the essential, to be a poor Congregation for the poor, and to rediscover inspiration from the very apostolic passion of Don Bosco. We are invited to draw on the bountiful wellsprings of the charism and at the same time open ourselves bravely and creatively to new ways of expressing it today ...
Attitudes for taking part
So then how are we to live this experience of the Chapter in a constructive way? What kind of commitment should every Chapter member take on board? What are the attitudes one should have when taking part in a General Chapter? ...
GC27 requires our complete involvement. We are all called to live this event responsibly, to see its vital importance and to refresh our interest and availability each day for the road that the Spirit is leading us to set out on. ...in particular, serious reflection, calm, profound prayer, personal contribution, awareness that we are called individually to be part of it, a readiness to listen to God and ourselves. Our openness to the questions, provocations, stimuli and challenges of modern man, in our case those of the young, frees us from every kind of sclerosis, tonelessness, stalemate or bourgeois mentality and sets us on the road “in step with God” ... Historical sensitivity has been a typical element of Don Bosco's and of the Congregation, and today more than ever we cannot overlook this ... Our community and our life cannot be built on any other foundation than Christ nor can it be built with outmoded materials. Many experiences confirm the suspicion that at times, here and there, we have tried to build the house on sand, and not on rock. Every attempt to refound consecrated life which does not lead us back to Christ, the foundation of our life, and which does not make us more faithful to Don Bosco, our founder, is destined to fail.
Theme
At times there is a tendency to identify our being radical with perfection or seeking it, but it is not so: we do not expect fruit from a small plant, and even more so from a seed just planted in the ground, but that it puts down good, deep roots. For someone who wants to enter Salesian life, or religious life in general, we cannot demand that he be "holy" (unfortunately, at times, not even after many years of consecrated life) unless he is well-rooted/radical in his life choices ... I believe this has implications for formation ...
Aims and results
GC27 aims to help every confrere and every community to faithfully live out Don Bosco's apostolic project. GC27 desires then, in continuity with GC26, to further strengthen our charismatic identity ...
Conclusion
My dear confreres and Chapter members, on 25 March 2008 I was re-elected as Rector Major by GC26 and on the days that followed the Vicar and other Sector and Regional Councillors were elected, with the task of animating and governing the Congregation for the six year period, 2008-2014. Over these six years we have sought to live this task intensely, investing our best energies in it ...
I conclude by entrusting this Pentecostal event of our Congregation to Our Lady, to Mary the Immaculate Help of Christians. She has always been there in our history and her presence and help will not be lacking at this time.
Address by Card. João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. His address focuses on the following
"Amongst the many aspects in which we are called to express our radical witness to the Gospel, and which Fr Chávez has summed up in the three ways indicated above, I would like to highlight just one which seems to me to be so important in today's ecclesial and social context, for our consecrated lives to be authentic and truly a credible witness to our choice of God and to the validity of the Gospel for our time: living the prophecy of communion and fraternity."
Greeting from Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone - in the name of all Salesian prelates around the world:
"In our specific task, the sharing of the very same basic inspirations guiding our life, putting together our gifts, material and intellectual resources with the exercising of a ministry of unity which is properly that of the Bishop, has allowed us to offer young people ideals and horizons for life, and to be able to say again with Don Bosco: “for you I study, for you I work, for you I live, for you I am even ready to give my life” (C. 14)."
Greeting from Mother Yvonne Reungoat, Superior General FMA
"Our two General Chapters are taking place on the vigil of the year dedicated to consecrated life which Pope Francis declared at his 29 November 2013 meeting in the Vatican with 120 Superiors General. In the days preceding this they had gathered for their General Assembly right here in the Salesianum. Pope Francis’ words are a happy confirmation of the theme you have chosen for the Chapter. The Pontiff stressed that a radical approach is required of all Christians, but religious are called to follow the Lord in a special way. They “are men and women who can reawaken the world”. He also said that “consecrated life is prophecy”, that God “asks us to leave the nest holding us in order to be sent out to the frontiers of the world, avoiding the temptation to become domesticated. This is the most concrete way of imitating the Lord”.
Greeting from Ms Noemi Bertola, World Coordinator for the Salesian Cooperators. Cf complete text.
Greeting from Ms Olga Križová, Coordinator General for Don Bosco Volunteers, in the name of the Salesian Family. Cf complete text.
Fr Francesco Cereda, Moderator for the 27th General Chapter declares the Chapter formally open.
Concluding hymn, Sub tuum praesidium confugimus
1.00 p.m. Lunch
Terminology
If there is any terminology used that you are unsure of, and you don't have the app, look it up in the Salesians A-Z web page.
One homily of particular note
A homily of particular note was the one delivered by Cardinal Farina on the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time to the by now assembled Chapter members in Rome. Amongst other things, but rather more than other things, he focused on return to 'the complete Don Bosco' and highlighted this in a particular way, as the excerpts below indicate:
"In my life as a Salesian religious, bishop and cardinal I have always had to deal with books. Allow me then to continue listing ways by which Don Bosco aimed to carry out his Salesian mission. I invite you to read the Circular on spreading good books written by Don Bosco and sent to all Salesians in 1885." [He then quotes extensively from this] ... "Dear confreres, these expressions of our Founder are not only interesting from an historical point of view, but they are also wise and important for our life, our Congregation and its future."
Obviously we don't have to copy the exact structures Don Bosco set up. But - I ask myself - does it cost us so much to say that vocations and formation houses are what we are most serious about, since they guarantee the survival of the Congregation and the good works it does? Why don't we put some articles and photos in the Salesian Bulletin and in our magazines, on our formation houses (aspirantates, novitiates, studentates of philosophy and theology...) and include their postal address, phone number etc.?
Let's go back, my dear confreres, to reading Don Bosco, getting to know his life and works and how much he achieved: so - the Don Bosco of his writings and, much more broadly still, what he was, what he experienced, what he achieved, a complete Don Bosco , his greatness, as the Lord gave him to us and for which we want to thank Him in this Eucharistic celebration."
GC27 due to formally begin!
ROME: 4 March 2014 -- Any official communications on sessions within GC27 now underway, you can follow through ANS and sdb.org, while austraLasia shall continue its service as an unofficial adjunct and accompaniment, like an appetiser, or dessert if you wish, or, if your tastes are different, like a little sip of Laphroaig to give you a 'peaty' taste to events in Rome!
How Monday morning, 3 March unfolded
Morning
7.30 a.m. Concelebration - Mass of the Holy Spirit
Fr Pascual Chávez presided - "Let us ask God for the gift par excellence, “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”. He witnesses to Jesus and makes us in turn witnesses of the Christ. May he guide us through this Chapter Assembly. We need him to come, as he did at Pentecost, and personally and pastorally convert us, transform us from being closed and self-certain individuals to being open and courageous disciples, profoundly renewed so that we become “witnesses to the radical approach of the Gospel”. See complete homily.
10.30 a.m. Prayer of invocation to the Holy Spirit, the Veni, Creator Spiritus
The Word of God enthroned
Fr Pascual Chávez' opening address. Here are key excerpts:
Opening gambit
On Sunday 10 November 2013, the final day of my visit to the Kolkata Province, I had the grace of visiting the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa once again. On the first occasion I was welcomed by Mother Nirmala, but this time it was Mother Prema who received me and came with me to pray beside the bed on which Mother Teresa had breathed her last, in the same room she had occupied up to the moment of her ‘Passover’. Our prayer then continued before her sepulchre, in the chapel at the Mother House. I must confess that at that moment I felt a deep inspiration, similar to the one I had felt before the Casket of Padre Pio last July, concerning what it implied for our “radical Gospel approach”. The Saints, especially Padre Pio and Mother Teresa, are a testimony, like Don Bosco for how we should live the Gospel radically ...
I would very much like to say that what concerns us is not the future of the Congregation, almost as if it were a matter of survival, but rather our prophetic capacity, meaning our charismatic identity, our apostolic passion ...
Pope Francis
I believe it behoves me here to refer to the captivating and charismatic model which Pope Francis has introduced into the Church. By his gestures, attitudes and interventions he is already profoundly renewing it, seeking to enlighten minds, warm hearts and strengthen the will of all through the light and vigour of the Gospel to make us all courageous witnesses, “missionary disciples of Christ”, sent into the world, fearlessly, to serve the poor and excluded and thus transform this society. I do not believe that as a Congregation we can remain indifferent or detached concerning this; through him, I am convinced, the Spirit is speaking to the Church ...
The Congregation's way forward
It seems to me that it is important to recognise, understand and take up this splendid ecclesial moment we are living through. Without being too pretentious, I would say that the road we are on as a Congregation and a Salesian Family, in preparation for the bicentenary of the birth of our beloved Father and Founder Don Bosco, is in fact along these lines. ...
Let's take a step forward now by asking ourselves what, at this moment, is God's will for us as an institution ...
Challenges to be faced up to
Thanks be to God the Congregation has thus far not experienced division and has been loved and blessed by the Lord. Thanks be to God it has grown immensely over these 150 years, multiplying its presences throughout the world. Today however there are new and powerful challenges on the horizon. In my view, and with the experience of these 12 years of government, there are three we must pay particular attention to:
Community life
Before he died, in his letter of convocation of GC25, Fr Vecchi maintained that community life was not only a topic to be studied but rather a turning point for renewal of the Congregation's life ...
The young
Young people have become a huge challenge for us. The serious risk we run and, at the same time, the great temptation we can be subject to, is that of becoming administrators of our works but ceasing to be pastors and educators of the young ...
Vocation and formation
The third challenge the Congregation is called to tackle is the point regarding “vocation and formation” of Salesians. I consider this topic to be of vital importance. This is why I wanted to make it the topic of my last letter as Rector Major. I consider the problem of vocation and formation to be a very strategic one! ...
The Chapter's tasks
Therefore the Congregation is called in this Chapter, which is an extraordinary moment for spiritual and charismatic preparation for celebration of the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, to understand its Founder and Father ever more deeply, to take up his pedagogical experience, his preventive system with conviction and to make its own his spirituality which is marked by pastoral and educative charity ...
The urgent need to understand our origins
Over these three years of preparation for the bicentenary of Don Bosco's birth, but already since the last Chapter and its appeal to ‘return to Don Bosco’ we have asked ourselves how he went about things in his time. Today, as then, the challenge is the same: bringing the values of the Gospel back into moral, social, cultural, political life through education, not to create a new "Christianity" or even to regain areas or privileges we have lost, but to offer a contribution to forming an individual and collective culture which knows how to foreground the real needs of the human being.
Historical and ecclesial significance of Don Bosco
In my view, Don Bosco's original contribution is to be found, prior to it being in the many "works" and in certain relatively original methodological elements – such as the famous “preventive system of Don Bosco “ – in the intellectual and emotional perception he had of the universal, theological and social import of the problem of "abandoned" youth.
The General Chapter
We are called to return to the essential, to be a poor Congregation for the poor, and to rediscover inspiration from the very apostolic passion of Don Bosco. We are invited to draw on the bountiful wellsprings of the charism and at the same time open ourselves bravely and creatively to new ways of expressing it today ...
Attitudes for taking part
So then how are we to live this experience of the Chapter in a constructive way? What kind of commitment should every Chapter member take on board? What are the attitudes one should have when taking part in a General Chapter? ...
GC27 requires our complete involvement. We are all called to live this event responsibly, to see its vital importance and to refresh our interest and availability each day for the road that the Spirit is leading us to set out on. ...in particular, serious reflection, calm, profound prayer, personal contribution, awareness that we are called individually to be part of it, a readiness to listen to God and ourselves. Our openness to the questions, provocations, stimuli and challenges of modern man, in our case those of the young, frees us from every kind of sclerosis, tonelessness, stalemate or bourgeois mentality and sets us on the road “in step with God” ... Historical sensitivity has been a typical element of Don Bosco's and of the Congregation, and today more than ever we cannot overlook this ... Our community and our life cannot be built on any other foundation than Christ nor can it be built with outmoded materials. Many experiences confirm the suspicion that at times, here and there, we have tried to build the house on sand, and not on rock. Every attempt to refound consecrated life which does not lead us back to Christ, the foundation of our life, and which does not make us more faithful to Don Bosco, our founder, is destined to fail.
Theme
At times there is a tendency to identify our being radical with perfection or seeking it, but it is not so: we do not expect fruit from a small plant, and even more so from a seed just planted in the ground, but that it puts down good, deep roots. For someone who wants to enter Salesian life, or religious life in general, we cannot demand that he be "holy" (unfortunately, at times, not even after many years of consecrated life) unless he is well-rooted/radical in his life choices ... I believe this has implications for formation ...
Aims and results
GC27 aims to help every confrere and every community to faithfully live out Don Bosco's apostolic project. GC27 desires then, in continuity with GC26, to further strengthen our charismatic identity ...
Conclusion
My dear confreres and Chapter members, on 25 March 2008 I was re-elected as Rector Major by GC26 and on the days that followed the Vicar and other Sector and Regional Councillors were elected, with the task of animating and governing the Congregation for the six year period, 2008-2014. Over these six years we have sought to live this task intensely, investing our best energies in it ...
I conclude by entrusting this Pentecostal event of our Congregation to Our Lady, to Mary the Immaculate Help of Christians. She has always been there in our history and her presence and help will not be lacking at this time.
Address by Card. João Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. His address focuses on the following
"Amongst the many aspects in which we are called to express our radical witness to the Gospel, and which Fr Chávez has summed up in the three ways indicated above, I would like to highlight just one which seems to me to be so important in today's ecclesial and social context, for our consecrated lives to be authentic and truly a credible witness to our choice of God and to the validity of the Gospel for our time: living the prophecy of communion and fraternity."
Greeting from Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone - in the name of all Salesian prelates around the world:
"In our specific task, the sharing of the very same basic inspirations guiding our life, putting together our gifts, material and intellectual resources with the exercising of a ministry of unity which is properly that of the Bishop, has allowed us to offer young people ideals and horizons for life, and to be able to say again with Don Bosco: “for you I study, for you I work, for you I live, for you I am even ready to give my life” (C. 14)."
Greeting from Mother Yvonne Reungoat, Superior General FMA
"Our two General Chapters are taking place on the vigil of the year dedicated to consecrated life which Pope Francis declared at his 29 November 2013 meeting in the Vatican with 120 Superiors General. In the days preceding this they had gathered for their General Assembly right here in the Salesianum. Pope Francis’ words are a happy confirmation of the theme you have chosen for the Chapter. The Pontiff stressed that a radical approach is required of all Christians, but religious are called to follow the Lord in a special way. They “are men and women who can reawaken the world”. He also said that “consecrated life is prophecy”, that God “asks us to leave the nest holding us in order to be sent out to the frontiers of the world, avoiding the temptation to become domesticated. This is the most concrete way of imitating the Lord”.
Greeting from Ms Noemi Bertola, World Coordinator for the Salesian Cooperators. Cf complete text.
Greeting from Ms Olga Križová, Coordinator General for Don Bosco Volunteers, in the name of the Salesian Family. Cf complete text.
Fr Francesco Cereda, Moderator for the 27th General Chapter declares the Chapter formally open.
Concluding hymn, Sub tuum praesidium confugimus
1.00 p.m. Lunch
Terminology
If there is any terminology used that you are unsure of, and you don't have the app, look it up in the Salesians A-Z web page.
One homily of particular note
A homily of particular note was the one delivered by Cardinal Farina on the 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time to the by now assembled Chapter members in Rome. Amongst other things, but rather more than other things, he focused on return to 'the complete Don Bosco' and highlighted this in a particular way, as the excerpts below indicate:
"In my life as a Salesian religious, bishop and cardinal I have always had to deal with books. Allow me then to continue listing ways by which Don Bosco aimed to carry out his Salesian mission. I invite you to read the Circular on spreading good books written by Don Bosco and sent to all Salesians in 1885." [He then quotes extensively from this] ... "Dear confreres, these expressions of our Founder are not only interesting from an historical point of view, but they are also wise and important for our life, our Congregation and its future."
Obviously we don't have to copy the exact structures Don Bosco set up. But - I ask myself - does it cost us so much to say that vocations and formation houses are what we are most serious about, since they guarantee the survival of the Congregation and the good works it does? Why don't we put some articles and photos in the Salesian Bulletin and in our magazines, on our formation houses (aspirantates, novitiates, studentates of philosophy and theology...) and include their postal address, phone number etc.?
Let's go back, my dear confreres, to reading Don Bosco, getting to know his life and works and how much he achieved: so - the Don Bosco of his writings and, much more broadly still, what he was, what he experienced, what he achieved, a complete Don Bosco , his greatness, as the Lord gave him to us and for which we want to thank Him in this Eucharistic celebration."
