Salesian Brothers' meeting November 5, FIN - Manila
Manila, the Philippines, 5 November, 2017 -- The Salesian Brothers in the Philippine North Province gather three times (3) a year for formation and fellowship. During this second gathering, there were 32 brothers present coming from the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and India.
Fr. Armand presented the reality of young professionals who are millennials and of the Salesians from the “Letter from Rome” with Valfre asking Don Bosco, “Where are the Salesians?”
How are we being invited to accompany the young? The young people whose culture is the “internet of things”? Fr. Armand draws from the message of our Rector Major Fr. Angel Fernandez to GC27, we need to get “caught up in God’s storyline” just like Don Bosco (GC27, 120-121). It must be palpable in our lives.
The young we have today are in an internet world: of contradiction, disconnection and entitlement. Contradictions give way to diversity, and diversity to tolerance. While disconnections lead to nonchalance, and nonchalance to a desire and search for integrity. On the other hand, a world on fast and furious mode leads to content-overload, immediate entertainment, real time and non-stop streaming. Speed begets entitlement.
Where are the Salesians? Fr. Armand proposes three spiritualties as response: First, the Salesian is challenged to live a spirituality of tolerance. Our Rector Major Emeritus Pascual Chavez says, “We should not oblige the world to enter the Church; it is rather the Church which must welcome the world as it is, as a place of salvation” (GC27, 74). Second, the Salesian is challenged to live a spirituality of authenticity. Virtual is real but our response is “the humanizing power of the Gospel witnessed in fraternity lived in community created through welcome, respect…as Pope Francis told us” (GC27, 120-121). Third, the Salesian is challenged to live a spirituality of courage expressed through a life of work and temperance. Living a life of work and temperance for the poor, the least and the excluded, “will shine brightly if our way of life is characterized by sobriety, austerity, and also poverty” (GC27, 122).
Fr Armand presents who is the Salesian lay brother in all these. The Salesian lay brother “reaches out to working with youth in situations of plurality of beliefs, values, and behaviors. He is lay. He is like the others, yet, unique and steadfast in his beliefs. His very person is an open testimony of contradictions, yet synthesized in his faith in God. He is at home in the world of the young riddled with contradictions; yet he is open with his consecration. He is one with the common people and their concrete, often confused situations, yet at home with the mystery of the Great Other. The Salesian Brother is definitely an ordinary person, yet a determined disciple...”
The meeting concluded with Fr. Klement presenting the iter of the upcoming EAO Salesian Brothers’ Congress in K’ Long, Vietnam. It is interesting to note that he started the reflection in preparation for the Congress by asking the question, “Why do we have Brothers’ Congresses?” And among the many responses, one senior brother gave his response not only based on knowledge but on wisdom. He said, “It should not be a Salesian Brothers’ Congress but rather a Congress focusing on Salesian brothers. And it becomes more imperative since we have not realized the desire of Don Bosco that there be a Salesian Brother in every house to show the fullness of our Salesian vocation. We look to the day when we don’t need a Brothers’ Congress”.
