#587.
Sorry for the brief delay - there were many pressings things happening on the home scene that slowed the act of translation down.
THE FIRST GOODNIGHT FROM THE RECTOR MAJOR, FR. PASCUAL CHAVEZ
I hope the fact that we are in the Easter season did not influence my nomination, given that my name occurs often during this liturgical time (paschal candle, paschal time); it could have been seen as a subliminal message!
1. THANKS
Well then, I'll start by expressing my warmest thanks, firstly to the Lord God whose desire it has been to give to the congregation and to the Salesian Family a new pastor in Don Bosco's footsteps. Thank you to Fr. Luc Van Looy who for almost two years, since Fr. Vecchi's illness began, has guided the congregation with true dedication and love. Thank you to Fr. Anthony McSweeny, who has accompanied the process of discernment so widely and with such love for the Salesians. I must say that the fact that the number of preferences in the first 'sondaggio' was not made public in the Assembly allowed me to sleep well to the point where right now I am much more at ease than I was yesterday.
2. A SURPRISE
Of course, this nomination is a surprise for me and I accept it as an expression of the will of God, as I said when I was asked if I would accept. Nevertheless, that acceptance expresses my inadequacy to undertake the grand task and honour of being the successor of Don Bosco. It states the loving will of God that urges me further in the service of the confreres and the young, with Him as the one and only Lord of my life.
3. THE PROFILE
Reading through the list many times of the qualities required of the Rector Major's role which were given to the Assembly, I must confess that I didn't see myself in them and I didn't feel that I was the right person, and so I was sure another would have been elected. I say that sincerely. Now I understand that through this profile you have set out not only your expectations of the Rector Major, but also his personal life programme. Thank you very much. That too is a gift from God.
4. PROGRAMME FOR THE NEXT SIX YEARS.
The description of the problems which you presented in your questions to the Rector Major's vicar after his 'state of the congregation' report 1996-2002 completes the overview of the situation (as described by Fr. Luc Van Looy in that report). Together with the priorities indicated and at the conclusion of GC25, it will become part of the planning of the Rector Major and his Council for the next six years.
5. A FAST RIDE!
Perhaps you will ask me how it is I have arrived at this particular responsibility. In my opinion it's been an especially short, fast ride! In 1995, at the end of my mandate as Provincial of Mexico-Guadalajara, I was called by Don Vigano who sent me to finish off my formative journey with a doctorate in biblical theology. I remember very well his words: "The Congregation needs this doctorate". When I asked him what my future would be, he said "I don't know yet. You could be a professor at the UPS, or help out in the Formation Department, or you could,,,you could also be Provincial!" I had a year and a half to finish it. You probably remember how I came to be called onto the General Council six years ago. I was preaching a retreat to a group of confreres from the Madrid province when I received a phone call from Fr. Vecchi telling me that the Chapter Assembly had elected me as regional for the Inter-America region - and asking me for an answer. It was the 2nd April 1995. That means that this new nomination has come my way six years later, plus a day! When he asked me to become provincial, Fr. Vigano invited me to allow myself to be guided by the Holy Spirit and to put aside personal projects and take on those that God would give me as a life plan.
Fr;. Vecchi, for his part, in his introduction to the workings of the new General Council, invited us all to live the task as a grace, as an opportunity to make progress on the path to holiness by letting the light of Don Bosco, his charism, his mission as we find it in the Rule enlighten our reality and that of others. Even if I feel that I have grown as a Salesian over those years, I must confess that there's still a way to go, but I depend on the Lord and His grace and also on yourselves and each member of your province.
6. IN CONTINUITY WITH PREVIOUS RECTOR MAJORS
I know that I am called to continue the splendid work of animation and government carried out by Frs. Vigano and Vecchi; the achievement of the former being his renewal of the Salesian identity according to indications of Vatican II and his situating the congregation in harmony with the needs of young people today. This has been a contribution that we cannot avoid responding to adequately and making a part of who we are. It was Fr. Vecchi's contribution to create a pastoral model in synch with society as it is today, with its new understandings of education, evangelization and pastoral work for young people. Above all he strove to make our work meaningful for young people. The robust theological formation of Fr. Vigano and his closeness to the charism of Don Bosco flow together into an original contemporary interpretation of our founder and father. The pedagogical competence and anthropological vision of Fr. Vecchi have enriched the congregation giving it more certainty in what to do today to be more truly meaningful both for communities and for individuals.
7. MY WISH
I would like to have the theological preparation of Don Vigano; the pedagogical and cultural sensitivity of Don Vecchi, but above all the loving fatherliness of Don Rinaldi and the fidelity of Don Rua, of whom Paul VI affirmed that his beatification was owed to the fact that he had made of Don Bosco a school, and of his sanctity a model and of his Rule a spirit. Knowing my limits and weaknesses, I invite you and through you all the confreres of the congregation young and old, priests and brothers, sick and in the fullness of health, together to reproduce the image of Don Bosco.
8. A NEW PHASE
I am the first non-Italian Rector Major (Fr. Vecchi was Argentinian but of Italian parentage). This is the most evident sign of the multicultural nature of the congregation now spread around the world. I take this occasion to thank all of Salesian Italy which to this point has known how to exercise its responsibility to faithfully hand on the charism of Don Bosco. Thank you my dear Italian Salesians here present, or working in the various communities of the Peninsula or as missionaries around the world. Now this historical responsibility is passed on to all of us since all of us are called to incarnate Don Bosco. We have a need to deepen our knowledge of Don Bosco especially because we have a need of a charismatic identity in order not to be lost in this ocean which we have been called to plunge ourselves into....as indicated in my predecessor's recent Strenna. We have a need to know Don Bosco so that he becomes our mens (our way of thinking), our point of view, our action towards the needs of young people. I invite you to love him. He is the most beautiful gift that God has given us: Don Bosco, a sure road to human completeness and above all the following of Christ. This is my exhortation for you: know him, love him, imitate him, because we are all heirs of his spirit and ours is to spread it around.
9. MY ATTITUDE TODAY
What attitude do I have as I take up this responsibility? That of Moses and Don Bosco. In effect, when I was ordained priest on 8th December 1973, I took as a motto something that had struck me while I was studying the Letter to the Hebrews: "He held to his purpose like a man who could see the Invisible". It is the text with which the author of the letter recovers the spiritual experience of Moses, the Easter man. In order to make the long and perilous journey together with the people of God whom he, as leader, was guiding out of Egypt, he had need of courage, of 'parresia'. But this had been shown to be inadequate above all when he knew he was being sought for killing a man, and took refuge in the desert; it was there that his choice to renounce all his own projects matured. So when he was called anew by God, Moses knew he had to renounce his projects and himself and trust himself to God, to believe in Him and walk as if he were invisible. I can assure you that I felt great emotion when I read this same expression years later in the renewed text of the Constitutions as referring to Don Bosco in article 21 - where the saint is presented as father and teacher. He was a man who lived to bring about a single dream: the salvation of the young especially those most in need and in danger. He was a priest educator 'consecrated' totally to the mission which God had entrusted to him. He brought all his qualities of nature and grace to bear on this mission. His being one so unified, the perfect incarnation of apostolic interiority, is at the root of his marevellous courage, his fantastic creativity, his tireless capacity for work, his rich sensitivity, his generous love.
10. ENTRUSTMENT TO THE MADONNA
I conclude by inviting you to entrust me and the congregation to Mary. She was the precious witness left by Jesus so that she could be our Mother and teach us to be believers and disciples of her son. And from the time of the dream of 9 years, she was the Mother and teacher of Don Bosco. Today she is the 'Stella Maris' (Star of the Sea) who will guide and accompany us in our adventure of putting out into the deep as Fr. Vecchi urged us to do in order to put the congregation and the Salesian Family in harmony with the pastoral plan of the Church at this beginning of the third millennium.
Thank you.
Good Night!
Rome, 3rd April 2002 Fr. Pascual Chavez
Rector Major
