austraLasia - 3666_Looking together beyond the 200th Birthday of Don Bosco

(complete councils, missing only Fabio due to the SYM 2015 meeting preparation in Torino)

By Fr. Vacláv Klement, SDB

Castelgandolfo, Italiy, July 7, 2015 - For the first time after the FMA General Chapter 23 both SDB and FMA general councils gathered at the Santa Rosa house in Castelgandolfo for their regular encounter. The tradition of the semestral meeting was started in 1993 by late Fr. Egidio Viganó. Since that time the two general council encounter is held in summer in the FMA summer house, during winter session in the SDB general house. Half a day meeting (4 PM - 10 PM) is usually framed by common prayer, shared reflection, information of common interest and fraternal meal ending with joyful songs.

This time the main topic of Youth Ministry and Vocation animation was carefully prepared in advance by joint group of both SDB sector and FMA ‘ambito’ of Youth Ministry. Six page working paper with few shared convictions, pastoral vision, basic choices and goals of vocation animation served as a trigger to discern together main challenges and possible joint lines of action for the government and animation of SDB-FMA.

During a mixed group sharing emerged common challenges rotating around the building of the vocation culture in our educative-pastoral communities: separation and disconnection of youth ministry and vocation promotion, need of clearer and more explicit vocation proposal, better and closer personal accompaniment and lack of our visibility as consecrated persons. As underlined Mother Yvonne Reungoat many other Congregations are pointing at our advantage to be present among thousands of young people and still lacking vocations. Also the fact that many SDB or FMA vocation are not coming from our own educative environment is a warning signal.

From the honest and frank sharing in four different working groups also emerged possible privileged choices for the government and animation of both SDB and FMAs. First of all a strong conviction to build up vocation culture within our EPC (Educative – Pastoral Communities) where all members will help the young people to discover their life as gift and also discover the dream of God about their life! It would need our more passionate and personalized presence among the youngsters instead of our functional and managerial presence. Emerged also the importance to involve the youth into our mission through missionary volunteer experience or apostolic groups; need to witness more visibly our consecrated life and mission; need of SDB-FMA witness of joint mission and life sharing. These rich sharing will become an important material for some operative joint choices of both Congregations to be done in near future.

After this main theme followed overview of remaining events and topics of the Don Bosco Bicentenary: International Congress of Mary Help of Christians (Valdocco, August), Salesian Youth Movement World Encounter (Colle Don Bosco, August), World Congress of the FMA Past Pupils (August) and Don Bosco Past Pupils (September) as well the ACCSA (Salesian Historian) Congress in Valdocco (October).

At the end remained one question, answered by Fr. Ángel in his good night talk: How can we harvest the fruits of the Don Bosco Bicentenary? There are so many energies, inspirations, experiences, rich events that happened during past five years of DB200 preparation. The Rector Major anticipated his five-fold Dream about the Congregation after the DB200 that will be part of his next letter to the Salesians: Congregation of happy Salesians in spite of their life struggles; Congregation of Salesians who are recognized as men of God; Congregation of Salesians who are centered on the service to the poorest young people; Congregation of Salesians who are able to evangelize the youth and bring them to God like Don Bosco and finally a missionary Congregation as in the times of Don Bosco, when 20% of the first generation Salesians were working out of their homeland in the missions.

After celebrating the Vespers of Blessed Sr. Maria Romero Meneses, FMA the whole evening was concluded with a fraternal agape, exchange of gifts and songs. During the whole encounter was mentioned many times the recent meeting with Pope Francis in Turin, Valdocco. All are eagerly waiting for his special message on the Don Bosco Bicentenary to the Salesian Family.