(ANS - Rome) - Starting tomorrow, 15 January, about 400 people - men and women, religious and lay people from all over the world – will gather at the Salesianum in Rome to take part in the 33rd Spirituality Days of the Salesian Family. In an atmosphere of family and charismatic unity, the participants will study the message of the Rector Major’s Strenna to learn again to live with young people and for young people in the style of Don Bosco.
by Gian Francesco Romano
In the year of the Bicentenary of the Birth of Don Bosco, the Rector Major of the Salesians who is the centre of unity and spiritual father of the whole Salesian Family, offers the Strenna "Like Don Bosco, with young people and for young people."
This is a topic that is relevant and also fundamental and challenging for anyone who is in any way heir of the insights of the saint of youth.
It is also a theme in profound harmony with the current needs of the whole Church, because the invitation to be with young people, in today's context, cannot ignore those on the margins whom Pope Francis frequently reminds us of. Care for the marginalized is part of the Salesian charism and a constitutive element of our DNA.
For the Spirituality Days of this Year of the Bicentenary, the Rector Major’s hope is that the Salesian Family take as its priority commitment a decision to "think together, plan together, work together and pray together," always for the young.
Many good practices have already been developed around the world in this regard. The team organizing the Spirituality Days is itself a good example. The people making up the team are from eight of the thirty groups of the Salesian Family: Salesians, Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Salesian Cooperators, the Association of Mary Help of Christians, Past Pupils of Don Bosco, Past Pupils of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, Volunteers with Don Bosco and Volunteers of Don Bosco.
This unity and cooperation are necessary because of the new challenges that society poses to the Church and the Salesian mission. They call for creativity, experimentation, a capacity for taking risks and even a willingness to make mistakes ... The 400 people who will gather in Rome in the next few days are heirs of a great dreamer. They will try to find new ways of being more and more with and for young people, while preserving the authenticity of the legacy of Don Bosco, updating it to meet the present situation, and then bringing it back to the various places they come from.
Last March, Pope Francis said to the Salesians participating in the 27th General Chapter: "You should avail of the advances in education and culture in order to respond to the current educational emergency (...) experimenting with new languages, but knowing well that the heart is the fundamental language for approaching young people and becoming their friends."
Published 14/01/2014
