| RMG – The Salesian Family Days, as seen from the web |
| RMG – Come and see: resources available |
In the course of his visit to Generalate of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the Rector Major of the Salesians, Fr Pascual Chávez Villanueva, officlally presented the Strenna for 2011 Come and see: a heartfelt appeal to the whole Salesian Family to recognise the need for vocation ministry.
“I am writing to you to present the Strenna for 2011, certain that it will be a welcome gift both for the value which the Strenna as such has had in our Salesian tradition since Don Bosco’s day, and because of the topic chosen which affects our life, our mission and our ability to help in discovering that life is vocation, also because of the times in which we are living as the Church and the Salesian Family, especially in the West.”
There were two things to which Don Bosco gave special attention in order to promote vocations: an atmosphere in which the suggestion of a vocation could be welcomed positively and spiritual accompaniment.
The key to the Strenna for 2011 is the creation of a vocation culture. “This culture in fact, requires not individual initiatives no matter how numerous, but a mindset and an attitude shared by a group; it is a question not only of private intentions and good resolutions, but the systematic and deliberate employment of the forces which the community has at its disposal.” An atmosphere, permeated with a vocation culture, which enables young people to discover their own lives from a vocation-call perspective, open to relationships with others and with God and generously lived as service.
The main agent of a vocation culture is youth ministry for which “the vocational dimension constitutes its main driving force and its natural culmination.” Recommending the creation of an environment suited to significant vocational examples and to personal accompaniment Fr Chávez, proposes to educative-pastoral communities some features of an effective vocational ministry: education to love, to chastity, to prayer, personal accompaniment, the centrality and the role of religious consecration in the mission of the Salesian Family, and above all, making the Salesian Youth Movement and Voluntary Service a practical foundation for the vocational guidance of the young.
Concluding his commentary on the Strenna, Fr Chávez declares: “Therefore we ought to be proud of our Salesian vocation; to know Don Bosco better and better, and above all to live and communicate with enthusiasm his spirit and the Salesian mission.”
In addition to the now traditional story, this time – The caravan in the desert - Fr Chávez this year introduces the prayer of Madeleine Delbrêl, a French Servant of God and mystic, who describes abandoning one’s life to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Starting in 1849 Don Bosco used to give his boys a suggestion to serve as an encouragement at the beginning of the new year. This practice has become a precious tradition which over the years has been extended to all the groups of the Salesian Family. Inspired by the needs of the present time, by the Salesian tradition and by the teaching of the Church the Strenna has now become an action plan for the reflection and the activities of the 28 groups, religious and lay who draw their inspiration from the charisma of Don Bosco.
The Strenna for 2011, with the commentary available on sdb.org, is also accompanied by some aids such as the video and the YouTube channel with some vocation histories.
Published 31/12/2010
