(ANS – Turin) – The renewal of commitment to missionary appointment took place at Colle Don Bosco and Valdocco, which in recent years has gathered young people engaged in voluntary work and the departing missionaries, religious and secular, Salesians and Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. The Rector Major had serious things to say regarding the educational purposes of Don Bosco, on the present reality of young people's missionary attitudes.

In the hall of Valdocco, Don Chavez recalled that for Don Bosco the joy, the songs, the walks were means to reach the boys and bring them to "be happy in time and in eternity". A happiness that today youngsters do not pursue any more or get confused with self-fulfilment. Don Bosco had in mind the happiness as lived and proposed by Jesus who was able to surrender totally to God and to others.

The Rector major called to mind how young people today are placed in an area of indifference and weakness. Very little personal choice, when they themselves prefer detail, perhaps focusing on virtual relationships and getting rid of real ones; and partly because they are blocked by social and political choices that ‘wear away’ their future. Young people today – referring to Western reality – are deprived of the right to work, and their future.

Salesian action in education and evangelization, that is always linked to the protection and promotion of  human rights, must now form part of the horizon of the new evangelization and the needs of professionals and educators who are in tune with the new challenges of culture.

The missionary vocation is a gift of the Spirit "that constantly calls all Christians to be disciples, witnesses and Apostles of the crucified and risen Lord and to go anywhere," said the Rector Major in the homily delivered during the celebration of the Eucharist for the missionary mandate.

Salesian missionaries departing, called to be signs and bearers of God's love, you operate in a new context not only from the geographical tip – the whole earth is today mission – but mainly because it featured a series of new scenarios in which you are living the life and the Mission of the Church: Economics, politics, religious fundamentalism, progress in scientific and technological research released by an ethic of fundamental values, social communication, offering new services to humanity but opens new challenges.

The departing  Salesian missionaries, called to be signs and bearers of God's love, find themselves  in a new environment not only on the geographical side – the whole earth is today a mission – but mainly because it is characterized by a series of new scenarios in which you are living the life and developing the Mission of the Church: economics, politics, religious fundamentalism, progress in scientific and technological research released by an ethic of fundamental values, social communication, offering new services to humanity but opening  new challenges. The Church, which is striving for a new evangelization, intends to respond positively to human needs: "We want to send a really good message that brings back light, sense and hope to peoples’  lives – said the Rector Major- hence the need to be great, joyful and convinced believers capable of transmitting the faith, knowing that only in Christ can we reach the fullness of life, fertility, and lasting happiness which breathes".

Commenting on the Readings for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Don Chavez pointed out to the missionaries some attitudes: to be distributors and not to just to ‘hold on’ to the Spirit, paying attention to those seeds of Truth present in other realities, open to dialogue: "Especially those who announce the Gospel must be able to discover the points of contact, I would say almost naturally, to connect others with the message of salvation.  This is the only way that faith will never become controversial  and segregating, but only and essentially unifying and 'charitable', and therefore always open to inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue." And later on: "Christianity is not a label, but a way of life, that sometimes is mysteriously found in someone who is not Christian!"

At the end of the homily, with simple and profound devotion,  the missionary cross was handed  to 45 Salesians, 15 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians and 11 laypeople  from Italy and Poland.  A gesture that recalled how in November 11, 1875 the basilica itself Don Bosco gave the first Salesians departing to Patagonia, Argentina the same commitment: to be a sign and bearers of God's love to the young.

The original text of the holily of the Rector Major can be found in English on the sdb.org website.

Published 01/10/2012