(ANS – Genzano) – Wednesday 18 September, the fifteenth day of the preparatory course for new Salesian missionaries, was marked by two significant events: the audience with Pope Francis in St Peter’s Square, and a meeting with the novices in the Salesian Novitiate at Genzano.

On the Wednesday morning the group of 36 missionaries and the organizers of the course were present at the general audience in St Peter’s Square. The Pope’s talk was entitled “The Church is our Mother”. The topic and the Pope’s communication skills made a deep impression on the future missionaries.

In the afternoon the missionaries visited the Salesian Novitiate at Genzano. The novitiate is named after St Louis Versiglia, a significant figure for both novices and missionaries. He was the first Rector and Novice Master at Genzano, from 1896 to 1905, and later the leader of the first Salesian Missionary expedition to Macao and China.

The meeting of the two groups was a kind of Pentecostal moment – between novices and missionaries there were 24 different nationalities represented. Nevertheless, conversation proved both possible and interesting. There was great freshness and enthusiasm, helped perhaps by the fact that both groups had been formed only recently, at the beginning of September.

The missionaries and novices split up into six groups to share their vocational stories. The missionaries with their greater experience told the novices how their Salesian missionary vocation was born. The blend of the freshness of the vocational experience of the novices and the more solid motivation of the missionaries was enriching for everyone.

The meeting ended with Mass in which all took an active part. Fr Václav Klement, Councillor for the Salesian Missions, presided. He asked the novices to think about what contribution they could make to the revitalization of the charism in Europe. At the end of the Mass each of the novices received a missionary rosary, and promised to pray for the missions and for missionary vocations.

Before returning to the Generalate, the missionaries shared the traditional Salesian Goodnight with about 100 young people who attend the Oratory. The young people of Genzano appreciated particularly the words of Fr Giovanni Mandrella, who had attended the Oratory as a boy and later the novitiate in Genzano. Now he is setting out on the same missionary road as St Louis Versiglia.

Published  20/09/2013