Q. 2009, the Jubilee Year in which we have remembered the 150th  anniversary of the founding of our Congregation, is drawing to a close. What are the most significant moments in these final days?

A. We have almost come to the end of this Jubilee Year in which we have recalled the beginnings of our Congregation. The first significant moment in this period prior to the renewal of our religious profession, consists in the novena and the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The celebration of this Marian feast has always had great importance in our Salesian history. In fact, Don Bosco used to refer to 8 December 1841 as the beginning of his mission among the young; in addition he used to say that all the most important things he had done had begun on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Our Congregation therefore has a Marian origin; fidelity to roots of our charism which saw in Mary a model and a help is the guarantee of holiness, of vocational fruitfulness, of apostolic effectiveness. In preparing for 18 December, the day on which we shall renew our religious profession, the novena and the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception take up back to the origins of Don Bosco’s charism, and then to what followed on from that. During these days the confreres are being invited to appreciate the value of community  “lectio divina” and to recall the beginnings of their own vocation. Entrusting ourselves to Mary will help us to be faithful to the Salesian consecrated vocation.

Q. This Jubilee Year has been directed towards the spiritual renewal of Salesians and of the communities. How can the Salesian spend these days of preparation for the renewal of their profession?

A. In addition to making the novena and celebrating the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Salesians can spend these days of preparation living a more intense spiritual and pastoral life. The renewal of profession is asking us to live the total and exclusive giving of ourselves to God for the young with refreshed motivation. God has chosen, called and consecrated  us to Himself. Reawakening the awareness of being called to Salesian consecrated life helps us to live the primacy of God, the following of Christ and openness to the Spirit according to our Constitutions. Recalling the commitments of Salesian religious profession encourages us to recognise the totally free gift of God and invites us to respond responsibly to the commitment we have assumed: generous dedication to the apostolic mission, convinced participation in community life, the attractive witness to the evangelical counsels. This is the way of love, the way of our sanctification. The time of Advent puts us in the atmosphere of the coming of God and His visit among us; in these days of preparation for 18 December we are helped therefore to live, in this spiritual climate of Advent, in the joy and the expectation of a meeting with God.

Q. The Rector Major wanted to be close to each Salesian in these final days too with a video, entitled “Our consecration.” What does this video say to them?

A. The Rector Major is always finding new ways to reach out personally to each Salesian; he wants to encourage him and help him to reawaken his heart, to enflame him with love for the Lord Jesus  and for souls, to be a fire which gives light and warmth. This video too is a way of expressing his being close. The Rector Major’s message tells us the story of the founding of the Congregation and shows us once again that the fundamental purpose of the whole of this jubilee year is to re-discover the identity of our vocation which is Salesian consecrated life. Don Bosco wanted to found an Institute of Consecrated Life; we cannot lose sight of the memory of this our  identity unless we want to lose our relevance in the Church. The initiative is God’s Who has consecrated us to Himself and is always faithful; sometimes, however, our response is weak. For this reason it is necessary to “revive the gift of God within us.” Personally speaking I am very pleased with this memorial of our identity as a Congregation, because it helps me to give priority and centrality to what I am, what I am living and to what I am bearing witness: Salesian consecrated life. Like the first disciples called by Jesus, our primary concern is to stay with Him.

Q. On 18 December in the Congregation there will be the renewal of our religious profession. How should we be living this event in the community?

A. This jubilee year has not been marked by exterior, clamorous or triumphalistic celebrations; it has set in motion the process of putting into practice what the 26th General Chapter asked us to do when it said to “start afresh from Don Bosco”; in this way it introduces us to the journey towards 2015. The historical commemoration of the founding of the Congregation has been above all a spiritual and pastoral event. I think that the celebration of the 18 December, too, ought to preserve this character. The communities and the Provinces have chosen the way to celebrate the renewal of profession. I am pleased that I shall be able to spend this occasion with the Rector Major and the General Council  in the  Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, in the places where Don Bosco began his work.  As well as the essentially personal nature of the renewal of profession, in addition to the renewed commitments which the Spirit will suggest to each one of us, the sense of the witness value of the celebration ought to be highlighted: a humble and grateful, beautiful and attractive, significant and prophetic testimony to Salesian consecrated life. Pope Benedict has chosen to add to embellish this celebration with the gift of a plenary indulgence for the confreres, giving this moment an ecclesial significance: our vocation grows and develops in the Church, with the Church and for the Church. For this reason, on this occasion there will also be present young people, lay people, families, representatives of consecrated life. As in 1859 we cannot leave out the young to whom we have told the story of the Congregation, and whom we have involved in the evangelisation of youngsters and of their peers.

Published 11/12/2009