But if these models of Christian and Salesian life are all original and unrepeatable, for everyone it is similarly necessary to adopt useful strategies to spread their fame and devotion to them. Because there can be no new Saints in the Salesian Family unless there is someone who is committed to making known, disseminating and imitating the distinguished figures who have come through the school of Don Bosco. As the Postulator General for the Causes of Saints of the Salesian Family, Fr Pierluigi Cameroni, said in a friendly but convinced tone, addressing the vice-postulators, promoters and leaders of the different Causes gathered in Valdocco, the question to be asked every day in the examination of conscience is: "What have I done today to advance the Cause entrusted to me?"
On the morning of the second day of the seminar on Salesian holiness underway in Turin, he endeavoured to respond to this healthy provocation with a series of interesting examples of best practices.
Among the elements common to all the Causes, there are certainly the monthly celebrations (prayers, novenas, liturgies) on the occasion of the most significant anniversaries of their lives; the involvement of local civil and diocesan groups, often also encouraging, and perhaps enthusiastic, to collaborate in the presentation of "outstsanding local individuals"; seeing the importance of the places they lived in – and where possible, working with other potential Causes in the same area; constancy in carrying out activities, always keeping the fire of devotion alive; the twinning between the lands of origin and destination in the case of missionary holiness; the fundamental basis constituted by the careful and qualified collection of all documentary elements of the biographies...
At the same time, every experience of promoting Causes also has its special features and its own ways of spreading. In some cases, as in the case for Fr Convertini and Fr Beltrami, the involvement of the laity has been fundamental: the Cause of Fr Beltrami, the second initiated by the Congregation after Don Bosco, has been resumed and relaunched after decades of inertia thanks to the commitment of the citizens of Omegna, his native country; and in the case of Fr Convertini, it is precisely the laity and local institutions that have organised processions and torches for peace, as well as charitable projects, in honour of the Salesian Venerable. In an effort to convey his holiness to young people, even children, his story has been told in a comic strip and is illustrated in schools.
In the cases of Sister Teresa Valsé Pantellini and the Servant of God FrAndrea Majcen, on the other hand, it is the respective religious families who have been pursuing the Causes. This has meant adopting other and different creative resources: from theatrical performances to organising virtual meetings between religious and others, from informative videos to hymns, from conferences and study days, with the publication of proceedings, to the preparation of museums and mobile exhibitions...
Initiatives of all kinds, for forms of holiness of all kinds: on the other hand, as the Rector Major's Central Delegate for Salesian Family Secretariat, Fr Joan Lluís Playá, had previously recalled in the opening Eucharist of the day, through the Saints, God offers humanity infinite examples of life lived to the full.
