“Getting to know you and sharing these three months with you will be an opportunity to grow in my vocation as a Salesian,” said Fr Orozco at the opening of his homily.
Then, speaking of the theme of the Rector Major's Strenna for 2021, on the theme "Moved by Hope" and its meaning for the Salesian Family, he added: “The Rector Major says that, in precisely the most difficult moments, when we feel most oppressed, hope is a typical response of the believer. It is the hope of those who know they are not forgotten by God's gaze and love; it is the conviction that God does not abandon us ... When we say that we are moved by hope, we speak of the conviction of believers.”
And he added that “This hope ... places us in front of suffering with attitudes of consolation, care and affection.”
The Regional Councilor for Interamerica also spoke about the theme of friendship. “Don Bosco possessed a place where he taught and where he invites us to experiment and learn hope: that place is friendship. Friendship is a human experience that offers believers and non-believers to experience the closeness of a friend who does not leave you, who is present in beautiful and joyful moments ... and who brings you closer and consoles you when things go wrong.”
“Friendship,” he continued, “in the Valdocco experience is a very clear proposal, not only for education, but also to give shape to hope, where the certainty and conviction that my friend will not abandon me is formed, does not leave me, even in spite of the distance. Friendship, for us Salesians, is the place where we learn and live the hope of the believer. It is this experience that our educational system then proposes as a principle. In order to educate, one must be friends with the young person in order to be able to make proposals that lead him to God, one must win his trust, his heart.”
“Thus,” he concluded, “placing friendship as the principle of the Preventive System for our entire method of educating and evangelizing becomes an important step for our homes, schools and oratories.”
To date, Fr Orozco has visited the Salesian centers in Lima, Callao and Cusco, where he has conversed and shared pleasant moments with his confreres, young people and members of the Salesian Family.
https://www.infoans.org/en/component/k2/item/13580-peru-extraordinary-visitation-of-fr-hugo-orozco-sdb#sigProIdc4b563a858
